When it comes to growing on Instagram, Subscriptions have been leading the charge, giving creators the opportunity to share even more with their audience with behind-the-scenes content and more of a personal look at their lives.

Let’s explore a group of professional footballers from Indonesia that have curated a following primarily based on the content they share through Subscriptions on Instagram.

Meet @Ivar, @Rafael, @Justin, and @Nathan— four core team members who have built a community of fans and supporters, based on the content they share through Subscriptions on Instagram. Let’s take a closer look at who they are, on and off the field.

Ivar Jenner is a 20 year old professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for the Indonesia National Soccer team and Eerste Divisie club Jong Utrecht. While he spends many of his hours perfecting his craft, he also makes time to share more about himself and his day-to-day life with his Subscribers.

With about 10,000 subscribers, he explains that he primarily uses Stories and sometimes In-Feed posts to share his updates on game days, practices and even family time at the beach. He shares that he started about half a year ago, because he found the new feature and thought to give it a try. As a result, he ended up enjoying it more than he could have imagined.

“Ask questions on your story to know what content your subscribers want to see.”

@ivarjnr

Rafael Struick is a 21 year old forward or left winger with an average of 15,000 subscribers on Instagram. As his audience grew, he decided to become more strategic with his subscription content, in order to give his fans a more personal look into his life.

He makes an effort to post everyday at least once on his Story, especially since transferring to play at Australian League for Brisbane Roar. Now that he is playing with the Australian team, his time has become stretched in order to focus on his career in soccer but still makes an effort to post as much as possible. He uses Instagram's best practices hub for tips and tools to create content that is both engaging and consistent for his followers.

“I tend to post everyday at least once on Story”

@rafaelstruick

Justin Hubner is a 21 year old professional footballer who plays defense on the Indonesian National team and club in Wolverhampton, England. With over 10,000 subscribers, he posts his everyday activities, like going to practice or getting ready for game day. When he is back in hometown in Netherlands, he posts less in order to spend quality time with his friends and family.

He focuses his content primarily on Stories and In-Feed posts, similar to Ivar, with the hopes of inspiring his followers to create content that is their very own, and to share whatever they want, that’s what makes you authentic on Instagram.

“I’m just posting what I want. I don't care what other people think is best for me to post.” @justinhubner5

Nathan Tjoe-A-On is a 22 year old professional footballer who plays as a left-back, center-back or midfielder on the Indonesian National team. He started creating subscriptions content back in April 2024, in order to give his fans more of his day to day routine. When it comes to giving his fans more of an “inside scoop” he makes sure that his 25,000 subscribers get content that is more personal than what he’d normally share on his main Story.

“You don’t want to post everything on your feed, that way, you can create exclusivity for your subscribers. You need to differentiate your content strategy. ”

@nathantjoeaon

Using Subscriptions is a great way to bring a new, exclusive form of content to your audience. Whether it’s sharing more of your personal life or asking your subscribers what content they love the most, the opportunities to grow your audience are endless.

Explore more about subscriptions in our best practices hub.