Here’s Instagran and Instagramps
HOW COUPLE WENT FROM 80 TO 130K FOLLOWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
AN ELDERLY couple from Thringstone, who hit the news this week after a heartbreaking social media video plea went viral, have this month gathered more than 130,000 followers from all over the world on their Instagram account.
This is just from posting pictures and videos from their daily life.
Pauline and Geoffrey Walker, 86 and 89 respectively, originally started the account to keep in touch with their children, who have moved away from Leicestershire.
Geoffrey said: “We have quite a large family who don’t live near us, so I made the account so they could see what we were up to, send messages and see pictures.
“From then on, I started posting little videos of my wife.
However, things skyrocketed for the couple in May 2017 after someone from their village posted screenshots of their Instagram account (geoffreywalk) on Twitter and it gained more than 150,000 likes and almost 50,000 retweets.
Geoffrey said: “We went from having 80 followers that night, and the next morning we had 18,000. I wondered what was going on!
“From then on, we gained about 1,000 followers every week.”
Geoffrey mainly posts videos about his and Pauline’s life together, including what they cook, their trips out together and gardening videos.
Often, the videos of Pauline feature the hashtag “#ILoveThatGirl”.
The couple have been married for almost 69 years and have three children, five grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren.
This month, their follower account skyrocketed again when the couple posted an emotional appeal asking for Pauline’s purse to be returned after it was stolen when she was out shopping in Coalville.
In just a few days, the couple’s account went from 80,000 to 125,000 followers.
Geoffrey said: “I didn’t expect anything like this. It was just for us to send a little messages to my family.
“We had about 2,000 comments on the video about Pauline’s purse and hundreds of messages. There is no way I can respond to them all.”
Geoffrey and Pauline’s account is not just popular in Britain, as their fame has gone international, with followers all over the world including Germany, New Zealand and Hawaii.
He said: “I can’t think of a country where we haven’t got any followers. It’s a full-time job, but fortunately I am an early riser, so I have a look first thing in the morning.”
Geoffrey believes the success of their account is down to their outlook on life.
He said: “We’re always positive with our posts, and we never single anyone out, or do negative things.
“We try and make sure we are always posting something happy, because we’re happy people and we like to share that.”
Despite their huge success on the platform, and offers of trips and advertising, they have decided just to run the account for fun.
The best part of using Instagram for Pauline is the online community she and her husband have built together.
Pauline said: “We’ve got friends all over the world.
“There is a lady in New Zealand, and she’s been wanting to have a baby, so I’ve knitted her a quilt and sent it to her.
“I know she likes it because she’s seen it on Instagram. She has sent us some beautiful gifts, too.
“It’s absolutely wonderful to have this community. We’ve never had a nasty remark from anyone.
“Lots of people say they want us to be their grandparents – and some people have asked us for marriage counselling!
“I’ve got lots of friends and a really wonderful husband.”
As well as their popular Instagram account, the couple have released a book called Parted by Conflict, which is available on Amazon.
The book is a collection of love letters sent between the two, while Geoffrey, as ex-National Serviceman with the Royal Leicestershire Regiment, was stationed in the Far East in the 1950s. He was deployed there for two years shortly after he and Pauline were married in 1951, and Geoffrey said in that time they “wrote almost every day”.
Geoffrey said: “There were no mobile phones or anything like that. I couldn’t just come to visit because it was a five-week trip on a ship, so we wrote to each other.
“The book has been doing fantastically, and all the money I get from it I donate to charity. It’s only pennies, but it’s something.”
The book is available as a Kindle edition or as a paperback on Amazon.