Buy the account and rebrand to similar content. Don't grow the account from scratch, let teenagers in eastern europe and malaysia do that. Try not to get scammed when buying the account.
Anything you do from then on is to offset the decline in followers.
De-risk and break even on doing promos for other people. (lets say you bought a $5k account for $50, do 5-10 promos for other people, done. Start with more capital and get a more compelling account, don't go too big though, 30k is a sweet spot.)
Engagement ratio of 1% is bad, 2% is ok, 3% is great. Not super important when talking with individuals. Only when trying to charge more for a promo, or selling the account.
No I'm kidding, I don't have a patreon, but I don't want to give my favorite markets up.
Ebay has accounts and some rudimentary price discovery there.
You can also just message existing pages on IG. My primary procurement accounts are just anonymous blank accounts that just send out a direct message with an offer. Money talks.
Emailing is usually possible too.
The main thing you want is price discovery, understanding how things are priced or understanding value. Its some formula between followers and engagement. If I were to guess I'd say
(Followers/100) x (Engagement x 100 x 1.75)
Engagement is a percentage so it has to be by 100. Eh and the multiplier for engagement is probably nlogn. after 1, 2, and 3% engagement would have a large delta in prices between them, but 3+ wouldn't.
Anything you do from then on is to offset the decline in followers.
De-risk and break even on doing promos for other people. (lets say you bought a $5k account for $50, do 5-10 promos for other people, done. Start with more capital and get a more compelling account, don't go too big though, 30k is a sweet spot.)
Engagement ratio of 1% is bad, 2% is ok, 3% is great. Not super important when talking with individuals. Only when trying to charge more for a promo, or selling the account.