Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 21.04.2026 
Muse of Media entered two categories at the 2026 Global Social Media Awards for the first time and was shortlisted in both: Best Use of Instagram and Best Use of Research and Evaluation. The finalist pool is full of campaigns we’ve studied and admired, and we’re honored to be placed alongside them.
Muse of Media is an organic audience growth firm founded by Catherine Colombo in 2023. Colombo developed The Viral Stack, a proprietary organic growth framework that has generated 460K+ followers and 60+ million impressions across platforms. The firm specializes in building engaged social media audiences from scratch before a brand launches, so that when the moment comes, the audience is already there.
The campaign we submitted was built for Mansion on Waverly Hill, a self-funded, 100-year-old estate being renovated into a boutique bed and breakfast. When we started, there was no finished product and no opening date. The Instagram account started at zero. We had to build an audience for a place people had no way to visit or even see in its finished form, so the unfinished mansion became the story. We built a community around an estate coming back to life.
Trial Reels was a new feature when we started using it, and there wasn’t a playbook for how to grow an audience with it. So we built one. We developed our methodology through this campaign, testing and recutting the same concepts until we understood exactly what converted cold viewers into followers. We treated Trial Reels as an acquisition channel rather than an engagement tool, which meant follow rate was the metric we cared about most. When a video wasn’t converting, we didn’t move on to a new idea. We re-edited the same concept with a different hook or different pacing and posted it again, sometimes three or four rounds deep on a single piece of content. Using that approach and zero paid media, we grew the account to 110,000 followers in 90 days.
As our founder Catherine Colombo put it:
“Everyone’s obsessed with virality. But if you don’t have a system behind it, virality is just noise. The question is whether you can turn attention into something that actually compounds.”
Ten months in, the account has reached 189,000 followers and 30 million impressions. Brand partnerships offset 48% of the total campaign investment. Jonathan Scott of The Property Brothers organically featured the content to his 2.8 million followers. The methodology behind the campaign was featured in a USA Today article as an innovative model for pre-launch audience building.
“The team at Muse of Media is truly honored to be selected as a finalist in the Global Social Media Awards. Being recognized alongside fellow finalists who have done such remarkable work is so motivating. Social media is the new frontier, and we’re proud to be pursuing excellence in it.” — Catherine Colombo, Founder
Organic growth on social media is harder than it’s ever been. We turned a brand new platform feature into a pre-launch audience engine for a business that hadn’t opened its doors yet, and both nominations reflect the work.
Connect with Muse of Media
Learn more: museofmedia.com
Instagram: @museofmedia
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherineacolombo/
USA Today Feature: Catherine Colombo on Getting a Startup to 100K Followers Before Launch
