Contacts not syncing from Gmail OR iCloud

My gmail is working fine. However I created a new account on gmail and then imported my contacts into it and cannot get it to sync with my phone. Thinking maybe it was a problem between gmail and ios I imported them all to iCloud and still cannot to get them to sync. Any help on this would be appreciated. FYI I was previously using sync with gmail on my phone with an older account but needed to create a new account.