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Instagram Automation/Botting is the Worst way to grow your Account

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

Ziad

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Hey guys, most of you know me from the Instagram Marketing - Journey to $10,000/month thread.

Yes, I have successfully made over $10,000/month in Instagram marketing for clients. I have also already sold that business.

If you haven't read that thread: I started a journey where I used Instagram automation (bots) to grow Instagram followers for various people and get them real,targeted followers. I was in the game for over a couple of years when I started so I already knew how to get clients 100-150 followers per day.

Yes, I know I've made 5 figures a month doing this. But today, I am here to tell those of you who are automating your Instagram accounts or trying to grow your account by following/unfollowing, liking, commenting or DMing people, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

"Ziad, why are you saying this? You had over 100 clients paying you $70-$150 a month, you can easily scale up and continue automating Instagram accounts." Well, truth of the matter is, I'm well set to earn much more than I was through the automation route because now my Instagram game is 100 times better. I'll type on more of this later.

Why you need to stop botting

You are hurting your Instagram account very badly if you continue to follow/unfollow and bot. Basically, you are forcing people to make a decision by engaging them first. Let's take an example:

Let's say you have an account in the dentist niche. You start growing your account by following people who have liked the most recent post of a large dentist account. Great! You get most of them to follow you back. But are they highly active and engaging with your Instagram account? Do you think they will begin to fall in love with your Instagram account, or continue to stay active and engaging with the large dentist account they already follow for a while?

98% of the times (this is based on my years of experience) these users are only following you back out of friendliness or the fact that they don't usually get friend requests from public pages so it's a "big thing" for them. 2% of the times, they are interested in your business. But here's the fun part: the 2% that's interested in your business drops down to 0.1% because they sense all this lame Instagram automation going on in your account! Do you have posts that have comments like these: "Amazing content!" "Really good post. check out my page" "Hey amazing content check out my content and give me a follow!" Basically general comments and nothing specific to your post?

These guys have automated comments running on Instagram and are liking posts that have certain hashtags in them. A total turn off for a real, potential customer. And by the way, hashtags are totally worthless on Instagram today (unless you are geotagging). I could do a whole other post on this, but that's for later.

Botting isn't TOTALLY worthless

If you have the patience to wait out a year (or more) until you actually start getting a mix of good followers + bad followers, then botting isn't worthless. You need to automate your Instagram account to atleast 75k followers and post highly engaging content. When you do reach 75k or higher, your engagement will still not be up to par because of all the bad followers you forced to follow you.

In reality, botting is A BIT better than just buying fake followers. This is true! The only difference is, fake followers give you 0 activity while forced followers give you a bit more.

Botting/Automation is only for people who are focused on spam marketing. If you own a 100 spam accounts with 100 different proxies and are spamming affiliate links every hour or so, then automation is for you. I wouldn't rely on Instagram as the platform for this sort of marketing for too long though. You need to be exceptionally cautious and experienced to avoid getting your accounts banned on a regular basis.

My Instagram Service

Back to me. I sold my business, Instagram automation, and now focus solely on manual Instagram growth. I have had several clients who have hit "Explore" on Instagram where their posts have gone viral and they have gained thousands of followers naturally. In fact, on automation, I used to grab 10,000 followers in 3-4 months.

Now, with my natural marketing methods, I've had a couple of clients gain over 35,000 followers in just over a month, regardless of how many followers they had. :)

What I've learned is this:

High quality content + Timing + Natural Posting + Engagement Groups + Network Influencers + Good Understanding of Instagram's Algorithm = High quality, explosive growth on Instagram.

Why did I rant? I am not selling my Instagram service nor do I intend to (I already have many clients who used my automation service hopping on to this service at a much higher price), but after years of learning Instagram (one of the biggest goldmine platforms today) I have come to realization how bad automation is compared to gaining followers more naturally.
 
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LeoistheSun

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How long did it take you to go from client #1 to $10k/mo ?
How many hours did you spend per week managing those accounts?
 

Ziad

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How long did it take you to go from client #1 to $10k/mo ?
How many hours did you spend per week managing those accounts?

During the automation phase? Took me under a year, because I already had a great network of influencers to market for me. They kept a cut of the recurring revenue.
 

Ziad

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How long did it take you to go from client #1 to $10k/mo ?
How many hours did you spend per week managing those accounts?

During the automation phase? Took me under a year, because I already had a great network of influencers to market for me. They kept a cut of the recurring revenue.
 
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sparechange

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Just starting in instagram, thinking to reach out to influencers and give them a type of profit share deal, what are the usual rates floating around? 5-10%? Higher?
 

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I also realized that botting and follow/unfollow stuff is baloney. To use terms from Unscripted , this crap is "pushing" when you should really be "pulling".

In comparison, with 8 hours of work, I worked out a deal with a huge influencer, with millions of followers, that might even include a TV appearance *fingers crossed*, and the total cost was one free product.

The number of sales, and Instagram followers, I'll get from this deal, per hour of work, just blow the follow/unfollow shit out of the water.


Looking forward to seeing what else you have to say about what DOES work on Instagram. I don't know anything about the algorithim or the engagement groups that you mentioned.
 
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Ziad

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The whole "battle of the bots" has kept me away from Instagram.

You, my friend, are missing out on a goldmine.

Just starting in instagram, thinking to reach out to influencers and give them a type of profit share deal, what are the usual rates floating around? 5-10%? Higher?

Depends on the page. A really high quality page will probably want at least 20%.

I also realized that botting and follow/unfollow stuff is baloney. To use terms from Unscripted , this crap is "pushing" when you should really be "pulling".

In comparison, with 8 hours of work, I worked out a deal with a huge influencer, with millions of followers, that might even include a TV appearance *fingers crossed*, and the total cost was one free product.

The number of sales, and Instagram followers, I'll get from this deal, per hour of work, just blow the follow/unfollow shit out of the water.

Looking forward to seeing what else you have to say about what DOES work on Instagram. I don't know anything about the algorithim or the engagement groups that you mentioned.

Well done on the deal.

You have to remember one thing about Influencers: they don't give a crap about you, unless there is a friendly bond built. To them, you're just another deal that's making them cash. This is where YOU have to decide on everything once the deal is agreed on. YOU have to select the right schedule for posting, the caption, the content, everything.

Instagram Algorithm: to tell you in one sentence, the bloody hate hashtags these days and consider it spam. Try to avoid hashtags. Also, another tip: Try going viral and ending up on "Explore" instead of just getting a lot of followers and likes for your post. Having a lot of likes doesn't mean you're going to go viral. Remember, the most important thing is high quality content.
 

MoreVolume

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The whole "battle of the bots" has kept me away from Instagram.
rethink that broseph. Instagram exposes your business to so many more people
not only that, but you can check out how other businesses (including your competitors :) ) run their pages and acquire customers

Just starting in instagram, thinking to reach out to influencers and give them a type of profit share deal, what are the usual rates floating around? 5-10%? Higher?
From what ive heard from guys who have used influencers, a majority of them ask for a flat fee, and as time went on, the amounts increased? I say that to give a heads up. Hopefully you will find someone that will work out a percentage deal.
 
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amp0193

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You have to remember one thing about Influencers: they don't give a crap about you, unless there is a friendly bond built. To them, you're just another deal that's making them cash. This is where YOU have to decide on everything once the deal is agreed on. YOU have to select the right schedule for posting, the caption, the content, everything.

There's a friendly bond, and goodwill in my case. Your advice is solid for a more typical influencer transaction though.

Instagram Algorithm: to tell you in one sentence, the bloody hate hashtags these days and consider it spam.
Damn, you just confirmed something I had been suspecting. Going to make a 180 shift here in my hashtag usage.

Also, another tip: Try going viral and ending up on "Explore" instead of just getting a lot of followers and likes for your post. Having a lot of likes doesn't mean you're going to go viral. Remember, the most important thing is high quality content.

Don't know anything about explore, but I'll look into it.


Stories.... worth doing?
 
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Ziad

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There's a friendly bond, and goodwill in my case. Your advice is solid for a more typical influencer transaction though.


Damn, you just confirmed something I had been suspecting. Going to make a 180 shift here in my hashtag usage.



Don't know anything about explore, but I'll look into it.


Stories.... worth doing?

Explore is where all the trending posts show up and go viral. That's the sweet spot your post needs to hit in order to gain natural and interested followers.

Stories are definitely a plus. It engages with audiences, as long as it's no simple text. Try making it interactive. Tip: you can add a voting poll in your story now ;)
 

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is it possible to make a deal with an influencer to endorse my casual game app on instagram for a cut of any potential profits?
 

Ziad

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is it possible to make a deal with an influencer to endorse my casual game app on instagram for a cut of any potential profits?

Do you have an Instagram page set up for the game app? PM me.
 
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MattR82

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rethink that broseph. Instagram exposes your business to so many more people
not only that, but you can check out how other businesses (including your competitors :) ) run their pages and acquire customers


From what ive heard from guys who have used influencers, a majority of them ask for a flat fee, and as time went on, the amounts increased? I say that to give a heads up. Hopefully you will find someone that will work out a percentage deal.
I'm not talking about it from a business perspective. My own personal profile gets spammed by bots. I don't know, just never got into it.
If I had a business that could benefit from Instagram which should be early next year, then I will of course look into it more.
 

sparechange

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@Ziad thanks for the post! @amp0193 best of luck to you! #fastlane #instagram
 

c4n

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You will have a hard time keeping people away from bots by telling them you were making $10k/month with them ;)

You, my friend, are missing out on a goldmine.

I presume Instagram works best for consumer products? In your opinion, would it make any sense to spend time to learn and use Instagram for software products?
 
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TKDTyler

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Explore is where all the trending posts show up and go viral. That's the sweet spot your post needs to hit in order to gain natural and interested followers.

Stories are definitely a plus. It engages with audiences, as long as it's no simple text. Try making it interactive. Tip: you can add a voting poll in your story now ;)

Which metrics have the most influence on ending up on explore page.

I figure it has something to do with amount of natural engagement on your own page with your followers and some other things?
 

Xeon

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Instagram Algorithm: to tell you in one sentence, the bloody hate hashtags these days and consider it spam. Try to avoid hashtags. Also, another tip: Try going viral and ending up on "Explore" instead of just getting a lot of followers and likes for your post. Having a lot of likes doesn't mean you're going to go viral. Remember, the most important thing is high quality content.

Do you have any idea why my Instagram took a big hit in engagement, likes, comments and followers overnight since mid-Sep 2017?
Although my total follower count is 4.2K, the likes and comments etc, are even less than when my followers were 1K.

Here's some stats from a video re-post from a popular account (my IG account is a reposting account for the time being) :
In 17 Hours, my metrics for that post is as follows:

Impressions : 577
Likes : 79
Comments : 0
Reach : 465
Engagement : 87
Saved : 8

The Likes and Comments fell by around 70 - 80% right after mid-Sept.

For a funny video like this, if it was in the past, getting over 900 Likes and 15 - 25 comments and friend tags would have been normal.

I'm using only 3 - 4 not-so-popular hashtags cos' IG considers the top hashtags to be spammy. Why hashtags? Because otherwise, people would not discover your posts and accounts, and only the people following you will see your posts, and that means your account will not only stagnant, but followers will fall off daily.

I got all these metrics as my IG account is a business account.
It's like right after mid-Sept, the account got hit and never recovered since.

Any ideas?
 

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Do you have an Instagram page set up for the game app? PM me.

its cool i don't mind public discussion.(if u do mind ill do PM no problem lemme know)
I only have a pretty dead company instagram, didn't consider making one specifically for the game. That's an interesting idea cause it's a very casual type app like flappy bird so i can upload short game clips occasionally i guess?
this is the game:
Hoppity Hop - Android Apps on Google Play
Hoppity Hop on the App Store
this my company instagram
itsallgoodgames (@itsallgoodgamez) • Instagram photos and videos
i know it just got some random shit on it, i really didn't put effort into it.
 
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SirPsychoSexy

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What I've learned is this:

High quality content + Timing + Natural Posting + Engagement Groups + Network Influencers + Good Understanding of Instagram's Algorithm = High quality, explosive growth on Instagram.

Why did I rant? I am not selling my Instagram service nor do I intend to (I already have many clients who used my automation service hopping on to this service at a much higher price), but after years of learning Instagram (one of the biggest goldmine platforms today) I have come to realization how bad automation is compared to gaining followers more naturally.

+ Powerlikes from bots on Telegram. That what your service is about, right?

I'm also interested about how you price your service. How do you calculate your price package?
 

amp0193

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Do you have any idea why my Instagram took a big hit in engagement, likes, comments and followers overnight since mid-Sep 2017?

I ditto everything in this question.

Only difference, is I've consistently used a ton of hashtags. But engagement fell off around that same time. Doubled followers, 1/4'd the engagement. My theory was that it was the hashtags that caused IG to label me as spammy. But you didn't really use them, and the same thing happened to you.

So, I'm curious.
 
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amp0193

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Been reading about engagement groups.

@Ziad, is there any negative side effect to using these? As in, my customers see me consistently liking some weird shit in their activity feed?

Or maybe the groups are arranged by niche, so it seems more organic?

How is this different than like for like stuff? I mean, that's basically what it is right?

Just curious to learn more about this strategy... it seems interesting.
 

Ziad

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You will have a hard time keeping people away from bots by telling them you were making $10k/month with them ;)

I presume Instagram works best for consumer products? In your opinion, would it make any sense to spend time to learn and use Instagram for software products?

Instagram works best for practically everything, as long as you know how to PROPERLY use it and grow it. It is the fastest growing social media platform, therefore I don't see why you shouldn't get into it. :)

Which metrics have the most influence on ending up on explore page.

I figure it has something to do with amount of natural engagement on your own page with your followers and some other things?

Good quality content and how engaging your current followers are. Which is why botting your way and keeping a low engagement also reduces your chances of hitting Explore. There are many other metrics and they are all equally important in my opinion, barring high quality content. That tops everything else.

Do you have any idea why my Instagram took a big hit in engagement, likes, comments and followers overnight since mid-Sep 2017?
Although my total follower count is 4.2K, the likes and comments etc, are even less than when my followers were 1K.

Here's some stats from a video re-post from a popular account (my IG account is a reposting account for the time being) :
In 17 Hours, my metrics for that post is as follows:

Impressions : 577
Likes : 79
Comments : 0
Reach : 465
Engagement : 87
Saved : 8

The Likes and Comments fell by around 70 - 80% right after mid-Sept.

For a funny video like this, if it was in the past, getting over 900 Likes and 15 - 25 comments and friend tags would have been normal.

I'm using only 3 - 4 not-so-popular hashtags cos' IG considers the top hashtags to be spammy. Why hashtags? Because otherwise, people would not discover your posts and accounts, and only the people following you will see your posts, and that means your account will not only stagnant, but followers will fall off daily.

I got all these metrics as my IG account is a business account.
It's like right after mid-Sept, the account got hit and never recovered since.

Any ideas?

Instagram changes its algorithms consistently to avoid repetition and automation ofcourse. Did your content have a pattern? Did it include the same captions, or very similar captions, along with similar hashtags, in posts after posts? Do you feel that your content didn't offer variety and kept the audience engaged? The main reason I can think of is this: your highly active followers (people who liked and commented on your posts often) stopped doing so much so and Instagram lowered your reach.

its cool i don't mind public discussion.(if u do mind ill do PM no problem lemme know)
I only have a pretty dead company instagram, didn't consider making one specifically for the game. That's an interesting idea cause it's a very casual type app like flappy bird so i can upload short game clips occasionally i guess?
this is the game:
Hoppity Hop - Android Apps on Google Play
Hoppity Hop on the App Store
this my company instagram
itsallgoodgames (@itsallgoodgamez) • Instagram photos and videos
i know it just got some random shit on it, i really didn't put effort into it.

You need to create an Instagram account for your game. Add a bio link to your company from that account. And post regularly on that. Include videos of the gameplay and mix it up with funny posts etc. :)

+ Powerlikes from bots on Telegram. That what your service is about, right?

I'm also interested about how you price your service. How do you calculate your price package?

Telegram is extremely saturated. Getting likes from the same accounts repeatedly lowers your reach. But it definitely is much better than botting. If you know the right people, then you have the right network. That's when it works well. Joining a mass liking room won't do you any good.

I price my package based on the niche Im growing. A personal account of someone who wants to be Instafamous will be much harder to grow than a brand that sells products or services.

I ditto everything in this question.

Only difference, is I've consistently used a ton of hashtags. But engagement fell off around that same time. Doubled followers, 1/4'd the engagement. My theory was that it was the hashtags that caused IG to label me as spammy. But you didn't really use them, and the same thing happened to you.

So, I'm curious.

Repetition of hashtags lowered your reach amongst your active followers. Or, as I mentioned with him, you didn't keep up with the quality of your content and didn't keep your audience engaged so much. Avoid using hashtags :)

Been reading about engagement groups.

@Ziad, is there any negative side effect to using these? As in, my customers see me consistently liking some weird shit in their activity feed?

Or maybe the groups are arranged by niche, so it seems more organic?

How is this different than like for like stuff? I mean, that's basically what it is right?

Just curious to learn more about this strategy... it seems interesting.

Prefer to focus on accounts in your niche. But joining other accounts and liking their posts definitely doesn't hurt. Just one tip: Avoid babe/adult accounts in your engagement groups.
 

SirPsychoSexy

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Telegram is extremely saturated. Getting likes from the same accounts repeatedly lowers your reach. But it definitely is much better than botting. If you know the right people, then you have the right network. That's when it works well. Joining a mass liking room won't do you any good.

I price my package based on the niche Im growing. A personal account of someone who wants to be Instafamous will be much harder to grow than a brand that sells products or services.

Gotcha. So, basically, you are monetizing your exclusive network which can't be accessed buying powerlikes on Telegram? If so, that's an incredible business model you have there because the entry barrier is really high.
 
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Ziad

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Gotcha. So, basically, you are monetizing your exclusive network which can't be accessed buying powerlikes on Telegram? If so, that's an incredible business model you have there because the entry barrier is really high.

Yes I am and thank you! Because I'm not in it just for the money and charging high prices. I'm in it to get people results fast.
 

PetePreneur

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Do you not think Instagram will catch onto these Liking Pods soon though? I mean, if you're getting likes and comments from the same accounts and only those accounts and they are too, they'll spot that right?

When I tried it, I found it took too much time like and comment everybody else's stuff too. Have you got around that somehow?
 

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I'm starting an Instagram page for my business. My business is in the clothing industry. What kind of content would you post for this kind of business @Ziad? You also talk about posting high-quality content, could you give some further clarification here. What is truly a high-quality post?
 
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Hey guys, most of you know me from the Instagram Marketing - Journey to $10,000/month thread.

Yes, I have successfully made over $10,000/month in Instagram marketing for clients. I have also already sold that business.

If you haven't read that thread: I started a journey where I used Instagram automation (bots) to grow Instagram followers for various people and get them real,targeted followers. I was in the game for over a couple of years when I started so I already knew how to get clients 100-150 followers per day.

Yes, I know I've made 5 figures a month doing this. But today, I am here to tell those of you who are automating your Instagram accounts or trying to grow your account by following/unfollowing, liking, commenting or DMing people, YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG.

"Ziad, why are you saying this? You had over 100 clients paying you $70-$150 a month, you can easily scale up and continue automating Instagram accounts." Well, truth of the matter is, I'm well set to earn much more than I was through the automation route because now my Instagram game is 100 times better. I'll type on more of this later.

Why you need to stop botting

You are hurting your Instagram account very badly if you continue to follow/unfollow and bot. Basically, you are forcing people to make a decision by engaging them first. Let's take an example:

Let's say you have an account in the dentist niche. You start growing your account by following people who have liked the most recent post of a large dentist account. Great! You get most of them to follow you back. But are they highly active and engaging with your Instagram account? Do you think they will begin to fall in love with your Instagram account, or continue to stay active and engaging with the large dentist account they already follow for a while?

98% of the times (this is based on my years of experience) these users are only following you back out of friendliness or the fact that they don't usually get friend requests from public pages so it's a "big thing" for them. 2% of the times, they are interested in your business. But here's the fun part: the 2% that's interested in your business drops down to 0.1% because they sense all this lame Instagram automation going on in your account! Do you have posts that have comments like these: "Amazing content!" "Really good post. check out my page" "Hey amazing content check out my content and give me a follow!" Basically general comments and nothing specific to your post?

These guys have automated comments running on Instagram and are liking posts that have certain hashtags in them. A total turn off for a real, potential customer. And by the way, hashtags are totally worthless on Instagram today (unless you are geotagging). I could do a whole other post on this, but that's for later.

Botting isn't TOTALLY worthless

If you have the patience to wait out a year (or more) until you actually start getting a mix of good followers + bad followers, then botting isn't worthless. You need to automate your Instagram account to atleast 75k followers and post highly engaging content. When you do reach 75k or higher, your engagement will still not be up to par because of all the bad followers you forced to follow you.

In reality, botting is A BIT better than just buying fake followers. This is true! The only difference is, fake followers give you 0 activity while forced followers give you a bit more.

Botting/Automation is only for people who are focused on spam marketing. If you own a 100 spam accounts with 100 different proxies and are spamming affiliate links every hour or so, then automation is for you. I wouldn't rely on Instagram as the platform for this sort of marketing for too long though. You need to be exceptionally cautious and experienced to avoid getting your accounts banned on a regular basis.

My Instagram Service

Back to me. I sold my business, Instagram automation, and now focus solely on manual Instagram growth. I have had several clients who have hit "Explore" on Instagram where their posts have gone viral and they have gained thousands of followers naturally. In fact, on automation, I used to grab 10,000 followers in 3-4 months.

Now, with my natural marketing methods, I've had a couple of clients gain over 35,000 followers in just over a month, regardless of how many followers they had. :)

What I've learned is this:

High quality content + Timing + Natural Posting + Engagement Groups + Network Influencers + Good Understanding of Instagram's Algorithm = High quality, explosive growth on Instagram.

Why did I rant? I am not selling my Instagram service nor do I intend to (I already have many clients who used my automation service hopping on to this service at a much higher price), but after years of learning Instagram (one of the biggest goldmine platforms today) I have come to realization how bad automation is compared to gaining followers more naturally.
I'm starting an Instagram page for my business. My business is in the clothing industry. What kind of content would you post for this kind of business @Ziad? You also talk about posting high-quality content, could you give some further clarification here. What is truly a high-quality post?

Here's what I do.
I search on Instagram the local university and find the kids who are influencers in that community. Just look for high follower low following count. Message them and ask if they would be down to do a shoot with you in exchange for some free merchandise (sometimes you don't even need to give them anything, they just want new shit to post on their insta.)

The way I'm creating high quality content is through high quality photography. I would invest in a starter DSLR and get the 50mm lens. Practice practice practice your shooting and editing. Good photography is a skill.

Also try and provide some value to your followers through what you're posting.

Hope this was somewhat helpful.
 

Ziad

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Dec 31, 2016
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Do you not think Instagram will catch onto these Liking Pods soon though? I mean, if you're getting likes and comments from the same accounts and only those accounts and they are too, they'll spot that right?

When I tried it, I found it took too much time like and comment everybody else's stuff too. Have you got around that somehow?

Liking pods are saturated. I am talking about a continuously growing network of high quality influencers who continue to grow and strengthen their value on Instagram themselves. With an already established strong value, these accounts can like, comment, follow, DM your page as much as they want. Instagram will never catch on to them because they are already huge on Instagram. The common liking pods, however, are very easy to catch and they don't benefit you at all.

I'm starting an Instagram page for my business. My business is in the clothing industry. What kind of content would you post for this kind of business @Ziad? You also talk about posting high-quality content, could you give some further clarification here. What is truly a high-quality post?

Engaging content, lots of videos. I see people in the clothing business posting pictures, I would do a lot of videos. A high quality post is something that hasn't been overused on Instagram and has its own uniqueness.
 

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