Any tips for building an Instagram following in a profitable way?

[ChrisP]

Hello, I am very new to IG in the sense that I am trying to build a following in order to some day make it profitable. I am not looking for any "quick system" or anything to get ghost follower, but just some tips as to ho to be more efficient in building a following and also when it is the right time to try to monetize things if for example my page may be geared toward mens fashion and accessories. Thank you all!

-Chris

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Instagress was a recommended tool here some months ago and I found it very helpful when I used it. If people are still using it, please chime in. I know months might as well be decades in internet time.

 

[Ninjakid]

Just make posts that are interesting, and then a lot of people will follow. You don't even need to saturate posts with hashtags like some folk. In fact, I recommend against it Just post things that people will like, and the people will take interest.

 

[AllenCrawley]

I still use instagress. They are consistently adding new features.

Some reading material:
http://www.shopify.com/blog/14288561-how-to-build-a-massive-following-on-instagram

 

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[ChrisP]

Just make posts that are interesting, and then a lot of people will follow. You don't even need to saturate posts with hashtags like some folk. In fact, I recommend against it Just post things that people will like, and the people will take interest.

Thank you, much appreciated. From what I can gather the best way to monetize IG is not selling a page outright but to promote/endorse other brands and products if your page isn't for a specific business. Am I correct in my thinking?

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Thank you, much appreciated. From what I can gather the best way to monetize IG is not selling a page outright but to promote/endorse other brands and products if your page isn't for a specific business. Am I correct in my thinking?

That's the slowlane mentality. Do that to start off, but plan to eventually leverage your audience for your own product. Here's what I'd do:

1. Identify an audience that you want to cater to.
2. Use Instagress to help build that audience.
3. Make a little money getting endorsements (if possible).
4. Introduce your own product.

Also, I created a course on Instagram marketing here: http://www.udemy.com/instagram-marketing-for-artists-skyrocket-your-of-fans/. Use promo code: "thefastlaneforum" to get it for free.

The course is targeted towards artists, but also has all the info you need for growing any type of product focused brand.

 

[biophase]

Hello, I am very new to IG in the sense that I am trying to build a following in order to some day make it profitable. I am not looking for any "quick system" or anything to get ghost follower, but just some tips as to ho to be more efficient in building a following and also when it is the right time to try to monetize things if for example my page may be geared toward mens fashion and accessories. Thank you all!

-Chris

What is your IG account going to be about?

 

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[Kay Rockley]

There are definitely posts that'll engage an audience a lot more than others.

A few examples of what gets the most likes are here

[link removed by mod]

 

[ChrisP]

What is your IG account going to be about?

Mostly a mens style and fashion page. Different brands, tailors, accessories ect.

 

[TJPB]

Instagress is worth the small fee they charge. I ended up buying a year and I have it running in the background liking and commenting. I used to use it to follow as well but if you're building a brand, it's not the best idea to follow 1000s or even 100s of accounts. You can be highly selective of the accounts you follow and really narrow in on your target market. I've been slowly building my following (approaching 10K now) and I know for a fact that 95% or more are my direct target market. Grass roots seems the best way to go and Instagress works well for that.

I tried some shoutouts by buying posts on very large accounts and, for me at least, it was a waste of time and $.

 

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[ChrisP]

Instagress is worth the small fee they charge. I ended up buying a year and I have it running in the background liking and commenting. I used to use it to follow as well but if you're building a brand, it's not the best idea to follow 1000s or even 100s of accounts. You can be highly selective of the accounts you follow and really narrow in on your target market. I've been slowly building my following (approaching 10K now) and I know for a fact that 95% or more are my direct target market. Grass roots seems the best way to go and Instagress works well for that.

I tried some shoutouts by buying posts on very large accounts and, for me at least, it was a waste of time and $.

Ive read some negative review about Instagress saying that people were locked out of their account being it is an outside source logging in. Any truth to that?

 

[TJPB]

Ive read some negative review about Instagress saying that people were locked out of their account being it is an outside source logging in. Any truth to that?

I've had it running on high speed for 6 months now with no issues.

 

[LibertyForMe]

I had a test account and Instagram locked me out in like 3 days. I'm pretty sure u was doing everything right, so I'm probably not going to risk it again.

 

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[ChrisP]

I had a test account and Instagram locked me out in like 3 days. I'm pretty sure u was doing everything right, so I'm probably not going to risk it again.

Do they block you out because they recognize the program as spam?

 

[biophase]

Mostly a mens style and fashion page. Different brands, tailors, accessories ect.

This really doesn't say much. This is what you are saying:

I'm going to post a bunch of photos of clothes and styles.
I'm going to get people to look at my photos every day.
My photos will be so well curated that people will follow my photos.
I'm going to post ad photos in the future to make money.

Imagine if someone gave you this as their business plan. Does it sound good to you?

Are you posting photos that you are personally taking?

 

[ChrisP]

This really doesn't say much. This is what you are saying:

I'm going to post a bunch of photos of clothes and styles.
I'm going to get people to look at my photos every day.
My photos will be so well curated that people will follow my photos.
I'm going to post ad photos in the future to make money.

Imagine if someone gave you this as their business plan. Does it sound good to you?

Are you posting photos that you are personally taking?

Like I said previously, I am very new to the Instagram marketing world. Just trying to understand how things work. I know that I follow on my person IG account multiple men's fashion pages that do nothing but promote other brands products and have followers in the hundreds of thousands. They don't produce any products or services that I can see other than getting brands in front of followers. Those pages that have 250K plus followers I'm sure are benefiting somehow from doing what they do.

 

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[Gymjunkie]

This really doesn't say much. This is what you are saying:

I'm going to post a bunch of photos of clothes and styles.
I'm going to get people to look at my photos every day.
My photos will be so well curated that people will follow my photos.
I'm going to post ad photos in the future to make money.

Imagine if someone gave you this as their business plan. Does it sound good to you?

Are you posting photos that you are personally taking?

Weirdly.. it might work..

There are lots of that type of accounts tho and it's hard to come up with new ideas. But gaining a following is not so hard if you post great images, success quotes etc.. Those who get to nice volume of followers, do get paid some sponsorship money..

Also, who knows what Insta will do with Advertising in future, maybe they will ad something like AdSense of FB Ads and that could bring in more revenue..

It's a different marketing platform than text-based ones..

 

[AgainstAllOdds]

Weirdly.. it might work..

There are lots of that type of accounts tho and it's hard to come up with new ideas. But gaining a following is not so hard if you post great images, success quotes etc.. Those who get to nice volume of followers, do get paid some sponsorship money..

Also, who knows what Insta will do with Advertising in future, maybe they will ad something like AdSense of FB Ads and that could bring in more revenue..

It's a different marketing platform than text-based ones..

They'll integrate with FB ads likely in a couple years. They're owned by FB and currently run ads for big brands. After proving the viability of ads on a larger scale, they'll shift to ads for the little guys.

 

[Gymjunkie]

They'll integrate with FB ads likely in a couple years. They're owned by FB and currently run ads for big brands. After proving the viability of ads on a larger scale, they'll shift to ads for the little guys.

Yeah, makes sense. Rev Share would be nicer tho..

 

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[pds]

Just make posts that are interesting, and then a lot of people will follow. You don't even need to saturate posts with hashtags like some folk. In fact, I recommend against it Just post things that people will like, and the people will take interest.

Sorry, but I disagree with this point. Yes, you need to post quality content geared toward your market, but how do you expect your content to get discovered? That's where using relevant hashtags comes into play. I've grown our business account to ~9k now with a combination of Instagress, posting quality content and saturating relevant hashtags on posts. They key with posting hashtags is to post them in the comment section, not actual post. That way you can delete it later on and keep the post looking clean. Look for hashtags that are not too overused. Also, use iconosquare to test overtime what is the optimal time of day to post your content based on your audience. Good luck.

 

[Gymjunkie]

Sorry, but I disagree with this point. Yes, you need to post quality content geared toward your market, but how do you expect your content to get discovered? That's where using relevant hashtags comes into play. I've grown our business account to ~9k now with a combination of Instagress, posting quality content and saturating relevant hashtags on posts. They key with posting hashtags is to post them in the comment section, not actual post. That way you can delete it later on and keep the post looking clean. Look for hashtags that are not too overused. Also, use iconosquare to test overtime what is the optimal time of day to post your content based on your audience. Good luck.

+1

I was doing small testing with Instagram and just posting my designs would get no results, but if I added hashtags, I'd get Likes and some Follows seconds after that. Hashtags are powerful.

 

[Eos]

+1

I was doing small testing with Instagram and just posting my designs would get no results, but if I added hashtags, I'd get Likes and some Follows seconds after that. Hashtags are powerful.

+1

Also, click on the hashtag after you've posted it on your picture and like / comment on other pictures that use the hashtag as well, people will often like yours back so it's good way to get a quick bump.

 

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[Charnell]

Look into Latergramme as well. It's an IG scheduler, but doesn't auto-post for you. You can upload images from your computer, type up whatever description you want as well as add hashtags. Then you drop it into a calendar which will notify you on your phone, and the image and description will be preloaded into IG so all you need to do is hit submit. I never needed to upgrade to a paid account for what I was doing.

You can also reuse old posts by going through it on your phone. Great for, say, weekly giveaways or something.