Ask Me Anything - IG Automation + Monetization - DEADZ

[Sportyw]

@DEADZ Could I PM you somehow? Have a few questions

 

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[kameronja]

HI @DEADZ - amazing information. can you please mention what automation tool you use? there are so many on the market and its hard to know what's reliable. additionally, if im just running follow/unfollow for 1 account and im using one of these automation services, do i need to also have my own proxy so instagram can't detect the different IPs between the bot and my IG account?

 

[DEADZ]

All my answers will have this phrase in this color to help you find them!

DEADZ a few questions:

Quick backstory:

My company offers web design services but I am also branching out into online marketing like social media and SEO.

My recent client didn't need my services for web design but wants me to work on social media. I told him I will post and build his instagram/facebook and we will see if there is an increase in customers using analytics as a test.

His niche is restaurants, mexican restaurants to be exact. He has four locations that sell really good Raspados (mexican ices). As an instagrammer, what is the best method for gaining followers for a restaurant? What kind of hashtags do I use for the local area I am in (Phoenix and Tuscon are where his restaurants are in Arizona). Also, what tool do you use to track click through and what analytics I should be tracking for this industry? I heard hoot suite is decent.

We have already posted pictures of food but we will probably do pictures of promotions as well. I am unsure what hashtags and who to be following as a restaurant/where to go about finding restaurants. Maybe just restaurants in the area and following them?

With restaurants, the whole marketing campaign (offline & online) has to be in sync with each other. The offline should help boost the online presence which in turn gives the social profiles more engagement and ranking power and then you can aim for big hashtags (for food, recipes, in general, etc) and also location-based targeting.

From simple things like:
Having free wifi with social share to unlock.
Social share for a discount.

To more complicated setups:
Starting a hashtag trend challenge (including instructions on menu, or tab, etc).
Having a spot/wall with promo boards, posters, etc (inside or outside the restaurant) where people can take pictures and post.

People usually look at growth ratio & engagement ratio when it comes to metrics. For most local businesses those 2 metrics are more than enough. But for example: If the restaurant decides to create & use it's own hashtag on social media that would also give the restaurant owner more feedback (which menu items, spots in the restaurant get more posts, etc) which you can then use to improve the marketing overall. (Hootsuite is good, yes).

Following followers (and people who engage) with content from competitors is a basic way of going about it. You should do this, especially if you have some automation going on. Automation will only get you so far though. Especially once you hit the 10k mark, it may even start to hurt the accounts engagement.

Content & Inbound (Sales) marketing would be the best way to go in my opinion.

If following 30/per hour how much is responsible to like at the same time?
Also where to target the likes?
Hashtags/people that follow niches similar to mine etc..?

From my experience liking up to 2x as much as you follow is still safe.
When doing automation people usually aim to stay below 60 actions per hour (and below 2 per minute).

Target likes at people that follow (and/or interact with) bigger accounts that are in the same niche as yours.

@DEADZ Could I PM you somehow? Have a few questions

Always.

HI @DEADZ - amazing information. can you please mention what automation tool you use? there are so many on the market and its hard to know what's reliable. additionally, if im just running follow/unfollow for 1 account and im using one of these automation services, do i need to also have my own proxy so instagram can't detect the different IPs between the bot and my IG account?

I use Jarvee (link is in my signature below). For softwares like this one, you'll need dedicated proxies and an optional VPS/Server to run the software on 24/7.

 

[Xeon]

Hi Deadz, I've some questions.

1) Is it true that on IG, posts with text in it have low reach? I created some original content which are parodies of current movies which I think are pretty decent at least, but the stats are:

(42 mins after posting)
Reach: 148
Likes: 25
(follower count is 5207)

Is the Likes % too low, or is the Reach itself just too low?

What should I do? My IG account is in the pet niche, are there any specific tips for this area?

2) Do you believe in the shadow banning thing? I've tried the 10-10-10 hashtag strategy but it seems useless. I used Displaypurposes.com to research the hashtags but it doesn't seem to work.

3) Do you feel that with each day, the number of likes gained daily is dropping despite the follower count increasing? I wonder if it's just my account. After Sep 2017, my IG engagement rate took a big hit and fell by more than 80%.

4) Would you mind looking at my IG account and critiquing it? If so, mind if I PM you?

Thanks!

 

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[FLM]

Dear DEADZ,

thank you very much for your tips on instagram automation!

If possible I would like to ask you a few questions, but which are more specific on how you managed to get to over 100.000 followers for your private account.. I bet many people are interested in this!

1. Did you post niche specific content for your own instagram account? For eg. Have you been the Car guy / fitness guy / party guy?

2. Do you have any tips on how you edited your pictures, like did you use specific Lightroom Presets or can you recommend specific tutorials/ courses?

3. How did you know which content you have to present to your audience or did you just randomly post pictures, videos, gifs and so on?

4. How often did you post content? I feel like people would hate me, if I would post 1 picture per day!

5. Did you also use the hashtag stacking technique or some other technique for your private account?

6. Are there any other specific techniques you can recommend for private accounts, like the hash tag stashing technique (to boost followers)?

7. How do you research hashtags for the hashtag stacking technique?

8. Which software do you use in general for instagram? Jarvee probably for automated liking / following, but which other software/apps are a MUST HAVE?

Also, thank you for recommending Jarveee, I will sign up when my Windows PC is working again and then of course will use your link. Minimum I can give back.

All the best

 

[DEADZ]

All my answers will have this phrase in this color to help you find them!

1) Is it true that on IG, posts with text in it have low reach?

Is the Likes % too low, or is the Reach itself just too low?

What should I do? My IG account is in the pet niche, are there any specific tips for this area?

The way the engagement algo works is (explained in a simple way): It shows your post to a few of your followers at first depending on the % of engagement from those first few people it decides if the content is appropriate to show to the rest of your following. The engagement you get from your followers (& friends) helps you rank for hashtags & discovery/popular page.

It get's tricky when trying to make viral/high engagement content (especially videos). Because a lot of things can influence the overall performance.

I recommend you checkout this vid:

Your content needs to be interrupting (and should continue to do so) the users "flow".

The average reach these days can range anywhere from 5-20% (on average) depending on post frequency, post quality, if your engaging with your audience, etc.

2) Do you believe in the shadow banning thing? I've tried the 10-10-10 hashtag strategy but it seems useless. I used Displaypurposes.com to research the hashtags but it doesn't seem to work.

Yes, I do believe in shadow banning. This usually happens when your account is heavily red-flagged (spammy posts, profile, automation, bad bio links, etc). You can check if your account is shadowbanned here!

I recommend you research the hashtags manually. Start with your main niche keywords (for example: dogs, cats, pets, etc). Find post that resembles your accounts posts and either copy their hashtags or go deeper and use the hashtag stacking method.

Also when using the hashtag stacking method: If you're not sure that your posting at the most optimal time for your audience (you can find out by checking your analytics), you can use powerlike/engagement groups or even fake like services(has to be HQ to work) to boost & rank your posts. It's important that your post gets good engagement % within the first few hours.

3) Do you feel that with each day, the number of likes gained daily is dropping despite the follower count increasing? I wonder if it's just my account. After Sep 2017, my IG engagement rate took a big hit and fell by more than 80%.

Yes. Especially if you're not posting constantly. As your account grows, you should also increase your amount of daily posts (especially if your content is not unique and high quality). Posting at the right time also affects the overall performance of your posts. As your account grows "the perfect" posting time for the account will start to fluctuate/vary because of the demographics of your audience.

For example: When my accounts reach 10k+ I make sure I'm posting 3-6x a day.

4) Would you mind looking at my IG account and critiquing it? If so, mind if I PM you?

Sure.

1. Did you post niche specific content for your own instagram account? For eg. Have you been the Car guy / fitness guy / party guy?

The "niches" where just based on my own life. I just took the things that I was doing daily/weekly and posted about those. People found it interesting and I also made sure to interact with them in the comments (especially in the beginning).

I also think that's the best approach in the beginning. If you're a car, fitness, party guy... Try to create an online persona for each activity/hobby/passion. Post all of that and try to create the most HQ post you can for each "persona". You'll see which type of posts get the most feedback and you can decide to go on with that persona or not.

(I say persona. Because in a way you have to take a small part of yourself and magnify it so it gets more attention. You think of it as a character in a movie. But in this case, the movie is your life. People usually gravitate towards parts/potentials of themselves but then in other people aka role models).

2. Do you have any tips on how you edited your pictures, like did you use specific Lightroom Presets or can you recommend specific tutorials/ courses?

I didn't use any special programs or courses. I did do photo shoots with local photographers and they added their own effects to them.

Angles & posture are very important though. So I would recommend looking at modeling tutorials (face, hand, posture, etc modeling techniques). That's probably the most important thing imo, at least for personal accounts. If you look at any top Instagram influencer/model they use a lot of fitness, catwalk poses, etc. Even if you're just posting daily life pictures, the way you position yourself in them is important.

3. How did you know which content you have to present to your audience or did you just randomly post pictures, videos, gifs and so on?

As mentioned above. In the beginning, it was random and a lot of guesswork. But with time I realized when I posted certain pictures it got more attention (online & offline) and once some of them hit the popular page (they where all the same type of content as well) I started focusing more on those types of posts.

4. How often did you post content? I feel like people would hate me, if I would post 1 picture per day!

At least once per day and no more than 3 per day.

5. Did you also use the hashtag stacking technique or some other technique for your private account?

At the time I didn't know about the hashtag stacking technique.

But in the beginning, I did have a separate shoutout account where people had to do certain things to get a shoutout on the page (like pictures, follow my main account, etc).

At around 20k I really had to go heavy on s4s. So I started doing s4s with pretty much anybody with the same features (physically and talent-wise) as me. Most of them were people I met offline, at events, parties, etc. I would always do s4s with anyone with 75%+ of my total followers.

I also did photo shoots with local photographers (which I saw as s4s).

And some exchanges for clothing, accesories, etc. With local brands that had a good following. ( Sometimes I'd just be in their shop/store and post a picture with one of their shirts and they'd also give me a shout on their page).

6. Are there any other specific techniques you can recommend for private accounts, like the hash tag stashing technique (to boost followers)?

For automation: Set your account to like recent 1-2 posts of your followers. Like comments on your posts.

Gary's strategy also:

And also s4s. But again, I wouldn't aim at getting those via online. But I'd network with some locals and see what I can accomplish with them. Some cities have small tribes/communities that actually boost each other into instafame every day. I know the UK fashion scene has a bunch of teens doing this. Where pretty much every one of them has 50k+ followers because they all like & comment on each others posts everyday.

7. How do you research hashtags for the hashtag stacking technique?

I do it manually. Starting with the main niche keywords and checking the top posts in those hashtags and checking the hashtags on their posts and selecting only the ones that are in the perfect range for my account.

8. Which software do you use in general for instagram? Jarvee probably for automated liking / following, but which other software/apps are a MUST HAVE?

Jarvee does everything to be honest.

I can also use IFTTT sometimes to automate posting from IG to pinterest, facebook, tumblr, etc.

Thanks for the kinds words and questions mate!

 

[DEADZ]

@Xeon I can't seem to respond/reply to your pm. Other peoples message have the reply boxes etc but yours doesn't. Maybe something on your end?

 

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[Deleted48496]

DEADZ, It's great to see you here on this forum!

I have seen you almost on every IM forum, lol.

 

[Xeon]

@Xeon I can't seem to respond/reply to your pm. Other peoples message have the reply boxes etc but yours doesn't. Maybe something on your end?

Maybe it's a glitch lol. I've PMed you my email address to reply to. Thanks bud!