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Growing your Instagram account, strategy and discussion

Hvazquez07

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Yeah, I think the whole thing is going to be like Facebook soon, where nothing will get shown unless you advertise. I don't think it's as bad as Facebook YET, but it's certainly getting there.

It has just become like this :)
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Yeah, I think the whole thing is going to be like Facebook soon, where nothing will get shown unless you advertise. I don't think it's as bad as Facebook YET, but it's certainly getting there.

Yup, you can count on it. This is why it is so important to keep this stuff as a marketing/outreach channel only and not your entire bread and butter. Commandment of Control!.
 

Xeon

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I just noticed that Socialblade stopped updating regular statistics since Monday. Here is more info:
Instagram suddenly chokes off developers as Facebook chases privacy

Thanks for the article! Damn, it might affect websites like mine which has a feed on the homepage that pulls in the IG feed and display.

#screwzuckerberg #F*ckig #deletefacebook
 
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PetePreneur

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MJ DeMarco

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I just noticed that Socialblade stopped updating regular statistics since Monday. Here is more info:

Yes, some of the social management programs I've been using have stopped working as well.
 

Andy Black

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Ha. Sounds like I’m more than fashionably late to the party.

Anyway... this weekend I created a brand new and throwaway Instagram account with associated website. Will start posting quotes and things. May play with a tool but only after I’m bored doing things by hand.

Can’t let MJ and you guys have all the fun.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Yes, some of the social management programs I've been using have stopped working as well.

I also noticed that my followers jumped up. Not sure if it's anything I've done, but it coincided with the FB changes.

My guess is that maybe Follow/Unfollower services stopped working?

So the ridiculous "Ill follow you only to unfollow you 24 hours later" thing stopped happening.
 

Joaquim

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Just heard something I'm not happy about and wanted to share this with you guys.

You all probably use a planner for Instagram?
I use Hootsuite to plan my posts weeks ahead.

Apparently Instagram's algorithm doesn't like planner apps and gives you less reach in return..

Bummer.
 

Argin Gerigorian

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I just logged onto IG for the first time in over a year because of MJs thread where he’s posting on IG.

Seems I’ve got 0 posts. I don’t even know how to use it, or what to use it for. I don’t even remember creating an account tbh.

Haha. Talk about starting from ground zero.

Anyway... I thought I’d had a look at IG because I was going to create a thread in TFLF of my favourite quotes, and because I’m now curious about some other platform I’ve never used.

Seems I’ve fallen over at the first hurdle though - I’ve got 4G signal on my phone and everything seems to work fine, but IG is complaining there’s no connection. Does it do this a lot?


EDIT: I’ve got 80 followers? How did that happen when I’ve never posted anything? Is it somehow linked to my Facebook account?

Anyway, I might start a fresh new account and a progress thread in TFLF where I drop in my favourite quotes and see what happens on IG.

What's your handle Andy? I'll get you one more follower ;)
 

Argin Gerigorian

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Yup, you can count on it. This is why it is so important to keep this stuff as a marketing/outreach channel only and not your entire bread and butter. Commandment of Control!.

Very good point!

Use the link in bio, swipe up feature and whatever else you can from Instagram to BUILD your email list!

Whatever you're selling on that specific page get emails! So much more valuable than IG
 

Andy Black

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What's your handle Andy? I'll get you one more follower ;)
Lol, thanks. I’ve still not posted to my personal account.

I’ve posted to a generic throwaway account but I’m not sharing that handle just yet as I’m trying to see if I can grow it organically from ground zero.

I’ve a progress thread somewhere on that. So far not much progress to report other than thinking I’d rather post to some other platform because IG is rife with bots.

So far I’m finding IG my least favourite platform ever...


EDIT: Found the progress thread. You can watch a grown man get reduced to tears here:
 
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Last edited:

Evil_Jester

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Lol, thanks. I’ve still not posted to my personal account.
So far I’m finding IG my least favourite platform ever...
I stopped my 17k account recently because of a poor target market. I think instagram is good for using other influencers when you want to market a product. It's kind of a waste to grow your own account if you want to make money from it. That's why you always see people making money managing other accounts. Also it takes too much time to manage your account everyday, which is vital for growth
 

jcvlds

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I stopped my 17k account recently because of a poor target market. I think instagram is good for using other influencers when you want to market a product. It's kind of a waste to grow your own account if you want to make money from it. That's why you always see people making money managing other accounts. Also it takes too much time to manage your account everyday, which is vital for growth

Usually, what’s hard and time consuming leads to positive results if you stick with it and consistently out perform others who quit


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Evil_Jester

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Usually, what’s hard and time consuming leads to positive results if you stick with it and consistently out perform others who quit


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
As grant cardone says, "who has my money?" You got to know that before you spend time with the wrong market
 
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alexson

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What's your account about? Creating content and getting large brands to repost is the only true way.
I made a new account and got lucky last week. I gained more followers in 1 day than I did in the past 5 months with an old account. Make sure you are in a big enough market and have good branding
View attachment 18213

If I do post Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday on Instagram then I will get more followers to my post.
 

MattR82

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Any advice on a novice on how to create videos? No video editing experience and it's not intuitive to me with the few I've downloaded. I'm using Windows 8. Unable to download Windows movie maker and not sure what to do next. Even the paid stuff looks to advanced for me.
Have a look at adobe spark and also filmora
 

Travis Robinson

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Hey guys, I guess there are some people here who try to grow on Instagram.

I went for the follow/unfollow way and got only like 700 followers in 4 weeks because I am restricted to only being able to follow 19 people at the time, then I have to wait some time and I even could not follow at all for a few days.
Does anyone know what works best lately since shout outs are not that good anymore?
Plus I was wondering if you guys want to make a DM group in order to help each other out or maybe there is already an existing one? How do you even find such groups?
19 at once! What type of Instagram account you have?
I hope the answer is 'business type' and I would further suggest you collecting organic audience instead of going for any shortcuts.
 
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Lavern Muller

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Hey guys, I guess there are some people here who try to grow on Instagram.

I went for the follow/unfollow way and got only like 700 followers in 4 weeks because I am restricted to only being able to follow 19 people at the time, then I have to wait some time and I even could not follow at all for a few days.
Does anyone know what works best lately since shout outs are not that good anymore?
Plus I was wondering if you guys want to make a DM group in order to help each other out or maybe there is already an existing one? How do you even find such groups?
19, I think is quite a low limit for following people in a single day. And I didn't find any such group till now (might be there, I am the newbie here). I recommend going with content strategies to gain more followers on Instagram rather than follow/unfollow techniques.
 

Lavern Muller

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Hey guys, I guess there are some people here who try to grow on Instagram.

I went for the follow/unfollow way and got only like 700 followers in 4 weeks because I am restricted to only being able to follow 19 people at the time, then I have to wait some time and I even could not follow at all for a few days.
Does anyone know what works best lately since shout outs are not that good anymore?
Plus I was wondering if you guys want to make a DM group in order to help each other out or maybe there is already an existing one? How do you even find such groups?
Forget "Follow/Unfollow" technique. Just stick to making constant improvement in your posts as it will help you get featured on Instagram with massive organic followers.
 

BaraQueenbee

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Not sure if it's been mentioned before, but for those using IG actively and using hashtags, be sure to check the new UPDATED 2019 list of Banned hashtags, for using those actually does effect the algorithm and how/if people can find you!
 
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Matt Dassel

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Brilliant Jon! Gonna suss some out and try this.



Very impressive stats that I can only fantasize about.

Do you buy L/C rounds from multiple large accounts, or go through a service? I assume it'll be very expensive to say, buy L/Cs from 15 large accounts, since some of them are charging....hundreds?

If you don't mind, maybe you can give more details on the process.
Your method seems to be like a cross between IG telegram pods and shoutouts?



Always thought you were allergic to Mark Zuckerberg's business and platforms like FB & IG lol



Imagine a sombre funeral ceremony and the bots comment "Exciting, wish I was there!" and "Awesome, can't get better than this!"

---------------------

I just have a new idea to make our IG pages look highly "engaged" and active. Fake it till you make it.

Usually, the comments section of active IG accounts with high engagement tend to look like this:

8c96562e8922583092e56629216d574a.png


There's a lot of mentions and tags instead of actual text comments.

I found this service called Redsocial, where you can buy real human IG comments, then instruct each of those commentors to mention and tag someone else.

This will give the impression of your posts looking very active, as if everyone is talking to their friends about it.

I'll be trying this next Tue for my next post and update here.

It probably needs to be done in the long-run for each post so that you burn this "reputation" into the mind of your real actual followers, that you're an active and highly social popular kid lol

Hey, is that the algorithm of instagram that classifies your page as actively engaged? Or is it just you calling it engaged by your definition?
 

Matt Dassel

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Yeah, I think the whole thing is going to be like Facebook soon, where nothing will get shown unless you advertise. I don't think it's as bad as Facebook YET, but it's certainly getting there.

Hey, I have little experience with social media. I would like to hear an elaboration on this idea. Is it really that bad? If you think about it, facebook itself is just a machine that people expect to use, just as any other media. I never felt like they had so much power though. It's more like this: People are free to consume whatever they decide to but the best the platform can do is... get in the way of people looking for their content? Publishing their ads?

I'd just like to talk about this again because it really feels to me like there is still enough power to develop brands using instagram if, and only, people decide to consume it.
 

Xeon

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Hey, is that the algorithm of instagram that classifies your page as actively engaged? Or is it just you calling it engaged by your definition?

If I know what algorithms does IG exactly uses, I would be rich. That post was made some time back before I went deep into this IG thing.

What I do know is that currently, IG has changed its algo somewhat. It uses Likes, Comments amount, Saves and Shares, and possibly Mentions, as metrics to determine whether to boost your Reach further. So yes, I'm very certain that the more mentions there are, the more the Reach IG will give you.

It used to be that IG gave you a 10min time frame window after you posted, and if your followers like and share your post, it will show it to more of your followers etc. But because hashtags have been really huge recently, this is no longer an issue, because now, most posts start going viral only after the 3 - 6th hour mark after posting, and the virality can last up to 2 days, and still keep getting followers 2 weeks after that.
 
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JesseJune

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When I think there is nothing more to learn about Instagram there are always new strategies arising, as in this great thread. Thanks everyone above!

Here are my 2 cents:

- Patience!
Big accounts (with good and real engagement) took a long road we do not see at this moment. I looked this up, the majority already exist at least 3 years.
And there are a lot of big accounts with mostly fake bought followers, keep this in mind. This won't help your business so do not touch that.

- Follow/Unfollow For people starting on Instagram I do recommend to use this strategy until you have 1000followers. You can't ignore Social Proof. So this will speed things up.

- Everliker
Like hashtags that are within your niche.
Like followers of influencers that have the same targeted audience as you.
Like followers of competitors.

Question: I never reach the number of likes a day I ask Everliker to make for me, do you guys experience this also?

- Engagement groups (L&C).
Look for the top 3/4 groups who give you the best results.
(But this strategy won't work forever). Also keep in mind the follow/like ratio. If you have 1000 followers and 500 likes there is something untrustworthy about that.

- Reach out to friends of new followers.
With every new follower coming in you should like 3/5 photos of every friend/follower that liked their most recent post! Yes this will be time-consuming.
Social proof, because they see that their friends is already following you.

- Qualitative Unique Content.
Sadly I'm no good student of this rule.
I also do reposts because I can not make enough great content to post consistently. And always tag the person from whom you repost, this is just Instagram Etiquette!
If you're a good photographer etc.. you have a big advantage!

- Post consistently.
2 posts a day is desirable, i.e. 3pm and 7pm. yEveryone of us will have unique popular timeframes, check your stats).
This will take discipline which is a good attribute!
Little shortcut: I use Hootsuite.

- Commenting on posts of influencers within your niche the moment they have published it is also not a bad strategy in my opinion. You can only hope their followers will see your comment, start recognising your name and click on it.
(Preferably a comment with value.)

- When you reached the explore page, it helps when you have 'weird' coloured text on your photos or coloured objects. People will more likely click on it. You have to stand out on the explore page!

- Videos
This is up for debate. On Instagram some get more followers when they post great videos and other won't notice anything special. You have to try this for yourself if this works or not with your page.

- Feed
I find this as important as everything above, but this can be because of my niche. But you should try to have a good looking feed. You can find a lot of videos on youtube on this strategy.

- Bio
Make a very brief and clear intro on who you are.
As you have already read in this thread. Symbols in your bio is a big win!

- Stories
Can do big things for you, but I'm not good at this so can't say much here.
Youtube is your friend! The polls and swipe up features are my only friends here (so easy and engaging).

- Competitors
Look at what your competitors are doing regularly and adjust your strategy.
Sam Walton would do this all day.

- Keep the accounts that you are following as low as possible. This is in conflict with the follow/unfollow strategy. You do not want to unfollow your best (future) client.

- Tag popular brands in your photos, they say people who follow those brands will get to see your posts easier this way.


This list is in no particular order of importance.

I was not planning to make this as extensive as it is, but I still probably forgot something.
Hope this helps even a tiny bit!


Thank you and thank you.

The level of research I have done regarding organic growth is insane and you seemed to cover it in less than 60 seconds. I feel like it can be one of these Instagram presenters haha
 

Matt Hunt

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Haven't read through the whole thread, so I don't know if these things were covered yet, but here's a few that I've heard:

Crop images to 4x5
This gives you the largest possible image, so when people scroll through their feed, the image shows for a longer period of time, and has a greater chance of catching their eye. May not make a huge difference, but I did notice in looking back at my feed that images of this size in general had more engagement than images in landscape orientation.

Use IG filters
File this under an unproven theory, I guess, but the thought is that IG wants you to use their filters, so they'll increase reach if you did. If you don't like the look, you can turn it down to 0. Can't confirm if this works or not, but hey, it's worth a shot.

Develop a "look"
Going along with the use of filters, whether you keep them at 0 or not, develop a certain look to your photos. Edit them all to look about the same in terms of color, brightness, contrast, etc. People will start to recognize your posts at a glance if they all have a similar look/feel to them.

Tag companies or large accounts in your image
Depending on your niche, if you have any products in your image, tag that company in the image itself, not in the caption. There's a greater chance they'll see it, and perhaps feature your image.

Use hashtags with about 80-300k posts
If the hashtags you're using have too many posts, your image will quickly get lost in the shuffle. Doing this I was able to show up as one of the top 3-5 images for a few hashtags.

Use emojis in your caption
Also, tell a brief story related to the image in your caption. Saw a stat that posts with emojis had a higher engagement than posts without any.
 

Mixlikes

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I got 4-5 followers on my Instagram account by sharing quality pictures and videos. Daily upload unique ideas to increase followers. To increase followers, do comments and likes of new Instagram user. Use relevant hashtags. Storytelling helps to increase user engagement.
 
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JohnBuffet

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Hey, after getting some great info on this thread I tried using Everlike. I got about 30 likes and then it stopped with a notification of "Failed to like! Everliked failed to like a post as it seems as if your session (Action / Device/ IP) was action blocked. All tasks were switched off."

Does anyone gett his notification? From my research it looks like instagram is really cracking down on the automation bots. Is there a way around this?

And does anyone else have any techniques for automating tasks such as liking and commenting?
 

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