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Instagram Marketing Services - Journey to $10,000 Per Month

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

Ziad

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Hello!

I am new to FLF but I have been surfing around for quite a few days now. I made an account so I could engage with this community and learn more about Instagram (read through a couple of threads).

I've been in the Instagram game for a couple of years. I ran 100 accounts but most of them got banned/deleted. I made a come back a couple of months ago. Thorough testing allowed me to realize what Insta's limits are and how to grow accounts more effectively.

I decided to offer my services when a random tshirt brand on Insta DM'ed me and asked how I'm gaining so many followers so fast. I told him "I can do it for you for $500 a month". His tshirt brand grew about 1,500 followers per month and he made about 125 sales accross 3 months. That was the first time I actually made money off Instagram. $1500 USD in 3 months off 1 account. Not bad!

That's when I decided to market my services in my best possible way. Only yesterday a client signed on with me to grow his Instagram for $600 USD per month. His brand is in the e-learning niche.

I am creating this thread to track my progress, get tips from all the pros in here and also offer my piece of advice for Instagram marketing. PS: I am still learning myself therefore I am no "Instagram Guru"

My goal is simple. Make $10,000 a month from this and invest in a digital marketing business I have been interested in for quite some time now. I actually invested $2000 in that business and only realized I need more funding and growth. That is for another progress thread ;)

I am currently only finding clients for Instagram marketing through Upwork. I've never cold called, but now would be a good time to start.
 
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TheKing

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I've been in the Instagram game for a couple of years. I ran 100 accounts but most of them got banned/deleted

Why should someone trust you with their account if most of your own accounts get banned?

If someone is going to give you $600 a month to grow their Instagram, I think you need to take safety into account. Getting your clients accounts banned won't be good for business.

I understand that you think you've gotten a feel for how aggressive you can use a bot on Instagram, but all it takes is for Instagram to change their algorithm a bit and you can have all your accounts banned, again.
 

Thiago Machado

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Ziad

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Why should someone trust you with their account if most of your own accounts get banned?

If someone is going to give you $600 a month to grow their Instagram, I think you need to take safety into account. Getting your clients accounts banned won't be good for business.

I understand that you think you've gotten a feel for how aggressive you can use a bot on Instagram, but all it takes is for Instagram to change their algorithm a bit and you can have all your accounts banned, again.

This is why it took me a while to get back and study Instagram's limits. None have been banned since I started again a few months ago.
 
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G

GuestUserX09

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I offer similar services to these within a company I recently started. I'm not sure your end of the day intent is so positive with the banned accounts and all. For Instagram specifically, I push for organic growth and engagement- not by testing the spam limits of Instagram. What you are doing may not carry long-term results. Nonetheless, goodluck. It's definitely a space where you'll want quality over quantity.
 

Ziad

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I offer similar services to these within a company I recently started. I'm not sure your end of the day intent is so positive with the banned accounts and all. For Instagram specifically, I push for organic growth and engagement- not by testing the spam limits of Instagram. What you are doing may not carry long-term results. Nonetheless, goodluck. It's definitely a space where you'll want quality over quantity.

Thanks for the tip! I don't bot and spam and churn/burn accounts. I use a more organic approach as well now. I'm confident in my services. Just need to find the clients now :)
 

JSM

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Thanks for the tip! I don't bot and spam and churn/burn accounts. I use a more organic approach as well now. I'm confident in my services. Just need to find the clients now :)
So you don't use a bot like followliker, instagress, etc.? Interested to hear about your process. Do you use proxies?
 

LleixG

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You should hire a VA instead of using a bot. You don't want your bot to like/follow porn accounts by mistake and lose a client because of it.
 

Ziad

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So you don't use a bot like followliker, instagress, etc.? Interested to hear about your process. Do you use proxies?

I don't bot. The only automation I use is Schedugram, which costs ~ $20/month and lets you schedule your posts.

I comment and DM to other accounts manually, and carry out shoutout for shoutout with other similar accounts. Follow/unfollow usually drops your accounts engagement. It's better to DM and comment/like photos manually.

You should hire a VA instead of using a bot. You don't want your bot to like/follow porn accounts by mistake and lose a client because of it.

I don't bot. Right now I only have 1 client I'm working with. Once the numbers go up, I will definitely hire a VA or 2 to manage everything for me.
 
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CycleGuy

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Subbed to see progress.

Seeing as how you don't use bots, how do you see yourself scaling your business if you're doing everything manually by yourself?
Manually handling 20 different business pages will be a large undertaking.

Also how do you plan on handling unhappy customers if you promise great organic growth but they fall flat of your goals?
 

Ziad

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Subbed to see progress.

Seeing as how you don't use bots, how do you see yourself scaling your business if you're doing everything manually by yourself?
Manually handling 20 different business pages will be a large undertaking.

Also how do you plan on handling unhappy customers if you promise great organic growth but they fall flat of your goals?

Will be hiring VAs once I scale up :)

Edit: Answer to your 2nd question, unhappy customers won't get a refund but will have their services stopped. If somehow an account gets banned, I will offer full refund for the months they paid. I just don't see how an account can get banned if it's not being botted.
 

Oscar Toro

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I offer similar services to these within a company I recently started. I'm not sure your end of the day intent is so positive with the banned accounts and all. For Instagram specifically, I push for organic growth and engagement- not by testing the spam limits of Instagram. What you are doing may not carry long-term results. Nonetheless, goodluck. It's definitely a space where you'll want quality over quantity.

Just wondering, how do you generate organic growth? (Ignore the obvious "generating good content").
Do you use certain tactics?

I create my own content (I have 2 graphic designers, one full time, 1 part time) and I am currently manually liking pictures of my competition followers; because I do not want to use bots for I dont believe I could maintain a long-term strategy doing so.

Have a nice day!
 
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JSM

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Will be hiring VAs once I scale up :)

Edit: Answer to your 2nd question, unhappy customers won't get a refund but will have their services stopped. If somehow an account gets banned, I will offer full refund for the months they paid. I just don't see how an account can get banned if it's not being botted.
I think accounts getting banned has something to do with the number of accounts on your IP address.
 
G

GuestUserX09

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Just wondering, how do you generate organic growth? (Ignore the obvious "generating good content").
Do you use certain tactics?

Honestly, I'm pretty much spamming in the most strategic way without hitting limits (liking and commenting only) with similar pages followers. But, I'd like to hire someone to do this full time in the near future. There are some grey hat ways to grow accounts organically as well but I'm just experimenting now with finding the fastest A-Z path but having the results still be organic. I think it can be optimized much further than how we are doing without getting sketchy but I'm just not sure yet- The manual labor needed makes it hard to scale.
 
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dagster

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I've been in the Instagram game for a couple of years. I ran 100 accounts but most of them got banned/deleted.

Since you have a lot of experience getting banned from Instagram, can you tell us some not so obvious reasons that accounts banned? I know typical reasons like doing too many follow/unfollow, doing too many likes, spamming comments or DM, etc
Anything else we should watch out for?
 

BlakeIC

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Interested to see how this turns out

If you are charging $500+ a month for your service and your clients get banned you'll have a bounty on your head (not literally, figuratively).
 

LleixG

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If an account gets banned you just need to contact Instagram and you'll get it back (unless you were spamming porn, etc...). If he's doing it manually and not going extremely fast the chances of getting banned are almost 0.
 
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Ziad

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If an account gets banned you just need to contact Instagram and you'll get it back (unless you were spamming porn, etc...). If he's doing it manually and not going extremely fast the chances of getting banned are almost 0.

This. I have recovered accounts from Instagram before. :)
 

Ziad

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Since you have a lot of experience getting banned from Instagram, can you tell us some not so obvious reasons that accounts banned? I know typical reasons like doing too many follow/unfollow, doing too many likes, spamming comments or DM, etc
Anything else we should watch out for?


The one thing I noticed was, never start botting immediately on a fresh account you just created. If I create a fresh account, I'd log it on the proxy and let it sit for at least 24 hours, then follow max 100-200 a day for 3-5 days, do 2-3 posts a day. Keep it VERY slow for the first 7-10 days, and then you can slowly speed things up. Very slowly. Personally, I wouldn't follow more than 250-300 a day for the first month.
 

Mikkel

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I just don't see how an account can get banned if it's not being botted.

Ive been banned 4 times while not botting. There are plenty of little rules you must follow to not be banned. Most likely, if you do things 100% organic growth, then you should do fine. However, i'd be intrested to see how fast an accout grows from zero followers if you do things organically.
It was not till I grew to 10,000 followers that I saw consistent organic growth(maybe 10-20 followers/day, strictly organic.)
Most people do not want to do S4S with smaller accounts, unless they are a small accounts as well. Those with smaller accounts will more likely then not generate you some pretty low numbers in terms of follwers recieved.
Do you plan to hire a new VA for every 5 customers you recieve? If you dont use a bot, then I would assume you are not using proxies to cover your IP address? So hypothetically, you can only work with 5 accounts at a time.
Another question that has still not been answered on this forum, and I dont plan to figure out any time soon is, how long(if not indefinate) do you have to be inactive on an account before Instagram allows you to take on a new account after youve already used 5 accounts.
So basically my question is. When you have 5 clients and one of them doesnt need your service, when will you be able to pick up another client? What happens if you get the timing wrong, does all accounts get banned or just the "6th account?"


Essentially I want you to know that there are a lot of unanswered questions about Instagram. To take on clients without knowing the answer to all these risks is essentially placing your clients in unnessary risk.

Maybe your solution is to buy a new iPhone for every 5 accounts - this is an expencive option.
Rooting your andriod is also an option, but the steps to rooting a phone is unanswered on this forum --> would be great if we had someone figure this out! Totally plausiable and could be a great way around the problems I stated above.
Using programs lime MassPlanner --> costs $20/month and is considered a bot so maybe you won't use this option
 
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Oscar Toro

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Ive been banned 4 times while not botting. There are plenty of little rules you must follow to not be banned. Most likely, if you do things 100% organic growth, then you should do fine. However, i'd be intrested to see how fast an accout grows from zero followers if you do things organically.
It was not till I grew to 10,000 followers that I saw consistent organic growth(maybe 10-20 followers/day, strictly organic.)
Most people do not want to do S4S with smaller accounts, unless they are a small accounts as well. Those with smaller accounts will more likely then not generate you some pretty low numbers in terms of follwers recieved.
Do you plan to hire a new VA for every 5 customers you recieve? If you dont use a bot, then I would assume you are not using proxies to cover your IP address? So hypothetically, you can only work with 5 accounts at a time.
Another question that has still not been answered on this forum, and I dont plan to figure out any time soon is, how long(if not indefinate) do you have to be inactive on an account before Instagram allows you to take on a new account after youve already used 5 accounts.
So basically my question is. When you have 5 clients and one of them doesnt need your service, when will you be able to pick up another client? What happens if you get the timing wrong, does all accounts get banned or just the "6th account?"


Essentially I want you to know that there are a lot of unanswered questions about Instagram. To take on clients without knowing the answer to all these risks is essentially placing your clients in unnessary risk.

Maybe your solution is to buy a new iPhone for every 5 accounts - this is an expencive option.
Rooting your andriod is also an option, but the steps to rooting a phone is unanswered on this forum --> would be great if we had someone figure this out! Totally plausiable and could be a great way around the problems I stated above.
Using programs lime MassPlanner --> costs $20/month and is considered a bot so maybe you won't use this option

I will grow the account I am using organically. If OP is cool with it I can post the results from time to time.
I am currently posting twice a day with original high quality content. (Only pictures for this month tough)

For this I am using a graphic designer who is currently working on my business and a marketing intern who is working here as well. (They program the posts) and I am doing the copywritting (I am new at it).

It will be cool to see how this goes and compare it with the bot/automated version.
 

domefs

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Ive been banned 4 times while not botting. There are plenty of little rules you must follow to not be banned. Most likely, if you do things 100% organic growth, then you should do fine. However, i'd be intrested to see how fast an accout grows from zero followers if you do things organically.
It was not till I grew to 10,000 followers that I saw consistent organic growth(maybe 10-20 followers/day, strictly organic.)
Most people do not want to do S4S with smaller accounts, unless they are a small accounts as well. Those with smaller accounts will more likely then not generate you some pretty low numbers in terms of follwers recieved.
Do you plan to hire a new VA for every 5 customers you recieve? If you dont use a bot, then I would assume you are not using proxies to cover your IP address? So hypothetically, you can only work with 5 accounts at a time.
Another question that has still not been answered on this forum, and I dont plan to figure out any time soon is, how long(if not indefinate) do you have to be inactive on an account before Instagram allows you to take on a new account after youve already used 5 accounts.
So basically my question is. When you have 5 clients and one of them doesnt need your service, when will you be able to pick up another client? What happens if you get the timing wrong, does all accounts get banned or just the "6th account?"


Essentially I want you to know that there are a lot of unanswered questions about Instagram. To take on clients without knowing the answer to all these risks is essentially placing your clients in unnessary risk.

Maybe your solution is to buy a new iPhone for every 5 accounts - this is an expencive option.
Rooting your andriod is also an option, but the steps to rooting a phone is unanswered on this forum --> would be great if we had someone figure this out! Totally plausiable and could be a great way around the problems I stated above.
Using programs lime MassPlanner --> costs $20/month and is considered a bot so maybe you won't use this option

Hey Mikkel, good to see you here!

Using some dedicated Proxies for this is the best option in my opinion.
 

Mikkel

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Hey Mikkel, good to see you here!

Using some dedicated Proxies for this is the best option in my opinion.
Yes, the dedicated proxies are the best solution, but that only works for using bots. I dont believe you can add dedicated proxies to your phone which is unfortunate.
 
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Ziad

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Ive been banned 4 times while not botting. There are plenty of little rules you must follow to not be banned. Most likely, if you do things 100% organic growth, then you should do fine. However, i'd be intrested to see how fast an accout grows from zero followers if you do things organically.
It was not till I grew to 10,000 followers that I saw consistent organic growth(maybe 10-20 followers/day, strictly organic.)
Most people do not want to do S4S with smaller accounts, unless they are a small accounts as well. Those with smaller accounts will more likely then not generate you some pretty low numbers in terms of follwers recieved.
Do you plan to hire a new VA for every 5 customers you recieve? If you dont use a bot, then I would assume you are not using proxies to cover your IP address? So hypothetically, you can only work with 5 accounts at a time.
Another question that has still not been answered on this forum, and I dont plan to figure out any time soon is, how long(if not indefinate) do you have to be inactive on an account before Instagram allows you to take on a new account after youve already used 5 accounts.
So basically my question is. When you have 5 clients and one of them doesnt need your service, when will you be able to pick up another client? What happens if you get the timing wrong, does all accounts get banned or just the "6th account?"


Essentially I want you to know that there are a lot of unanswered questions about Instagram. To take on clients without knowing the answer to all these risks is essentially placing your clients in unnessary risk.

Maybe your solution is to buy a new iPhone for every 5 accounts - this is an expencive option.
Rooting your andriod is also an option, but the steps to rooting a phone is unanswered on this forum --> would be great if we had someone figure this out! Totally plausiable and could be a great way around the problems I stated above.
Using programs lime MassPlanner --> costs $20/month and is considered a bot so maybe you won't use this option


Thank you for your post. I read through your thread and it was good inspiration.

1. I won't be handling clients who have 0 followers. If I do, I will bot them to gain a few followers in the beginning. I tell anyone I approach that under 10,000 followers, it will be a slow process and will take time. However, I haven't had such a client yet and like I said, I'm new and only learning as I go along.

2. When I scale up (I only have 1 client right now), content posting is already handled by Schedugram. Organic growth will be handled by my VAs who already have good knowledge of Instagram.

3. I currently own 3 phones. Therefore I can handle 15 clients at once. But I wont. Each of My VA will handle 5 clients (1 phone per VA). I will handle 5 clients myself. If a client stops his service and you have a free slot open, you will need to evaluate the new client's instagram account and see how old it is. If it's a fresh account with 0 followers, like I said before, I would put it up on a bot (with a dedicated proxy) and grow it slowly till I get at least 5,000 followers. This could easily take 2 months. If It's an aged account with a few followers, I'd wait a couple of days. If it gets banned, I can recover it easily. But I've never had an aged account banned just like this, not saying it will never happen. I have churned and burned a lot of accounts on bots therefore I have enough knowledge to prevent any banning. Besides, if the account is at 0 followers, I doubt the client would worry too much for a ban. I'm currently botting 10 of my own accounts (not any client's) all from scratch and all of them are going fine so far.

Besides, as @LleixG said, unless I upload porn/adult/nudity/spam/anything stupid on Instagram, I can easily recover my account back. Over a month ago I recovered an account on Instagram which had ~ 6,200 followers. It's one of my old accounts. All they asked me to do was write the account username and a unique ID (which they give) on a piece of paper and take a picture of me holding it. Here is proof of me recovering an account:

rWClCS6.png


O9CEgvL.png


I will be writing a step by step guide on recovering your account in my thread here soon. Probably in a couple of days. I didn't bother recovering my other accounts because they were spam. Don't post porn and don't spam your account with links and you should be able to recover it. :)

Finally, yes, it's risky but what's business without any risk? I've been on Instagram for a while now and I've learnt from my mistakes. If I didn't learn and move on I'd be a quitter. And I refuse to quit. :)
 

Ziad

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Note: Before anyone asks why the e-mail times are weird in the screenshots (where the reactivation request e-mail is received after the "account has been reactivated" e-mail) I use proxies to login on my personal Instagram accounts via browser all the time, therefore I keep changing my laptop's clock to set the time to the proxy's location :).
 

dagster

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Note: Before anyone asks why the e-mail times are weird in the screenshots (where the reactivation request e-mail is received after the "account has been reactivated" e-mail) I use proxies to login on my personal Instagram accounts via browser all the time, therefore I keep changing my laptop's clock to set the time to the proxy's location :).

Wow so Instagram will actually compare the local time of your proxy location to your laptop's time? or are you just trying to be extra safe?
 
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