How To Automate Your Instagram Account

[Aaron W]

AMA: "I automate accounts on Instagram in the thousands."



I've grown multiple accounts on Instagram to thousands of followers.

Mainly for fun, but also sometimes for business.

It's a crazy platform with an underworld many don't know about.




I constantly get asked questions based on...
...automating accounts
...marketing on Instagram
...how to find free content
...and other IG jumbo.




Old threads are obsolete from their original owners.
I decided to open an AMA.
Ask anything you want to know.



Disclaimer: I don't make bank off Instagram, nor do I even try to sell 'services' such as shoutouts on it. However, I know how to.



If you want to learn how to automate, start with this video I made

The video is for beginners but is a foundation to getting started.
Automation program: www.followliker.com

Would you be interested?

I'm going to look at doing a follow along series where I start a brand new account and show you how I grow it. I would show you my niche research from ground zero, automation, content finding and weekly progress on the account.

Let me know if you want to see this. I feel like it will cover most points I teach.


OH, and ask away.

 

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[Aaron W]

@Aaron W is FL a good choice for someone that only wants to grow 1 Instagram account for a business? Also if only 1 account is being used is a proxy still necessary?

Hey, FL is still a great idea if you want to grow an account. You won't need a proxy as well as you will be only running one account and not 5+.

Hey Aaron
When you're getting images from weheartit, how are you filtering for creative commons licenses? Or do you just not worry about stealing copyrighted works?

I personally don't worry about it. So many images are being reused on Instagram its crazy. Unless its very clearly copyrighted I will of course avoid it. Or if I can tag someone on Instagram to give credit I do that.



Also for everyone an updated Tutorial:

 

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[Aaron W]

It sounds like you manually grab all your photos. Do you ever find it viable to scrape and reuse scraped photos just for the sake of automation, or is this always a no go?

I'm generally scraping for a lot of accounts. Using IFTTT.com + Dropbox is a huge time saver.

For larger accounts I like to grab images off the web to make my account more unique.
A great website is weheartit.com for finding cool images especially if your account targets females.

 

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[mammoth_hunter]

My question is, hope you don't mind: why? What do I need an automated account for? What do I need thousands of automated accounts for?

 

[Mr_Maravish]

Curious what the plan is with an account like that? They seem to grow extremely quick..will you launch a luxury product or do posts for people promoting products?

Just curious

Well an account like this I plan to use it as a advertising platform for my own products and for those who would like to pay for advertising. I will also create a few accounts in other niche and create and advertising empire!

 

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[Mr_Maravish]

Yep I current gain around 200 on average per day.

At the moment I'm mainly just following people then 5 days later unfollow them.

The only thing I didn't like about the follow/unfollow method is that it kills engagement. That's why I stopped it

 

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[LeftBench]

Interested. Will watch video now

 

[Aaron W]

I've been running follow liker for a few weeks now and it doesn't seem to work too well when I follow and unfollow at the same time. I'm also using a range similar to yours 450-550 for both follow and unfollow, but sometimes the accounts get temporary follow/unfollow bans. Does that happen to you?

Never had bans on following.

It's most likely due to your account being new.
Or you are un/following too many people an hour. Maybe slow down the automation time.

You need to ease in to the settings slowly building them up as the account ages.

Instagram recently has got more strict on automating. You wan't to appear as human like as you can.

 

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[Twopro]

Never had bans on following.

It's most likely due to your account being new.
Or you are un/following too many people an hour. Maybe slow down the automation time.

You need to ease in to the settings slowly building them up as the account ages.

Instagram recently has got more strict on automating. You wan't to appear as human like as you can.

I see, I did start a bit aggressive when the accounts were new maybe following 250-400 a day as the default settings. They are currently 3-4 weeks old. Just tweaked the settings a bit as I was running it 24/7. Maybe running a more normal time a real person is awake might help. Thanks

 

[Aaron W]

You post images manually correct? If I'm not mistaken, I heard a whole ago that engagement is killed by using post automation, and it makes sense

I would agree 100% that automating posts kills your engagement.

However, I still automate my posts - I just ensure the captions are different for each image.

 

[Aaron W]

If you have say 10 accounts. You put 3 accounts to 1 proxy. Now, to log onto these accounts to respond to messages, is it okay to log onto these accounts through your phone and respond to comments or will Instagram flag you for using to many accounts through your phone?

It could cause issues and potentially flag you.

EG. If you're in New York and your proxy is in Atlanta - they may question how you access the account from different locations so quickly.

But at the same time, you could say its a shared business account. I'm unaware of account sharing terms so you may need to look in to that.


When you get proxies you may want to look at getting them located to your area if your service provides them.

 

[Boozoon]

For anyone thinking of getting Aaron's courses on Instagram:

I have myself bought them instantly after he was kind enough to answer some questions and even give recommendations via pm.

Without boring you down with details, here are the benefits of the courses:

• you save LOTS of time. Especially if you decided to buy followliker, you will be scratching your head how this sh!t works. Yeah, you can read the manual. Yeah there are guides. But here is a question, how much does your time cost? If 1 hour costs more than $20 and you spend 2+ hours trying to figure this shit out, isn't buying the course a better investment?
• nifty little tools and examples. LOVED the suggestion for ifttt.com and I have it already saving tonz of sexy female models valuable pics for my future accounts.
• you get access to Aaron who has done it hundreds of times. The gates of Instagram Marketing via followliker were openened by jimd, but for good or for bad he is no longer around. Shit will happen. You will need someone to give you a solid piece of advice without banging your head on the wall.
  

So in short, if you are thinking of using Instagram for you marketing plans, Aaron's courses are pretty good tool in your toolset.

That's my honest opinion.

P.S. Ever bought an Udemy course where the retarded instructor wastes 5+ videos talking about useless stuff? Well, Aaron doesn't do that. He dives right into what's important.

 

[Peakdesire]

Hi Aaron!

I currently have 19k followers on my business account. (fitness niche)

Any tips on how I could grow this page? Right now only thing I'n doing is manually follow/unfollowing people, which gets me around 100 followers per day.

I've tried to funnel people to my landing page where I give a lead magnet but probably gotten like total of 1+ opt ins..

How could I get this thing working?

Thanks.

 

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[snappyhappy]

I find people I know are not using social media accounts as often anymore. one reason is little value is shared. Knowing how politicians , celebrities, and businesses use social media to constantly give themselves exposure, has left a bad taste in my mouth. One thing if an assistant is doing it and not the real celebrity. To think its all going to automation /robots /algo into chat makes me really think there is no way I'm missing anything not being there as a consumer.

Social media is like any other media. Where the attention is there will always be businesses/celebrities/politicians promoting themselves.

I also don't like automation, it comes at a cost, and authenticity is much more important and valuable in my opinion.

As a consumer it's up to you where you spend your time, but your idea of what is valuable may be very different from somebody else (such as your customer). So from a business/marketing standpoint it would be a big mistake to neglect social media.

 

[JokerCrazyBeatz]

Hmmm.....

 

[Mikkel]

@Aaron W is FL a good choice for someone that only wants to grow 1 Instagram account for a business? Also if only 1 account is being used is a proxy still necessary?

FL would work perfectly fine for one business account. If you plan on using an automated bot for 3+ months than you are saving money by using FL(over Instagress.) You defiantly would not need a proxy if you are only using one account for FL. I have been using 3 accounts for about 3-4 months now and I have had no problems at all.

 

[Aaron W]

So confirming, 3 accounts with no proxy and no problems so far? And do you run it on a computer or are you using a Vps?

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

You will only need to look at using Proxies after 5+ accounts (aka your 6th account should be using a new IP).

VPS is only needed if you don't or can't leave your own computer on during the automation period.

 

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[Aaron W]

Hey Aaron,

My question will be pretty unique. I've recently set up an instagram account and in the last week or so I've gained ~70 followers. The account is @gatsbymag. It was originally an account that would accommodate my blog but I've decided to focus on IG and will rename the page soon.

If you look at my account you'll see some short videos of me *trying* to motivate my followers. But I don't know if I should continue these videos because I'm not really getting / understand any feedback. For example, I don't understand how I have 7 views on a video and about 32 likes. So 1. do you think it would be a good idea to continue with these videos and 2. do you have much understanding on the video-like feature on IG (why my ratio is so out of balance).

Thank Aaron!

Firstly awesome account your implementing a lot of key features.

The main thing I want you to notice is your video thumbnails, they're not as appealing as the images you have.

Remember on Instagram most people want to keep scrolling, liking and scrolling.
They're looking for high quality, appealing photos.
Videos (depending on the content) get way less engagement generally.

My advice would be if you want to keep doing videos, you will need to up the production scale.

A great idea would to be only videos of quick 5-10 second motivational speeches. Short and to the point with a white background.

Click bait people to press 'play'.

 

[Aaron W]

Aah, I had thought about that but didn't even consider the thumbnail! Thank you for that. Also, any ideas on the video-like thing? Why more likes than views?

Literally because some of the likes are bots who don't watch your videos, but still like your post due to using certain hashtags they're targeting.

 

[Aaron W]

The only thing I didn't like about the follow/unfollow method is that it kills engagement. That's why I stopped it

So the people I'm following are people who have commented on a certain users accounts pictures (because I know they will be a highly engaged user). Of course you need lots of accounts in the queries to ensure you have enough people to follow.

Hi mate really good content. Thank you for all your help! Just wondering I know on a device you can have a max of 5 instagram accounts like on your phone?

Say I want to have 10 do I just need to put 5 onto a new device such as another phone etc? Will I need to get VPN and change proxies etc after 5 with risk of being banned or is it safe?

When automating you will need a new ip every 5 accounts you make.
I personally have been lucky or blessed in the sense that I've been able to create unlimited Instagram accounts on my phone or web browser.

How rapid is your account growth?

What do you consider realistic growth for an account you aren't willing to risk getting banned?

With Instagram's recent changes I personally find a 200-300 growth rate per day is good.

 

[Aaron W]

Thank you for the reply. Do most of these come from follow/unfollows, liking multiple photos from their accounts or a combination?

I follow and like images currently.

Testing the option of following people who have commented on another users photos.

 

[Aaron W]

And its max 5 per device? so as you have more I take it you have multiple devices all with the max of 5 reached on each one? Say like an ipad and iphone with 5 on each?

My 5 main accounts I care about are on my phone, 5 others on another phone then the rest I log in on a browser/never log on and let them grow.

 

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[Aaron W]

thanks mate appreciate it, one last question when it test it and find out if I can or not, doesn't that run the risk of instagram banning my accounts ?

It could possibly, its best to do all testing on new accounts to see the effect. However, remember when running new accounts they are always at a much higher percentage to get banned than established accounts.

 

[Aaron W]

But does it run the risk of old ones getting banned as they could be linked to new ones also?

I have no idea. I don't work at Instagram so I have no idea how their system traces for users

My banned accounts haven't had a chain reaction on other accounts. They probably only flag your IP.

 

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[Aaron W]

How is followliker itself? Worth the price?

I'm looking at creating useful bots soon.

The Bot creator is probably making a tidy sum these days with the quantity of SM utilizers.(assumption)

Sorry for derailing the thread, in advance.

Never had a problem with it. Run's smooth and basically does everything you want it to do.

Can be confusing for new users though.


Frequent updates, support staff and strong user guide for advanced settings make it worth it in my opinion.

 

[Aaron W]

Thanks for the info Aaron. I started automating my Instagram 3 days ago. It's a new account I created for my business. In 3 days I got 28 followers... This is with very conservative settings as it is a new account and with very targeted (location, construction) settings. I really love the auto uploading of pictures. I have a library of 500+ pictures I have taken over the past two years, it works great. @RoofingPaving

I'm gonna add more options for the picture captions... I'm using only one at the time.

After how many days can I start turning up the settings to follow/unfollow more people? I don't want to risk getting shut down. I'm currently at daily follow limit 38-62

Thanks again for the great info

I would say every 2 days tune the settings up a little bit each by 20 if you want to keep safe

 

[Aaron W]

For arguments sake, could you start 5/6 accounts in male niches (beards, success quotes, cars, muscle, hairstyles) and then start stores with products that would appeal to these niches like beard oils, hair products, cosmetics, supplements etc. and then promote these brands (their instagrams and their websites directly) on the niche instagrams? I'm not so sure how effective this strategy would be a surely there are a lot of people using this same strategy, would you need a product with a USP rather than just a generic beard oil for example to stand out from the crowd?

I'm sure it would work, on Instagram your basically just driving free unpaid traffic to your products.

At the end of the day though like you said, they product needs to be good - you can just sell any old thing on it and expect/chase money.

 

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[Aaron W]

Thanks for all the info, I just started trying this out the other day after reading the other AMA that died out. I setup 1 account and in 4 days I am up to 1100 followers, all I am doing is liking targeted followers of big accounts in my niche. I want to get 30+ accounts going though, I am creating my own ecommerce store and what better way to advertise then reaching out to millions of people for free you know? I have a few questions if you don't mind though.

I purchased 5 proxies, and 6 "aged" IG accounts to test out, I currently have 3 IG accounts that I switch back and forth with on my phone, I am wondering if I can login to the IG accounts that I bought and setup the profiles/bio from my phone before I start using the bot on them through proxies, would I be risking the accounts by doing that?

Also I plan to just completely automate most of the accounts I start up, but for a handful of the accounts I would like to bot them and login to them through my phone so I can add hashtags and post photos reliably (I've been having trouble posting photos through FL, also with it adding hashtags), if I wanted to do that should I just run those accounts through my own IP and not through a proxy and just put all the ones I am going to completely automate on the proxies?

1) There would be a minor risk, I generally do it though, however if you can connect via the proxy you will use it will be safer.

2) Run the accounts on your own IP (the ones you want to specifically have control over/don't want to loose)

Good luck with the journey, the best thing is just to test out different ideas and see what works best for you

 

[the great one]

Do you have any actual advice to attract real targeted followers, potential customers for an account hosting a product/brand?

I actually see these follow/unfollowers every day on my page, pretty annoying.

What I'm noticing is that the key here is to post consistent, fresh, UNIQUE content.

I have three different pages that I'm 'playing' with and do not use the follow/unfollow method at all and they all have around 10k followers. By far, I see the best engagement on the page that is all unique content that I personally create. I generate anywhere between 500-1500 likes on a post within 24 hours on this page. On another page that I have, with a similar number of followers, I routinely see about 100-150 likes on a post in 24 hours. This page is all regurgitated content. Another thing to point out, I've been running the latter for about three times longer than I've been running the former, and they are both equal on the number of followers.

 

[Cosepreziose]

Hi Aaron,
Thanks for the amazing thread, it is exactly what I hoped to find. I have just two questions, I have tried looking on Google but I couldn't find anything really helpful.

Is it possible to make follow liker post images from a folder without me having to add them one by one on the query?
I would set 9-10 different captions that would just be assigned to pics randomly, than FL would post let's say, 2 pics per day from the said folder?
Or you must add every single pic you want to be posted on the query?
Also, how cam I put the emojis in the captions when using FL?

Last question, this is more genral about FL: do internet disconnections mess up with the bot? Like, if I have a query making the bot posting a pic every 8 hours, and my internet go down, will this 8 hours countdown reset?

Thank you in advance for your help

 

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