Instagram Marketing ($100K+ profit, 4M followers)

[Aaron W]

So my girlfriend got 1000 users in her first 9 days. Seems like her fans really dig the content too. A question - twice now she had something like 50-100 followers just dissapear at once. Any ideas what could cause this? She's done everything organically except one time running instagress for about two hours but it was pretty much useless for her.

• Instagram clear up fake accounts.
• People don't dig the content
• Could be people she unfollowed, they will unfollow you (this is good because they generally just follow you because you did and won't engage on your content 80/100 times)
• running instagress for two hours won't do too much btw

 

[Rawr]

So my girlfriend's account is growing steadily, hit 4k today. She has really good engagement - 5% is pretty usual per post in likes, sometimes more. Once she gets to 5k she wants to see about making some money, but I don't want her to just put her stuff on fiver or something crappy like that -how would you guys go about making more money with specific clients. Like, her thing is girls, women. Other women product IG's in her niche would be intersted, I just don't know what kind of $ are we talking about when her IG is only 5k followers or so.

on the other hand, having IG in a niche is pretty cool because you can use cross promotion. I gave her a shoutout on a niche forum that fit well, and now she is going to give me a shoutout on her page via an organic post. Kind of cool, piggybacking like that


she also got her first competitor about 3 weeks ago. I'd bet this guy has many IG's, he racks up numbers pretty well, but you can tell its not an actual person caring about the account, its a pro. Not sure how to compete with that, what my gf did was block this user from seeing her page as he was stealing a lot of her stuff. I told her welcome to business

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Aaron W]

This is something that I definitely need to do a little research on as I have next to no knowledge on how proxies work.. If it's not a loaded question (I don't know what I don't know! ) how would I utilize the proxies in regards to instagram accounts?

Do I just need to change the proxy after every 5 so that instagram doesn't see that my ip address is making a bunch of accounts - and then I'm in the clear once the account has been created?

Or, if I had 40 IG accounts like @JimD, do I have to have every 5 accounts "live" on a separate proxy in order for them to work with FollowLiker and not get banned?

Forgive my ignorance, I plan to do a little research on this tonight as this entire subject is pretty interesting.. But any direction would be awesome!

So basically in a broken down form:

1. If you start automating 5+ accounts. Then this applies.
2. FollowLiker has a feature where you can enter proxy information.
3. This information is gained after purchasing a proxy.
4. You need to purchase one proxy for every additional set of 5 accounts you have.
5. Therefore, if you had 10 accounts, you need to have two separate IP's relating to each 'set of five'.
6. If you have 15 accounts, you would run 5 accounts on your home/VPN IP, 5 on your first proxy and the final 5 on your other proxy (Total of 2 proxies required to be purchased)
7. *remember the more differentiation, the safer the accounts. Some people run 1 proxy to every 3 accounts to increase safety.

If you're looking in to proxies, speak with the company you're interested in and tell them your purpose.

Make sure they're clear with your proxies intentions and they they will ensure your accounts are sale (a lot of people will say sure just to get the sale).

Let me know if you need any other help.

 

[Mikkel]

So what do you think about my growth so far using Instagress only. I'm keeping a log on excel, how my account grows, methods I use and for how long I run each method for.

I just turned a full week 7 days since I started using instagress. By using tags associated with my niche, and liking and commenting targeting users using those tags, I have gained 114 followers in a week. So in total I have 225 followers and I'm following 119. With 60 reposts, with 50+ likes each post.

If you are using slow settings I guess that is okay. I don't use comments as this is thought of as spammy. To be honest, when I used Instagress I didn't find myself really gaining the followers as I was gaining on FollowLiker. I don't know if there targeting strategy was different compared to FollowLiker, but I saw a very slow increase in followers.

What I suggest is this @Carlitos
For 7 days, like 100 photos every OTHER hour, MANUALLY. Make sure you are liking only the first photo from each persons account. When you go looking for people to like photos do the following steps:
1. Go to a niche related account with a lot of followers(this account must be currently active)
2. Go to their most recent photo(it would be best if this photo could be 5 minutes since post, this is because the people that liked the photo will have been on within the last 5 minutes.)
3. On that recently posted photo, go to the likes section and go through each persons account and like their first photo.


If your account is brand new, I suggest you only do this 4x(400 likes in total, 100 likes /2 hours) and do this until you account is 2 weeks old. Then you can do this up to 8x after that.

I bet you will gain a LOT more followers this way if you have decent content on your Instagram.

 

[Mikkel]

Appreciate the reply! Is there a way to know which query in FollowLiker is giving the best results? Right now the way I'm finding people to follow is I'm thinking myself, if I were my target prospect who would I follow.

I have it set to follow the followers from 3 big accounts, to follow the people who've liked their most recent picture, and to follow anyone who's commented on their most recent picture. Plus, I have some queries for it to follow anyone who uses a general tag related to my niche. My gut says that the general tags like "motivation" and "dreambig" might be giving me the streaky results because it's not targeted enough.

What are your thoughts

If you are using Follow liker check out my video in my signature. It's got my settings I use, which may help you. I typically don't use hashtag to target because, like you said, it is not always very targeted . Plus, you are missing all those people who are not posting photos but who are just IG lurkers.

I think my video should give you some good info as it is my exact setup that I use. As for who to follow, the simple answer is this:
If, for example, you are an Instagram account for surfers that are selling surfboards, then the people you should be following is accounts that sell surfboards. The people who like and follow those other account are more likely to follow your account than just any person following a surfing account.

You will also notice in my video that I do not follow people. Totally your choice but I choose to like photos as it is more ethical since I do not have to unfollow people. The liking process provides a better experience for all my followers.

On my largest account I get about 20-30 new DM's every day from new followers. A good majority of them are thanking me for liking their photo... even though an automated bot did that. What they don't know, doesn't hurt them and it also provides a good feeling for my followers.

 

[Mikkel]

When you want to post pictures with motivational quotes from successful people. Can you just take them from the Internet? How do I know, whether I am allowed to post a certain picture or not?

I usually just screenshot photos from Instagram and give the person credit. I have been doing this for about a year now and I MAY have only had one incident where the person said to change the @account name to their main account. Most people on Instagram know that their photos get taken for other peoples use. They appreciate those account who give them credit, as it drives new followers to their page as well.

I'd like to find certain popular accounts in the entrepreneur niche, maybe using keyword searching, like Garyvee. Then start liking 3 recent pictures of the accounts liking his pics. This should gain me followers amirite?

Do I have to follow other accounts to do this? I would prefer not to follow anyone at all on my account if thats possible.

You don't need to follow other peoples accounts if you don't want too.

I have a video on how I set up my FollowLiker account that is in my signature. Whether you watch it or not, make sure your settings are targeting your audience correctly.

My opinion about liking 3 photos per account is this:
You may see a slight increase in the likelihood of a single person following you if you like 3 photos as opposed to one. However, you are guaranteed to reach only 1/3 of the people if you like that many photos per account. Remember, you have a limited number of likes per day.

From what I have read, great thread. I started playing with instagam for business not too long ago.

I did notice recently, as in the last 6 months or so, the traction I get out of a post has gotten cut down significantly.

As said before by MJ, Instagram changed their algorithm from a timeline based feed to a new feed that is catered to each individual. People who engage with certain accounts more often will see those accounts posts at the top of their feed, as long as they were recently posted.

It is beneficial for larger accounts and less beneficial for those smaller accounts. However, if you can gain more engagement by posting more engaging photos, using correct hashtags and getting new followers to like your newest posts, you should start to see this new algorithm benefit you more than hurt you.

 

[Mikkel]

Thanks! A couple hundred rep+ to you.

What specifically are the metrics that Instagram has announced are the determining factors of the algorithm?

How did you deal with it?

To give you an idea about my account. I have about 7 thousand followers obtained the old fashioned way and post 5-7 times per week. I used to get 200-300 likes for a good post and now a good one gets me 120-140.

I also signed up for Instagress to gain more followers. I'm running it on slow, but will turn it up little by little. Methodically. The right way so I don't screw it up.

Any recommendations for me?

Thanks in advance for this amazing value.

I do not know the specific metrics, as I don't think Instagram will want to release this. However, I have noticed that the more you check out a specific profile the more likely you are to see their next post, so your goal is to make people want to check out your new posts. The only way to do this is to create a brand or image that makes people want to see what you post. The easiest way to do this is to target those accounts that already are interested in the types of photos you post.

Now, I also believe that those that are getting high engagement per photo will be more likely to rank higher on the feed, but that is mere speculation as I have not experimented enough to see if this proves to be correct. If this is the case, then gaining new followers through Instagress or FollowLiker will be extremely beneficial. This is because these new followers will be on your account page, so you want these people to engage with your most recent photos.

My account was never hit hard with this algorithm because I never spammed my post, like so many of my competitor did. That set me apart from everyone else. People know that I post once every day/other day and so they will look for my photos. They know they are quality photos as well with no hashtags(opposed to 20 spammy hashtags in the description.) I believe that my long term strategy of perceiving myself as a big influencer, even before I had a large following, allowed people to look at my account in more of a positive light. To say each of my long term strategies would be like writing a novel though. Some of them may work while others may just be my neurotic self trying to justify why I do certain things on Instagram.

Social factors play a big role in this as well. Everything from how many photos you post, to the amount of followers to following ratio all play into a psychological factor with how likely they will view your Instagram. This is one reason why accounts reach millions of followers. People view these accounts as big influences in that specific niche and are more compelled to follow.

I have not used Instagress for more than the 3 day period, but I believe it is somewhat similar to FollowLiker. My suggestion, to get the most out of the program, is to target your target audience by finding niche related accounts and targeting their audience.

The process for the bot should look like this:

Your Account(@FastCars) --> Find 15 accounts that post fast cars ---> Instagress will go to each account and like their MOST RECENT photo

Make sure these 15 accounts are currently active and has a large following.

If you'd like, send me a message with your Instagram account. It is difficult for me to say exactly how you should approach your Instagram as each account is different. I might be able to give you a few suggestions.

Anyways, good job @Kak on gaining 7K followers the old fashion way! That is quite good; imagine how many followers you can gain by liking photos with Instagress

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

Instagress has been forced to shutdown today by Instagram...

Hasn't Instagram declined in its value to promote products?

Kinda like Facebook pages are now essentially worthless unless you want to pay to have your posts boosted?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RazorCut]

I don't think anyone should be solely relying on Instagress or any automated service to drive their business. At best, Instagram should be used as another platform to advertise. The soul fact that Instagram can ban your account because they want to should prove that no one should rely solely on any one platform.

You misunderstood me. When I said ignore the commandment of control I meant Instagress, not Instagram users. Instagress built their castle on the sands. With that foundation it was only a matter of time before the tide came in and washed those foundations away.

A fundamental law of business is NEVER have all your eggs in one basket. It's why I think the current 'in thing' of building a business selling own branded goods through Amazon is flawed. Even if Amazon doesn't shut you down you are playing constant ping-pong with the competition in a never ending spiral of customer acquisition through trying to own the Buy Button. Play that game and see your margins shrivel. Also if you do well with a product not only do you set yourself up as a target from other sellers, Amazon themselves will source that product directly and cut you out of the equation. I have had direct personal experience of this.

It's why the smart people like @AllenCrawley have built their own sites so successfully that they have surpassed their Amazon sales. They have the foresight to see the dangers lurking just around the corner.

 

[PaulRobert]

Hasn't Instagram declined in its value to promote products?

Yes and no. I think IG users have become accustomed to ads on IG and it hasn't deterred them from using the app. The big thing that I have noticed though is that your ads on IG better be on point or the comment section will be flame central for your product or biz.

Use highly edited pics or ones that are aesthetically pleasing. I've seen local businesses in the area (lets saying plumbing service) use absolute shit images of their dirty truck and copy that is atrocious. The comments: "I wouldn't even consider using this service with such a crappy ad."


This big thing here is definitely the law of Control. People that solely relied on IG as a source of income using Instagress or other bots are scrambling to figure out the next move. Your IG and other social media accounts should just be another extension of outreach for your brand.

But you know it's easier to sign up for an account and pay for a bot than actually WORK on building a brand.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MakeMoreMoves]

Just started building an Instagram page 4 days ago. Realized I should have been doing this years ago. Building an Instagram page in my niche, but not the business name. I realized that if I immediately try to grow my business page directly, it comes off as salesly. So the page I'm building is just a generic niche page and with this page, I will promote my business.

Sucks that Facebook has literally no organic reach and that you have to do some sort of giveaway/contest to even get any engagement on your ads for a physical product unless it is a sham wow product that could be demonstrated well in video.

Got a temporary ban by follow/unfollow yesterday :/

 

[DrunkFish]

Promoting offers, the followers are coming from IG and sfs (shout for shout). So definitely add your Snapchat to your IG bio, tell them in all your captions on your uploads to add your snapchat account too! Health/workout snapchats would kill it!

And not every single IG, only if there is a product in that niche to promote then I would create a snapchat for it.

Your niche should tell you all your deals that would be able to promote.

Clothing is very interesting to me, I've been researching a lot about it lately shopify/fb ads/instagram, tons of female users on IG

But how do you find and get the offer deals is what I was asking. Also just out of curiosity, with 40 accounts, are you just logging in and out every time you need to interact? I know you have a bot but I'm sure you need to actually log on every once in a while. Unless the bot lets you have 40 accounts on it and you can use IG noramlly through it.

 

[Hurdlerwayne]

I am not spending any money to promote or expand my accounts other then paying for proxy services which is around $46 a month to have them up and running, I grow them all through my bot.


I can't really say as I've never paid for shoutouts, but if you check http://featurehub.com/shop/ most of the big accounts on there are legit and that's what you can expect to pay.

But as I told @TheKing you should really work out a deal with the page owners for guaranteed followers, "so say you want 1k new followers, you would make a deal with the page owner to shout you out till you get the 1k followers." instead of paid hourly shoutouts. Contact them directly through kik or email.



What makes Snapchat amazing is it's like a private moment, a 1 on 1 sales channel.

The users don't know how many people are following you, they don't have any distractions (likes, comments, social pressure) all they see is what's being put right in front of them. And if you're a great marketer boy oh boy...

So for the spatula example, assuming you have spatula fanatics following you. This is like QVC in the palm of your hands..!

I would create stories revolving around the lifestyle of spatula users, cooking, baking etc. Stories of it in action flipping, lifting, spreading. Marketing 101, you show and record exactly what they can do with it. You talk about and show them why it's the best and why silicone beats the regular boring spatulas etc.

This is your private 1 on 1 channel right to your customers.

Then, every now and then you add a textbar with your BuyMySpecialSpatualaHere.com in your snaps.

You would not believe how many people exit the app and actually type in the domain(this is why I was hesitant with Snapchat at first, nothing clickable) but believe me they do! I've made x,xxx days in profit using Snapchat!

And another pro tip is having Snapchat takeovers. Basically a takeover is having someone famous or influential in your niche log into your account and do a "takeover" for the day and create stories for you. So in the spatula example, I would try my hardest to get the Queen Spatula on to promote/showcase my products.

From my experience everyone is on Snapchat nowadays. And it's only growing.



Some of the more popular commercial ones are:
instagress, igerslike, and followliker

I created an account that I sell T-shirts on and it took about 5 months to get to 11.5k. Followliker has been a very good asset for growing quickly. I am having problems with conversions though. It seems like i'm always getting comments on how nice my shirts are and visitors to my site, but they don't convert well. My conversion rate is 0.3% aka horrible. What kind of settings do you use to grow your page and what are your most successful niches if you don't mind me asking?

 

[BlakeRVA]

1. More control
2. I looked into Pinterest a bit in the beginning of my social media journey but I got Instagram down faster so I put my main focus on it.

What factors did you feel you did not have enough control over in pre-established platforms for automation?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JimD]

Is there any good bots that follow niche specific accounts or something like that? That can just follow thousands of accounts?

Check the commercial ones I've listed here: instagress, igerslike, and followliker

 

[JimD]

Could you explain what the follow/unfollow method is? Is it the same as shout for shout? I just want to know what to avoid exactly.

The follow/unfollow method is basically what it says, you follow people with the intent that they follow you back. Then after a certain amount of time you unfollow them. You then repeat this process over and over again to gain followers.

 

[TJPB]

Thanks for the great AMA @JimD ....some very good info in here!

 

[BaraQueenbee]

Great read!

Thank you for this, about to experiment with mine now

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JimD]

Thanks for your response. I'm thinking about hitting the ground running, buying a bot and setting this up.

One more concern, what are some mistakes I must absolutely avoid? Like a top three?

You've mentioned you've lost some pretty big accounts already.

Please read all my previous posts in this thread as I've answered a lot of the questions you've asked already.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[JimD]

Great thread! I am going to get follow liker today to test everything out. A couple of questions:

1. After how many followers did you start to see results?

2. Do you use the hashtag method where in the hashtags it says [HASHTAG]#seethelink[/HASHTAG] [HASHTAG]#onmyprofile[/HASHTAG] -- I read about that and seems like its worth a shot


Signed up for peerfly, seems I need to be approved, they emailed me wanting more information?

For people are looking FL, I found this online

http://imristo.com/the-ultimate-followliker-instagram-tutorial/

1. I wouldn't say it's necessarily followers, my benchmark is likes/engagement. So when my uploads are getting around 500-1k likes consistently and within a 24 hour period then I'll most likely start monetizing that account.

2. I don't use hashtags very often, only on small acccounts in the very beginning.

And yes, most CPA networks have a screening process.

What does that mean for us?

More opportunities.

 

[JimD]

So I must be doing something wrong then.

When I target my likes should I go broad like [HASHTAG]#business[/HASHTAG] or narrow like [HASHTAG]#sellingonebay[/HASHTAG]?

I will take closer look at some of the best pages in my niche and make some adjustments.

I like to target a big page's followers within my niche instead of hashtags.

 

[Crissco]

I don't have FL... I would try and send an email to them.

Ok cool, just making sure...For targeting, you target the followers that are following this big pages within the niche? Thats an amazing idea, since people are like "sheep" and flock, next person they flock to you..Is you

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[AllenCrawley]

Has anybody tried Instagress? That's what we have been using with decent results. There is even an option to target accounts rather than tags. Is follow liker any better?

I've been using Instagress for some time. A few days ago I switched over to liking photos of followers of certain accounts. Seems like there are more following back vs liking photos with certain tags. It will like 5 photos of each account.

 

[eliquid]

Hello,

The thing is one other commenter here posted saying he passed 5,000 followers in 5 weeks. Now it's not unfair to look at theirs then look at mine and ask "what are they doing differently" so I can do the same. I understand being patient, but what I'm really trying to do is eliminate any common mistakes I'm making on IG. I feel that I'm being held back somewhere, that's all.

The problem is, I think your account is only 2-3 days old right? Not 5 weeks.

If true, you assume he maybe got the same amount of followers per day over 5 weeks to hit 5,000. That would be 5,000 followers divided by 35 days which is 142 followers a day.

However, what if it is more like a snowball rolling down a hill?

Where the first week maybe he only had 142 TOTAL followers, the second week 500 followers, the third week 1,200, the fourth week 2,500 and the fifth week 5,000.

When you look at it like that, your account might be on the right track already and working perfectly fine.

 

[JimD]

One thing I did not find answered is how often do you (OP) post new content? 5-10 posts daily?

What about copyright issues for the content you post?

And considering your numbers, you make around 250$ per account per month?

I post about every 4 hours per account.

Already answered this.

Not all accounts make money(mostly concerning new/low accounts), and some accounts more so than others.

 

[eliquid]

Thank you.

I was looking into Follow Liker, and I see that your computer must be on all the time to run it constantly. I guess the software you use is similar? Or is it cloud based? If it is software like FollowLiker, how do you go about keeping your PC on? Do you Use VPS for that?

Is this really an issue? I have been doing online stuff for nearly 2 decades and I maybe turn my desktop off once every 3-4 months. My laptop goes to "sleep" more often, but I could keep it on 24/7 too if I didn't travel with it and made it a dedicated machine on my desk.

If keeping your desktop or laptop on is an issue, just buy a windows VPS from a company like powerup hosting.

Note to people interested in followliker:

This thing has stopped working for me twice now and I've had it for less than a week. It refuses to start up. It may be many things, but reliable isn't one of them.

I've had mine for 8 days and it runs like a champ. No issues what so ever.

I'd look into how you have it setup/what system you have it running on.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Phillipbro]

Where do you get your new content to post?

Download "instasave" on the android. Lets you enter a user and scrapes and saves all posts from that one user. Also get yourself "andy" its an android emulator for PC. Makes everything very easy to manage on the PC instead of having to use your phone.

 

[RazorCut]

This caused our follower rate to 10X again. Is there a bot that will like and follow people who like content based on user or tags?

I think this is a good tactic as liking/following an account this is currently active is much more likely to see a response.

FollowLiker scraper setting can be set to gather users who liked, commented, tagged, are in a specific location, followed, follower and suggested users. If you couple that with setting your scrape to top results only and set your scrape user limit relatively low you should be able to get exactly what you require.

 

[RazorCut]

I like what you have written @eliquid but not sure on this:

Post things outside your niche randomly sometimes. An account that's all about 1 topic looks odd to people after a while.

I think keeping your niche tight and to the point is exactly what followers like. If I was following a diving account I don't want to see pictures that are not relevant as it's not what I started to follow the account for after all.

The reason I am pointing this out is that I have had some great comments about the quality of the images and flow of the gallery. However I did experiment and have posted a couple of slightly off topic images and there have been negative comments and very little interaction with likes down over 75% for those pics.

Now it might just be my niche so YMMV but that has been my findings.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Guest12120]

JimD, are you using any 3rd party software to schedule your posts? If so, can you share with us what you're using. Thank you in advance.

Everything was explained many times in the posts above.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.