Hi folks, good to see you here!
This might be a long post but it'll be worth reading how I grew my instagram account from 0-1500 real followers in 8 days! I will show you how I get up to 50 comments on every new post, how I get free shoutouts from big accounts in my niche, and how you can earn #money (monetize) your Instagram account. I will also show you how to use hashtags the right way and where to find them!
Not many people want to tell you this because it's boring and it's not a 'secret formula' but it's what needs to be done to get the ball rolling. When I started my account, I had zero followers so the first thing I did was I uploaded 9 photos so the account didn't look so bare. I picked out some beautiful photos from other pages within the same niche, but always making sure to credit the owner in the caption! They're always happy to get some extra free promotion. The next thing was to get my name in front of the eyes of people. The simplest way to do this is to engage! #Instagramgrowth
#Instagram is a SOCIAL network. If you just constantly post and do not engage with anybody you're account will never grow. So I liked, commented and folllowed a lot of the big pages within my niche. I looked in to their followers and followed as many of them as I could as well. Every so often I unfollowed those who didn't follow me back. And this is how it started. Engaging with other people is simply the only way to start but it should be continued all the time, even if your account grows into the thousands of even millions of followers you should always engage! A good way to get engagement is uploading viral going videos or great pictures that already gets lots of engagement, just copy them! To upload video's you can use a app called ‘Browser’. You can download the video and upload them on your page without getting any watermark. Be sure you always credit the owner of the video or picture. All of this will help you getting be seen by lots of users.
Your Name and Bio
The first step to creating a good Instagram account is to find a creative name and bio; this is essential! Make sure that your name is, in fact, your name! (By this, I mean the “name” field in your profile, not your Instagram username).
People searching for you on Instagram will likely use your name or your company’s name, and consistency let people know that the Instagram profile they’re viewing actually belongs to you and not an impostor. This might seem pretty obvious, but there’s actually a bigger reason for it: your name and username are the only fields that Instagram considers in search queries. Add in a few keywords and even a couple of hashtags to ensure you’re easily findable by the right kind of followers.
So it’s really important to make sure that the name you use in your Instagram Bio is the one your followers and customers are searching for! Because it works as a hashtag. But that doesn’t mean you can’t spruce things up a bit! Do you have a specialty or industry niche? Do you offer a specific service? Are you known for something in particular? You can include those details in your name as well!
Shoutouts
Once your account grows to any respectable number you should start looking for other accounts within your niche with a similar follower size. Find these accounts and asks for a shoutout in return for a shoutout. Basically what this means is that you post on your own account and mention them and they do the same. You cross promote each others accounts to your followers. Instagram is massive! So no account has two identical set of followers. This is probably the single best strategy for growing your account fast! *Important +: do not bother asking accounts that are far larger than yours for a #shoutout unless you have something else to offer them. Focus on finding accounts similar to your own size.
You can also buy shoutouts or sell and earn money with them! How awesome is that? Check it out here: http://bit.ly/shoutoutcart
Affiliate Marketing
#affiliatemarketing basically means that you promote and sell a product and you'll earn a part of the profit which is called a commission. You’ll often see bloggers doing this on their website with sidebar banners promoting their partners (affiliates) or even through specific product inspired posts. Well, it’s not much different with Instagram.
With Instagram, you post attractive images highlighting their products and drive sales through your affiliate URL (this should be provided by your affiliate).
There are quite a few companies you can work with. Here are some of them:
• *Sharesale +: find companies you want to work with, sign up for their affiliate program, get approved then start
promoting. In some programs, it's easier to get approved if you have a blog or website.
• *Ebates +: refer people that love deals & discounts to get a commission.
• *Stylinity +: great for fashion bloggers. When people shop and use your link, you'll get a commission.
You can put your affiliate URL on your captions or on your bio. You can either use bitly.com to shorten and customize your affiliate link OR you can hook up your blog and Instagram profile so that when people purchase through your link, you get a sale.
It really couldn’t be easier. This type of marketing is particularly popular with clothing on Instagram, as you can post your “OOTD” (outfit of the day) with the affiliate link sending followers to your full outfit details.
For those involved in the travel industry (or simply those that love to travel – ahem, all of us!), you could try to set up and use affiliate marketing when taking part in reviews for hotels and venues. Simply direct followers to book through your link! It’s also great for beauty bloggers, as you can invite people to “shop the look.” These methods are subtle and, as such, more effective than a direct sales type pitch.
Brands don’t typically require a formal brand ambassadorship for creators of sponsored content, but it’s common for them to tap certain influencers for content time and time again. However, it’s important that any brands or products you promote are a good fit for your own personal image on Instagram. The idea is to show off brands that you can personally get behind, and to show your followers how that brand fits into your lifestyle.
• TapInfluence is a great tool for Instagram creators who are looking for opportunities for sponsored content,
and it takes the guesswork out of the process of aligning with brands. You create a profile that describes you and
the nature of your content, and brands who are interested in working with you will invite you to programs!
• Ifluenz is another easy tool as you can browse matching available campaigns created by a variety of brands
and directly promote the ones you prefer.
Sell Your Photos or Presets
An obvious one, surely? Why not use Instagram for it sole purpose… to showcase your photography? If you’re a professional (or amateur but keen!) photographer, Instagram is a great way to advertise and sell your shots to either individuals or agencies. Add a watermark to your snaps and use the captions to list all selling details in a concise manner. As always, make sure that you have an active presence so that the right type of accounts are following you. Use appropriate hashtags to pull people towards your shots and get a conversation going with influential photography agencies. There are also a few sites that you can use to actually put your Instagram photos for sale, including: https://www.twenty20.com/ & http://community.foap.com/ and you can also offer your own used presets, save them and sell them!
Comment Groups
The next insider trick I have for you is #comment groups! Nobody else will admit this but all influencers on instagram are involved in comment groups. You can find these on #facebook (search for “Instagram engagement groups and pods”). These are groups where everybody goes into each others accounts and comments on the image to boost enagement. I am personally invloved in about 15 of these groups. You simply message the group when you have posted a new photo and all the other members like and comment on your post!
Hashtag THE RIGHT WAY
Instagram allows you to use up to 30 hashtags. But because of the changed algorithm the rule is now to use not more then 27 hashtags! You should also not comment any hashtags in a comment under your photo. I know, it might look better, but you have to put the hashtags in the description of the post. I got shadow banned by instagram a few times when I put my hashtags in a comment and since I'm putting them in the description, I don't have any problems with that anymore! Getting shadow banned means that your post will not be visible under the hashtags you've used so that way you can not be seen by other profiles then the ones following you!
You can find up-to-date top used 2018 hashtags here: http://bit.ly/tophashtags2018
Influence the Influencers
Once you have an account with a following of 5000+ you are able to barter with influencers. You can offer them promotion on your account in return for them promoting your product. Most new or small influencers are more than happy to promote a product in return for promotion themselves. You can even use your network of similar pages and comment groups to promote them if you like.
***TIP****
I have been able to build my accounts up to 1500 followers within 8 days using these strategies. If you want to skip some of the hard work and get an extra boost you can use this app called: Stim. It's an instagram bot which will get you a lot of real followers because you choose your own audience. This app works great, I’ve also used it. Many people decide to buy fake followers, but these fake accounts do not allow interaction or addition. With this app, you will get more organic followers who are actually interested in what you do!
It is a powerful Instagram growth service and will increase your account, all day long and overnight. Specify your audience so real people and real results. First thing you need to do is to make an account. After that you can target minimal 5 Instagram accounts in example (travel niche) I would take “Travelgram” or “Travelandleisure”. As an Entrepreneur I would target: Entrepreneur, Millionaire_Mentor etc. Anyway, big Instagram accounts with a lot of followers and in your type of niche. Stim will be interacting with those followers and likers. So this auto-pilot system will save you a lot of time! The app will post automated comments which you can create yourself, it follows and unfollows people and ofcourse it likes pictures. You can also create a message which you can use for ‘directmessage’. You can allow and automate it if you want to send it to every new follower you get, which also saves a lot of time if you have a business and you're trying to sell a service or product or even if you want to send someone your link to join your facebook community for example. The trial will be free for 5 days. It really helped me gain even more followers!
Try it now for FREE here: http://bit.ly/growinstagram5days
I hope this post gave you a lot of valuable information about how to start, grow and monetize your instagram account. And I hope that you can use one or more tips I shared. Let me know in the comments what you think of the post please and maybe even how it helped you! Thank you in advance and I wish you a great day!
Add me on instagram if you want to connect or for more information send me a DM here: http://instagram.com/madefortheseaside