It will cover everything, from creating, growing and monetizing your Instagram accounts.
We will explain the same method we used at Toofame for growing more than 1437 Instagram
accounts over a course of 4 years.
If you are interested in learning how to create and maintain your Instagram accounts properly,
avoid being banned and get money out of it, this guide will be perfect for you.
Chapter #1: How To Get Followers
If you have no followers, you won’t get any attention or engagement.
At the beginning people mostly make these 2 mistakes:
●They buy fake followers and end up with no engagement on the account.
● They are not following the right people so the attention they get doesn’t monetize well.
So, here are a few ways in which you can grow your followers base:
#1 Following/Unfollowing
A lot of people don’t think this method is good enough, but from our experience, following and
unfollowing is still one of the most practical methods you can use to grow an account with
targeted followers.
Most people will be glad to follow you back, particularly if you have a professional and appealing
profile. Of course, you won’t see a high follow back number if all you’ve got is a default profile
picture and a CPA link in your bio!
The most important thing at the very start is to create a visually attractive profile to see the
advantages of this method.
Who should you follow?
People you want to attract to your account using the need to be targeted. For example, following
people who follow bigger accounts in your niche is a great strategy to grow your targeted
audience.
Another way of finding your targeted audience is following individuals who like posts from bigger
accounts in your niche. Since they already like content that is similar to yours, there’s a good
probability that they’ll follow you back when they see your Instagram account.
How frequently should you follow?
If you are looking for the long-term benefits with your Instagram accounts, we suggest you do
everything slow and substantially. It is also good to make a few short-term accounts that you
can use for testing various strategies and understand the limits.
Growing a new account
When you have a new account make sure to keep your following numbers controlled.
In the beginning, try to follow between 5 - 15 people at the max. The more you distribute your
following schedule, the more normal your account will look. You can use this period to fill out
your account - post some pictures, write your bio an add relevant profile picture.
When your account starts to age, you can begin to follow more. It’s good for a new account to
slowly rise to following 20, 30, 40 and later more than 50 people a day.
Establishing your Instagram account
You can speed up the process after you wormed up your account for a week or two. You should
maintain a steady amount of posting, liking and commenting so your account appears natural.
One basic rule is to make changes gradually.
Don’t jump unexpectedly from following 25 to 100 people a day just because your account has
aged a bit. The best way to stay under the radar is to make slow increases in follows with
random numbers.
With an account that’s 1- 2 weeks old, it can be safe to move up to follow more than 50 a day, if
you increase the number of people you follow by 5 - 10 people each day.
With a truly aged account, you can safely follow 60 people an hour. At this point, your account
will be a few months old, and you will already have a few thousand followers.
Unfollowing process
People will more likely follow your account when you have a higher follower to following ratio
because it establishes your account as an authority and you can leverage that reputation.
One mistake that most new marketers make is that they start unfollowing too early.
Try to wait until you’re following at least 5000 ~ 7500 people before you begin the unfollowing
process. Also, your following schedule has to be adjusted, so you don’t follow and unfollow
people on the same day. The best way to control this is to follow/unfollow manually, or to use
software programs that have scheduling features.
On Instagram, you are allowed to follow a maximum of 7500 people.
Pending requests made to accounts that are private will also count as your total following
number. Sometimes is best to ignore private accounts because pending requests can quickly
add up to your total number.
Following/unfollowing at the same time
Your goal is to make your account look as natural as possible, following and unfollow at the
same time doesn’t seem like a normal behavior for an account. It is recommended to keep your
following and unfollowing for different days and only unfollow certain people.
#2 Shoutouts Trading (S4S)
Shoutoutpost is a great website where you can build up your new accounts. It connects you with
other Instagram users to trade shoutouts.
And the great part is that it’s free.
All you have to do is search for people to exchange with. If you do it right, you can also find
long-term partners.
Before using this website, you should have at least 2000 followers. If you only have a couple of
hundred followers, it’ll be hard to grow your account on Shoutoutpost.
Shoutoutpost curates a list of all their users so you can browse through. You will get basic stats
such as most recent posts and number of followers. To be more effective, you can execute
searches by niche.
When you spot an account you’re interested in, send them a Trade Request. If they accept it in
the next 48 hours, you’ll get a request from the other person that is looking for a shoutout as
well.
Shoutoutpost is of mutual benefit to both parties and it can supplement your
following/unfollowing strategy.
Buying Shoutouts
If you buy shoutouts correctly, it can be a very productive way to get more engagement on your posts and also get new followers. But, if you don't plan and research your shoutouts thoroughly,
you can very easily lose your investment.
It’s very important that you only buy shoutouts from high-quality accounts. Look through
accounts’ followers, review their previous posts and the type of comments they have. You’re
searching for accounts with real pictures, real user interaction like tagging friends in engaging
posts.
You should also review the potential accounts in real time. Pay attention to how many likes they
get per post or views per video. If an account has 90k followers, but they’re only getting 100 –
200 likes per post, there’s a good possibility that they have a lot of inactive or fake followers.
#3 Buying an established account
To be able to monetize your account faster you can buy an already established account with
followers. This can save you a lot of time because these Instagram accounts are prepared for
you and all you need to do is continue growing them and start earning money.
This can be a great investment and an easier starting point, but you also need to be careful
when you decide to buy an account.
At TooFame our customers are most concerned if the accounts we provide have real and
targeted followers and if our posts have the engagement that is in accordance with the number
of followers. Our best reassurances are that we manually handpick and approve accounts we
sell and we are able to guarantee their quality.
In the end, when you decide to buy an account, make sure to thoroughly research accounts you
want to buy and also people or companies you’re buying from. After that, you can also conduct
a real-time testing of accounts.
Chapter #2: Your Instagram Activity
Instagram isn’t like other social networks where the number of posts can influence the amount
of traffic you receive. On the contrary, what matters most on Instagram is quality. Visual quality
is the most crucial factor in bringing attention to your account. A few well-planed posts a day will
bring you much better results than putting a lot of low-quality content.
Try to find examples by looking at the successful and professional Instagram pages:
What kind of content to post?
Perfect content for Instagram are original videos and images. Therefore, graphic design skills
are very valuable for your Instagram business.
Whether you have the budget or design skills, it’s worth investing in creating your own content.
Is it ok to repost?
Reposting pictures can be another great way to have quality content on your page.
When reposting, give credit to the original source in the description of your post. Not crediting
can bring unwanted attention from the owner of the page or Instagram itself.
Is there a number of posts I should add?
Quality over quantity is the rule number one on Instagram. If you post ten pictures and videos
a day, you’ll probably clog your followers' feeds and that can result in losing them.
The best practice is to post 3 - 4 related and engaging videos and images a day. Depending on
your niche, you could get away with more posts.
At what time should I post?
You should adjust your posting schedule with the location of the majority of your audience. The
best time to post is during their peak time because at that moment your hashtags will be more
efficient and you’ll get more engagement.
On these websites you’ll find the location of your audience:
https://minter.io/
http://www.demographicspro.com/
Are hashtags good?
Hashtags are crucial for generating engagement on Instagram because they’ll deliver followers
and likes.
Take your time and research which hashtags work best. Check out the top accounts in your
niche and take notes: which hashtags they use and how they use them.
Here is a list of things you need to know about hashtags:
1. It’s safe to use around 10 - 15 hashtags per post. If you add more than that you’ll lower
your chances of staying in the top posts for each hashtag.
2. When using hashtags keep up with standards in your niche. People could also dislike if
you use a lot of hashtags without writing a description.
3. Research and test hashtags you use to know which ones are appropriate for the size of
your account. If you use competitive tags that have over 10 million posts you’ll get a
few likes in the first couple of minutes after posting, but later your post will be pushed
down by the big amount of other posts with same hashtags.
4. You can use the hashtags that have between 200k and 2 million posts. In this way,
your posts will be visible for a longer period and get more interaction throughout the day.
#1 Following/Unfollowing
A lot of people don’t think this method is good enough, but from our experience, following and
unfollowing is still one of the most practical methods you can use to grow an account with
targeted followers.
Most people will be glad to follow you back, particularly if you have a professional and appealing
profile. Of course, you won’t see a high follow back number if all you’ve got is a default profile
picture and a CPA link in your bio!
The most important thing at the very start is to create a visually attractive profile to see the
advantages of this method.
Who should you follow?
People you want to attract to your account using the need to be targeted. For example, following
people who follow bigger accounts in your niche is a great strategy to grow your targeted
audience.
accounts in your niche. Since they already like content that is similar to yours, there’s a good
probability that they’ll follow you back when they see your Instagram account.
If you are looking for the long-term benefits with your Instagram accounts, we suggest you do
everything slow and substantially. It is also good to make a few short-term accounts that you
can use for testing various strategies and understand the limits.
Growing a new account
When you have a new account make sure to keep your following numbers controlled.
In the beginning, try to follow between 5 - 15 people at the max. The more you distribute your
following schedule, the more normal your account will look. You can use this period to fill out
your account - post some pictures, write your bio an add relevant profile picture.
When your account starts to age, you can begin to follow more. It’s good for a new account to
slowly rise to following 20, 30, 40 and later more than 50 people a day.
Establishing your Instagram account
You can speed up the process after you wormed up your account for a week or two. You should
maintain a steady amount of posting, liking and commenting so your account appears natural.
One basic rule is to make changes gradually.
Don’t jump unexpectedly from following 25 to 100 people a day just because your account has
aged a bit. The best way to stay under the radar is to make slow increases in follows with
random numbers.
With an account that’s 1- 2 weeks old, it can be safe to move up to follow more than 50 a day, if
you increase the number of people you follow by 5 - 10 people each day.
With a truly aged account, you can safely follow 60 people an hour. At this point, your account
will be a few months old, and you will already have a few thousand followers.
Unfollowing process
People will more likely follow your account when you have a higher follower to following ratio
because it establishes your account as an authority and you can leverage that reputation.
One mistake that most new marketers make is that they start unfollowing too early.
Try to wait until you’re following at least 5000 ~ 7500 people before you begin the unfollowing
process. Also, your following schedule has to be adjusted, so you don’t follow and unfollow
people on the same day. The best way to control this is to follow/unfollow manually, or to use
software programs that have scheduling features.
On Instagram, you are allowed to follow a maximum of 7500 people.
Pending requests made to accounts that are private will also count as your total following
number. Sometimes is best to ignore private accounts because pending requests can quickly
add up to your total number.
Following/unfollowing at the same time
Your goal is to make your account look as natural as possible, following and unfollow at the
same time doesn’t seem like a normal behavior for an account. It is recommended to keep your
following and unfollowing for different days and only unfollow certain people.
#2 Shoutouts Trading (S4S)
Shoutoutpost is a great website where you can build up your new accounts. It connects you with
other Instagram users to trade shoutouts.
And the great part is that it’s free.
All you have to do is search for people to exchange with. If you do it right, you can also find
long-term partners.
Before using this website, you should have at least 2000 followers. If you only have a couple of
hundred followers, it’ll be hard to grow your account on Shoutoutpost.
Shoutoutpost curates a list of all their users so you can browse through. You will get basic stats
such as most recent posts and number of followers. To be more effective, you can execute
searches by niche.
When you spot an account you’re interested in, send them a Trade Request. If they accept it in
the next 48 hours, you’ll get a request from the other person that is looking for a shoutout as
well.
Shoutoutpost is of mutual benefit to both parties and it can supplement your
following/unfollowing strategy.
Buying Shoutouts
If you buy shoutouts correctly, it can be a very productive way to get more engagement on your posts and also get new followers. But, if you don't plan and research your shoutouts thoroughly,
you can very easily lose your investment.
It’s very important that you only buy shoutouts from high-quality accounts. Look through
accounts’ followers, review their previous posts and the type of comments they have. You’re
searching for accounts with real pictures, real user interaction like tagging friends in engaging
posts.
You should also review the potential accounts in real time. Pay attention to how many likes they
get per post or views per video. If an account has 90k followers, but they’re only getting 100 –
200 likes per post, there’s a good possibility that they have a lot of inactive or fake followers.
#3 Buying an established account
To be able to monetize your account faster you can buy an already established account with
followers. This can save you a lot of time because these Instagram accounts are prepared for
you and all you need to do is continue growing them and start earning money.
This can be a great investment and an easier starting point, but you also need to be careful
when you decide to buy an account.
At TooFame our customers are most concerned if the accounts we provide have real and
targeted followers and if our posts have the engagement that is in accordance with the number
of followers. Our best reassurances are that we manually handpick and approve accounts we
sell and we are able to guarantee their quality.
In the end, when you decide to buy an account, make sure to thoroughly research accounts you
want to buy and also people or companies you’re buying from. After that, you can also conduct
a real-time testing of accounts.
Chapter #2: Your Instagram Activity
Instagram isn’t like other social networks where the number of posts can influence the amount
of traffic you receive. On the contrary, what matters most on Instagram is quality. Visual quality
is the most crucial factor in bringing attention to your account. A few well-planed posts a day will
bring you much better results than putting a lot of low-quality content.
Try to find examples by looking at the successful and professional Instagram pages:
Perfect content for Instagram are original videos and images. Therefore, graphic design skills
are very valuable for your Instagram business.
Whether you have the budget or design skills, it’s worth investing in creating your own content.
Is it ok to repost?
Reposting pictures can be another great way to have quality content on your page.
When reposting, give credit to the original source in the description of your post. Not crediting
can bring unwanted attention from the owner of the page or Instagram itself.
Is there a number of posts I should add?
Quality over quantity is the rule number one on Instagram. If you post ten pictures and videos
a day, you’ll probably clog your followers' feeds and that can result in losing them.
The best practice is to post 3 - 4 related and engaging videos and images a day. Depending on
your niche, you could get away with more posts.
At what time should I post?
You should adjust your posting schedule with the location of the majority of your audience. The
best time to post is during their peak time because at that moment your hashtags will be more
efficient and you’ll get more engagement.
On these websites you’ll find the location of your audience:
https://minter.io/
http://www.demographicspro.com/
Are hashtags good?
Hashtags are crucial for generating engagement on Instagram because they’ll deliver followers
and likes.
Take your time and research which hashtags work best. Check out the top accounts in your
niche and take notes: which hashtags they use and how they use them.
Here is a list of things you need to know about hashtags:
1. It’s safe to use around 10 - 15 hashtags per post. If you add more than that you’ll lower
your chances of staying in the top posts for each hashtag.
2. When using hashtags keep up with standards in your niche. People could also dislike if
you use a lot of hashtags without writing a description.
3. Research and test hashtags you use to know which ones are appropriate for the size of
your account. If you use competitive tags that have over 10 million posts you’ll get a
few likes in the first couple of minutes after posting, but later your post will be pushed
down by the big amount of other posts with same hashtags.
4. You can use the hashtags that have between 200k and 2 million posts. In this way,
your posts will be visible for a longer period and get more interaction throughout the day.
Chapter #3: Using Engagement Groups
Engagement groups are great for boosting your other Instagram tactics.
If you find a quality group, you’ll be able to get more out of your posts on the explore page with
less effort.
When picking up the post to be promoted in the engagement group, make sure you’re using
recent posts (posted within 5 or 10 minutes). You’ll see that this works much better than using
an old post.
You can also try out and join as many engagement groups as possible, but always look for the
ones that have the quality. If a group is targeting audience in the different country, or it is full of
people with low-quality accounts, then it won’t be of good use to you.
Another important part of getting the most out of engagement groups is to always change your
content and hashtags until you find what works best for you. If you continue posting the identical
content all the time, it won’t get you any results. You have to test and look for the best ways to
make them notice you. If you’re getting exposure but no revenue or followers, it is possible that
something is wrong with your posts or your profile.
Bear in mind that the worst thing you can do in an engagement group is to take and not give
back.
Chapter #4: Making Money
# Selling Shoutouts
Selling shoutouts can be an efficient way to monetize your aged accounts.
Here are a few key things you need to know about sell shoutouts:
● Start promoting that you sell shoutouts when you get to 10 – 20k followers. The more
followers you have, the more money you’ll get for each shoutout you do.
● Spread out your shoutouts over a period of time so your account doesn’t become
overflooded. If you filling your follower’s feed with a lot of shoutouts from other people
your engagement will drop and you’ll irritate your followers.
● Your account needs to be as professional as possible in order to invite people to order
from you.
● You can post a picture where you advertise your shoutout service, but make sure to
delete it in a next few hours. Accounts that have a lot of shoutout pictures look spammy
and can turn off potential buyers.
● Having a professional email from your own domain can also help your account to look
reliable.
● You can use Fiverr and various Internet Marketing forums to promote your offer.
Here are a few things that your potential buyers may ask you:
● During what hours is your audience active?
● How many likes/views do you get in the first hour?
● Do your posts get on the explore page?
The prices you’ll be offered will always depend on the client and your account activity.
Clients that do their research will be willing to give you an amount the reflects the number of
likes you get for each post. Other clients can be more impulsive and faster to buy. To be able to
negotiate a price easier, make sure you know the strengths of your account, for example how
quickly you can get likes and positive feedback from your followers.
# CPA
To be able to make money with CPA you must have a big audience that consistently engages
with your account. Before adding your CPA link in the bio, make sure you have at least 10k
followers.
People will be irritated if they click on your CPA link and end up somewhere completely
unrelated. Only extremely specific offers related to your niche will get you a high conversion
rate.
When posting, remind people to check out your bio. These descriptions will be your call to
action area. It is also good to write a few lines in the bio about the benefits of clicking on the link.
If your profile is attractive enough and also has a decently sized audience, you’ll be able to
convert CPA offers very easily.
Chapter #5: How to Avoid Being Banned
#1 Build your accounts slowly
Spending time to warm up your accounts is the key to a long-term success on Instagram.
The more age your account has, the more opportunities will open up. With aged accounts, you’ll
be more flexible in what you can safely do with them. The whole process of reaching that level
might seem exhausting and boring, but in the end, you’ll have accounts that will stay under the
radar.
#2 Correctly set up a bot
A common reason why new and even older accounts are flagged is uncontrolled botting. Even if
you’re using a software to manage your accounts, schedule them to mimic human behavior.
You might be tempted to test the software and check the boundaries of your accounts, we
suggest that you get a few disposable accounts for that purpose. Growing accounts quickly
cannot be sustainable for making money on Instagram on a long-term basis.
#3 Comments, but don’t overdo it
Commenting should also be a part of your strategy, but like with everything else, make sure you
spread them out over a reasonable amount of time and only make high-quality comments.
Leaving the same comments or using spin text will sooner or later get you caught.
Remember, even if you’re scheduling it, make it look as human as possible.
#4 Control your following/unfollowing
As we already mentioned, controlling your following/unfollowing method is a key to avoid being
banned on Instagram.
Spread out your following/unfollowing throughout the day and adapt it to the age and size of
your account. Your account might be old enough to follow 100 people a day, but if you follow all
100 within one hour, Instagram will mark it as a suspicious activity.
From our experience, following 60 users an hour is the safest maximum you can perform with
an older account.
Chapter #6: Changing your account to a new niche
Building your accounts and maintaining a long-term audience will eventually give you an
opportunity to target different parts of the broader niche that you’ve chosen.
Since you spent the time growing a targeted audience, there are certain things that your
audience will expect and if you abruptly switch your content, they might lose the interest in your
page.
To bypass this, make a gradual change of content on your Instagram account.
Take as an example an account that is the fashion niche and it mostly focuses on dresses. If
you want to make a switch from selling dresses to selling necklaces, you can follow this method:
Week #1
● Post images/videos that combine dresses and necklaces and keep, but still keep a
stable flow of your usual content.
Week #2
● This week post more pictures/videos of necklaces than dresses.
Week #3
● At this point, you can start posting only necklaces. You could spot a change in your
audience engagement.
Week #4
● You can now go back and delete your older photos focused only on dresses.
If you follow this step-by-step method, you’ll be able to move from selling one product to
another. Having a broad niche has its own benefits because you’ll be able to monetize different
products or services as you see fit.
Chapter #7: Using a software for maintaining and growing your accounts
Software programs are of big help when you want to maximize your earnings on Instagram.
When you discover what hashtags, following methods and content work best for you, you can
scale everything up using a software.
There are a lot of programs that you’ll find, but from our experience the best one right now is FollowLiker.
FollowLiker
With FollowLiker you can manage social media accounts for Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and
Tumblr.
It offers a lot of different options that can help you out especially if you are managing more
Instagram accounts. It schedules your posts, comments, and likes and following/unfollowing. It
makes finding targeted people easier because it allows you to set it up to scrape from specific
keywords.
Even though you are using a software, you’ll have a lot of options that you can adjust and make
your account look as human as possible.
● This week post more pictures/videos of necklaces than dresses.
Week #3
● At this point, you can start posting only necklaces. You could spot a change in your
audience engagement.
Week #4
● You can now go back and delete your older photos focused only on dresses.
If you follow this step-by-step method, you’ll be able to move from selling one product to
another. Having a broad niche has its own benefits because you’ll be able to monetize different
products or services as you see fit.
Chapter #7: Using a software for maintaining and growing your accounts
Software programs are of big help when you want to maximize your earnings on Instagram.
When you discover what hashtags, following methods and content work best for you, you can
scale everything up using a software.
There are a lot of programs that you’ll find, but from our experience the best one right now is FollowLiker.
FollowLiker
With FollowLiker you can manage social media accounts for Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and
Tumblr.
It offers a lot of different options that can help you out especially if you are managing more
Instagram accounts. It schedules your posts, comments, and likes and following/unfollowing. It
makes finding targeted people easier because it allows you to set it up to scrape from specific
keywords.
Even though you are using a software, you’ll have a lot of options that you can adjust and make
your account look as human as possible.
With FollowLiker you can also add emojis to your scheduled posts which can help your
accounts appear even more natural. You’ll find emoji codes to copy-paste from on Wikipedia
page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji
# Conclusion
Every social network has its own challenges and setting up all your accounts, finding a process
that works and scheduling can be a long and exhausting process. But in the end, it’s all worth it.
Take your time and run your accounts so they can last.
Thanks for reading!
Toofame team.
Editor's Remarks
This post was sponsored by The Toofame team, we recommend them for the growing of your Instagram accounts and followers. Have you tried them? Please drop your honest reviews as comments below.
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