30 Day Instagram Journey

[SPQR]

​

Introduction

Hey guys and gals! Welcome to my 30 day journey with Instagram. In essence, this is going to be a case study. I will update at least once a day for 30 days. Here was my inspiration to document this.

The goal of this journey is to show that you can start to grow an audience in a short period of time. By the end of the 30 days, I may not have a gigantic following but I definitely will have lots more than I do right now.

Now a little bit about the current condition of my account. My account is a year old and has gone through 5+ niche changes. Today (Just for this), I switched it to a ‘foodporn' niche account. Right at the time of writing this, the account is at 945 follows and I am following 994 people.

Starting Statistics

There are 4 posts, 945 followers, 994 followings. For a post one hour old I get around 20 likes... Obviously this number does not mean much but I am sharing it for the sake of INFORMATION!!

Daily maintenance?

The account will be open on my phone and throughout my day when I am at school. I will post foodporn pictures, market viral gift card giveaways, like/comment on stuff. Some days I will post 2 pictures, some days I will post 20.

So I am going to be spacing things out throughout the day. Even though there is about only 1% chance of the account being banned; I think the best way is to space posts and interactions out to slowly milk-the-followers.

What are my Predictions?

I am not going to predict anything because the sole purpose of this journey is to see how high I can go in a relatively short period of time.

Where will I get pictures?

Well, I just scraped 1000 food pictures from niche related accounts. You can find the scraping tool here.

How will I monetize?

Of course I will monetize gradually throughout the month but the income will not be one of the statistics updated. However you will see some numbers here and there. I will use CPA to lock participation in ACTUAL giveaways. I do not feel like scamming people this time around.

...all with NO BOTS! 100% manual, baby.

 

[AquaticGamer]

It's going to be very time consuming if you don't use bots to grow your account but nevertheless, i wish you good luck with your journey !

 

[LleixG]

Good luck with it

 

[preatz]

good luck for you.

 

[sergey007]

Good luck with your journey, SPQR. BTW, awesome nickname. Glad to see, that there are people, who like the history of Rome =)

 

[ifanatic]

Interested in seeing your results.

good luck mate

 

[SPQR]

It's going to be very time consuming if you don't use bots to grow your account but nevertheless, i wish you good luck with your journey

!

Well, everyone's a critic. The point is to not push out shit content. I am growing my account in a way that I find fit and a way in which it will go viral. Thanks for the luck; but in all honesty, none is really needed for this case study.

Good luck with it

Thanks LleixG! I think that your Instagram journey is going amazing. Keep pushing out good material.

good luck for you.

Woohoo! Thanks preatz. Have a GREAT day.

Good luck with your journey, SPQR. BTW, awesome nickname. Glad to see, that there are people, who like the history of Rome =)

I wish you the best too, sergey007. After all, Rome was dominant for the better part of 500 years... and nearly 1500 years in the eastern portion.

Interested in seeing your results.
good luck mate

I am interested in seeing my results as well. Hope everything is going right for you, ifanatic.

 

[SPQR]

Day 1 [Start]
April 19th, 2015

How has everyone's morning gone so far? Mine has been great. I got plenty of sleep, a nice cup of coffee, and motivation to work hard today.

Let's get down to business. This account is going to grow manually for several reasons. First of all I want it to be a great example to people just starting IM with no money to buy a bot. Another reason is because I want total control of every aspect and I want to be able to adjust minor details frequently.

The most important reason for not using a bot is so that I can target people who know each other. This is traditional advertising, the more a person sees an advertisement... the MORE likely they are to complete the action advertised. Let me give you an example of how I will do this. I will follow all of one of my follower's followers. Step one, post a picture saying "Tag three friends, post this picture on your Instagram with the hashtags: #freeburgergiftcard #foodporn; then visit the website in the picture to enter". This will hopefully grow the account in viral ways as well as bring in plenty of traffic to my offers. If I follow everybody at a certain High School, chances are that they follow each other as well. When they see this image over and over again on their feed, the chances of them doing the same is huge. Hopefully you are connecting the dots by now.


[TABLE="class: grid, width: 650, align: left"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Yesterday[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Start of Day[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]End of Day[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Daily Growth[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Total Growth[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Pictures[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]4[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Followers[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]945[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]959[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Followings[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]994[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]1045[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]?[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[Battleaxewarriors]

Post 20 pics in a day? Are you crazy?

 

[SPQR]

Post 20 pics in a day? Are you crazy?

Some days I will post 2 pictures, some days I will post 20.

Lmao it was just something I typed. I was trying to get at the idea that I am going to be very free and lenient. Seriously though dude, we need to talk on Skype again soon! It would be awesome to speak with you regarding Instagram.

 

[LleixG]

Let me know if you need any help with it, and I'm glad you like my journey

 

[SPQR]

Let me know if you need any help with it, and I'm glad you like my journey

Sounds great LleixG. I just sent you a PM.

 

[ddbb9944]

Will be keeping up with your journey! Wanting to do something similar and keen to see it happen first hand. All the best!

 

[Paper-Boy]

Good luck OP.

Don't let any bans or IG restrictions prevent you from banking. It's a long process but it'll be worth it when you're in the green.

 

[joeychips14]

thanks for the shoutout man...i'll be getting in touch with you on skype soon

 

[wizard04]

Its not hard managing one acc without a bot.
I am trying out IG on my phone and in 3 weeks I am at 3K followers.
I just follow when I am taking little rests, you literally need 30 second to do the following and continue with your other stuff.

Good luck OP.

 

[SPQR]

Day 1 [End]
April 19th, 2015

Well today took a wild turn! I realized that my engagement was way too low and that I need to start fresh. So it is official. I made a new account. I?m at 0 followers, following 0 people. I speculate that the reason why the engagement was low is because the account has changed niches one too many times.

I will have the exact plan as at the beginning of the day but only 100% more fresh. Now we can see how far I get in 30 days.

Oooh, and I?m also going to do some nice stuff with S4S.

Stay tuned and thanks for witnessing my first day with this Instagram journey.


[TABLE="class: grid, width: 700, align: left"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Yesterday[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Start of Day[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]End of Day[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Daily Growth[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Total Growth[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Pictures[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Followers[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Followings[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]0[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

[wizard04]

I don't think this was a good decision form your side.

Your previous acc was an aged one and less prone to bans then the new one.
Also people are more prone to follow an account that already have followers. Doesn't matter if your old followers are from other niche they are providing a good base for your new targeted followers.

 

[SPQR]

I don't think this was a good decision form your side.

Your previous acc was an aged one and less prone to bans then the new one.
Also people are more prone to follow an account that already have followers. Doesn't matter if your old followers are from other niche they are providing a good base for your new targeted followers.

We will see wizard04. I realized the true goal of this journey is to see how large of an account I can grow in one month manually. In addition to that, my other account was disabled because I put a shortlink in the bio. It won't let me change it. Hopefully Instagram will fix the issue.

 

[wizard04]

We will see wizard04. I realized the true goal of this journey is to see how large of an account I can grow in one month manually. In addition to that, my other account was disabled because I put a shortlink in the bio. It won't let me change it. Hopefully Instagram will fix the issue.

Yes you are right, in the name of the journey its good to have a fresh acc and that you can add url in the bio.
Also, don't worry about the limits when you are doing everything manually. I am following all the time from my phone ( without commenting ) and no bans yet.