Growing self-made content

Good morning everyone!

Currently I've had a 1.2k account for 50 days and I'm stuck. I mean, my posts are not shadowbanned, I should not be ghostbanned, but my follower growth is almost nothing (20-30/day organically). I post once a day pictures taken by me and my followers seem to like them (I've been asked to make a tutorial about my edit style, so I suppose they should be interesting): my average liking is between 250 and 300. I've been botting some days, with very slow settings and gained 100/150 a day with GMT2 and Graminsta, the other bots I've tried didn't work a lot. My average settings are like max 400 follows and 600 likes a day, that I hope it is fine for an almost 2 months old account. I tried big engagment groups, but they didn't work for me, or at least, I didn't notice any big growth concerning followers. A friend of mine created a photography engagment group of small accounts (500-10k with an accountof 50k and one of 100k if I remember well) with almost 20 members in it. Without mutual following, some of "us" said that they found in their explore tab the pictures of accounts they had to like later in the list, so it seemed to work, but 0 followers for me (it was the first round ever of the group by the way, with a total of 10 accounts involved). I've contacted later on an account not in my niche to ask some opinions and he said that since I'm not a celebrity, my post will not go viral ever and I will not gain anything. Since I felt horrible (I put a lot of effort in my shooting and editing and I hoped to reach 10k before Christmas) I decided to ask here for some more opinions.

Now the question I ask you are:

- Do you think I should keep my gallery up and see how's the new group working?
- Do you think I should come back to botting?
- Do you think I just have to cancel my account and delete everything?
- Have got any other ideas or thoughts?

Write here your opinions or link the journey of an Instagram photographer if there are any. Feel free to DM also for any reasons.

Have a wonderful day everyone, thank you in advance

PS: re-reading the post, I forgot to say that I choose hashtags using a site that suggests the best ones checking their popularity and amount of posts from a short list of words you'd use to describe your picture (From example, from London gives you #igerslondon and #thisislondon), so the hashtags should be well chosen too...

If botting brings you aroung 100-150 users/day, why stop it? My suggestion is to go on botting until you have a steady organic growth

angreee said:

If botting brings you aroung 100-150 users/day, why stop it?

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I think I'll keep it up so, thank you for your answer. By the way, I tried to stop botting since many people opened entire threads to talk about how much botting is going to kill your account, so I tried to find new options!

im using a bot and im gettin around 10-20 followers a day lol
tho i dont use it much i dont want to get banned, but im happy with 10-20 with out postin anythin for a week,
im an artist so it pretty hard to make content everyday
but shit 100-150 its super nice, becarefull tho bots are risky
i only using for like 100 +/- follow/unfollow/like for a day

cutapig said:

i only using for like 100 +/- follow/unfollow/like for a day

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Before I had issues with the comments, it was quite easy to get followers. After 2 months I hope my account is aged enough to follow 400-500 people daily, but I usually keep the limit about 300, since I prefer to switch off my computer when it gets hot after a couple of hours. I don't judge my content, but my followers seem liking it (I can PM you my username if you want). My personal "trick" (and I suppose that there are people a lot more experienced in this that can help you instead of me) is following, liking and commenting (with spintax, so that it should seem a personal comment) with the same person. I usually set very strict filters on my bot, so that I engage only with people that should be active and interested in my content. Feel free to contact me here or on PM messages for any other info!

Urban Enigma said:

Before I had issues with the comments, it was quite easy to get followers. After 2 months I hope my account is aged enough to follow 400-500 people daily, but I usually keep the limit about 300, since I prefer to switch off my computer when it gets hot after a couple of hours. I don't judge my content, but my followers seem liking it (I can PM you my username if you want). My personal "trick" (and I suppose that there are people a lot more experienced in this that can help you instead of me) is following, liking and commenting (with spintax, so that it should seem a personal comment) with the same person. I usually set very strict filters on my bot, so that I engage only with people that should be active and interested in my content. Feel free to contact me here or on PM messages for any other info!

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Ye mate send me some wisdom ill be glad to learn anything you would like to share with me

If engagement groups arent working for you, you just arent doing it with enough people. Every day reach out to 10 new ppl to do likes with. Look at the comments of people you allready do likes with and dm them to find new people

That being said, you wont gain that much from explore as of right now since you only have 1.5k, but trust me stick with it and it will pay off especially around 10k-20kish

goodgoofsxd said:

That being said, you wont gain that much from explore as of right now since you only have 1.5k, but trust me stick with it and it will pay off especially around 10k-20kish

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lol its a big ass difference 1k-5k groups and 10k-20k groups, 50k+ thats the real stuff tho

cutapig said:

lol its a big ass difference 1k-5k groups and 10k-20k groups, 50k+ thats the real stuff tho

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No im saying when your at 10k you will start gaining ALOT more off explore. And you dont only have to dm a certain amount of followers. I do likes with 500followers to 1.1mil follower pages. Obviously bigger accounts help more but the more the marrier. I have a 3k page and each posts gets around 1k likes

Also btw groups are good, but alot of people dont get you back in the groups. Make sure you do alot of 1 on 1 dms so you know that people are getting you.

goodgoofsxd said:

Also btw groups are good, but alot of people dont get you back in the groups. Make sure you do alot of 1 on 1 dms so you know that people are getting you.

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You mean they're not liking back?

wwa2b said:

You mean they're not liking back?

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Yeah, and also the entire group doesnt see it since nobody scrolls up that far and people are constantly putting their posts in their. I still use groups because they are useful but 1 on 1s is guarenteed (unless they are scummy) to like back

Urban Enigma said:

Good morning everyone!

Currently I've had a 1.2k account for 50 days and I'm stuck. I mean, my posts are not shadowbanned, I should not be ghostbanned, but my follower growth is almost nothing (20-30/day organically). I post once a day pictures taken by me and my followers seem to like them (I've been asked to make a tutorial about my edit style, so I suppose they should be interesting): my average liking is between 250 and 300. I've been botting some days, with very slow settings and gained 100/150 a day with GMT2 and Graminsta, the other bots I've tried didn't work a lot. My average settings are like max 400 follows and 600 likes a day, that I hope it is fine for an almost 2 months old account. I tried big engagment groups, but they didn't work for me, or at least, I didn't notice any big growth concerning followers. A friend of mine created a photography engagment group of small accounts (500-10k with an accountof 50k and one of 100k if I remember well) with almost 20 members in it. Without mutual following, some of "us" said that they found in their explore tab the pictures of accounts they had to like later in the list, so it seemed to work, but 0 followers for me (it was the first round ever of the group by the way, with a total of 10 accounts involved). I've contacted later on an account not in my niche to ask some opinions and he said that since I'm not a celebrity, my post will not go viral ever and I will not gain anything. Since I felt horrible (I put a lot of effort in my shooting and editing and I hoped to reach 10k before Christmas) I decided to ask here for some more opinions.

Now the question I ask you are:

- Do you think I should keep my gallery up and see how's the new group working?
- Do you think I should come back to botting?
- Do you think I just have to cancel my account and delete everything?
- Have got any other ideas or thoughts?

Write here your opinions or link the journey of an Instagram photographer if there are any. Feel free to DM also for any reasons.

Have a wonderful day everyone, thank you in advance

PS: re-reading the post, I forgot to say that I choose hashtags using a site that suggests the best ones checking their popularity and amount of posts from a short list of words you'd use to describe your picture (From example, from London gives you #igerslondon and #thisislondon), so the hashtags should be well chosen too...

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Hey mate,
Do you mind pming me your Instagram name?
I got a few photographs/travel/art pages, if your content is good I won't mind shouting you out for free to help you grow a bit.
We all started from nothing, everyone needs a bit of help

I wonder if you been shadow ban .

are you sure your not shadow ban , it very funny how you was using hash and suddenly no more likes ,sounds like shadow ban.

for engagement you need to start reading and understanding comment blasting of other social websites to encourage engagement from everywhere .

good luck ......

ps. monetization I would sell your oregnal pictures as there copywrite to you as the owner , sell them as poster size, can do this as a ecommerce project ....

your get the traffic from your ig account.

cutapig said:

Ye mate send me some wisdom ill be glad to learn anything you would like to share with me

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Ok so in my first post you saw my botting strategy (if you want I can give you all of my settings, but I suppose it's a better idea to find your own). Then, I usually use an automation to send DMs to my new followers in which I thank them for their follow, I ask them if they would be interested in:

- A) Reading a free tutorial written by me about my editing style (I don't do it for money, just to "help" new photographers (as I am) with my 2 cents about editing), hopefully it'll help my with some shares on other social media platforms

- B) If they wanted to join my engagment group (without the link to it, so that I can check manually if their account is actually targeted to photography only)

- C) If they wanted to do S4S on stories.

The bot runs from 1 a.m. to 10 a.m. and then from 11 a.m. to 15 a.m. Then I just close it and go out shooting.

To edit my pictures I use LightRoom and Photoshop and I edit them at midnight when I come home, so that I post the picture at 1 a.m. and then start the bot and go sleeping (still on holiday from school at the moment).

Ok, I don't know if this helps, and actually, I don't know even if I am answering your question, but I'm trying to summarize all my "Instagram game".

Then I answer to almost all the comments of my last pictures and I engage with bigger accounts with the DMs to talk about photography, editing and sometimes I also ask them to shoutout me or to enter my group. Of course I can't engage with them with botted messages.

My engagment group: now 30 people, some with smaller other with bigger accounts, the bot (it is on telegram) for the rounds is not ready yet, but the admin is hosting rounds manually. Usually 10-15 people per round for the moment and the rule is like + engage.

goodgoofsxd said:

Also btw groups are good, but alot of people dont get you back in the groups. Make sure you do alot of 1 on 1 dms so you know that people are getting you.

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I see your point and it's true normally, but for the moment, since we talk a lot about photography in our chatroom, we are kind loyal to each other and everybody does his best to like all the pictures and leave thoughtful comments. Thanks for the tip by the way, I'll follow it when the group will grow

wewholeart said:

Do you mind pming me your Instagram name?

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I'll do it in a minute, thanks a lot! Don't be forced to do this to me if you don't like my content, I don't want to ruin your accounts with awful posts, but if you like my pictures... well, thank you a LOT.

redarrow said:

I wonder if you been shadow ban .

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Just checked, my posts seem shadowbanned only if I put the hashtags in the comments, don't know what to think though (I am not using very popular # by the way)

redarrow said:

for engagement you need to start reading and understanding comment blasting of other social websites to encourage engagement from everywhere .

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It seems a great tip, but sincerely it's hard even to try to improve my Instagram game, product my content and study (since I have to, damn High School) and, for the moment, I don't have time to cross-promote my posts.

redarrow said:

ps. monetization I would sell your oregnal pictures as there copywrite to you as the owner , sell them as poster size, can do this as a ecommerce project

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Monetization will be later... but I already thought about the possibilities of having my own merchandising (I like design, so I have ready some concepts for t-shirts, caps and so on) to be sold on Spreadshirt, selling the prints of the photos not sure where or mass sell them in photo stock markets like Shutterstock, Fotolia and etc.... Thank you a lot for your tips by the way.

So...I suppose I don't have anything to say for the moment, unless you have something to ask. I'll post here some strategies if I find any incredible working ideas! Have a great day everyone!