About the engagement groups, I think that's totally bullshit. Why? What's the point from these repetitive comments? "This is stunning", "Great post as always", "Post more, I need more". Some even are automated. Moreover where is the honesty?
I do engage. I go on the explore page and I interact. I see the content, think it over, and give my opinion, or add value to that post (sometimes I post even lengthy comments), and guess what? I get followers back, small but worth. They see something honest, and very engaging. (a human)
And what I have seen, is that all, or most of those accounts joining engagement groups fall on the same illusion. They all added same kind of comments. Not one single of them add something honest or engaging, and I don't want that in my content.
I didn't join these groups, due to this kind of interaction. And how about the real follower, when he sees these kind of comments? He won't fall down to believing that's real, and will soon unfollow. (specially the ones you want them in your follower base)
For the ones asking how to reach top 9 posts, well. What I have experienced is that, depending on the follow base, and on the engagement with your content, you can choose reasonable hashtags, that you believe you're more likely to reach the Top 9 with.
An example. You have 1000 followers. You get 60+ likes per pictur, then you could target hashtags with 50.000-300.000 posts.
So depending on the engagement you get, you get ranked there. The thing here to understand, and from what I believe how it works, is that you could reach the Top 9 on a 500K hashtag, if that day, not many great posts got posted with that hashtag. So you could use 5-10 hashtags to target 50K-500K, better 7 hashtags, that you believe you could reach the Top 9 with, and 3 for the bigger ones, so you use your chances to rank there.
What I mean by engagement is not what you see as likes or comments, but how Instagram sees the USER who sees your CONTENT.
That means, even those who scroll to your content and see your content but don't like, those are counted. (whether followers or not)
How come? I have seen on the top 9 posts, one post ranking the first (with 46 likes, 2 comments), the other 9th. (100 likes, 12 comments), so you don't see the engagement as who has more likes/comments. There are much complex algorithms to track what's good and what's not.
Let's be real, Instagram is developing better and better algorithms to give chances to everyone, so if you try to trick Instagram, you're tricking yourself. It's a big company we talkin' 'bout. Stay on page with the quality of content and reasonable hashtags and you get what you deserve.
Just as a proof, I have ranked on top 9 with reasonable hashtags, and I have the chance to get followers from there, not big deal, but, an investment in my growth. Like I said, this all depends on your page quality + size. And I said all of this out of experience of 5 months and still learning about all of this.
What are your thoughts about what I said?
