Instagram Strategy Discussion... Tools, Tips, Ideas (Mainstream and Adult)
 

I've been playing around on Instagram for the past few months and thought it could make for an interesting discussion to discuss what strategy and tools you use for instagram. Some may not work for adult but I think the discussion of both mainstream and adult ideas could help those reading :)

Here?s my recent instagram experience.

Goal - My wife is starting a leggings (yoga pants) company. The goal of the instagram account is to find girls who wear leggings and potential brand ambassadors. That way when the product is ready to launch there is a good test and launch audience for her.

Content - Since the leggings aren?t ready yet there isn?t any original content at the moment for us to post. So instead we decided to go out and find the best photos in the niche that represent the attitude and feeling the brand will have. One important aspect of the content was that it attract the girls who would wear the leggings and not the guys who are staring at them. We had to be very careful about how ?sexy? the content we post was. The first few posts I made didn?t exactly go with vibe she wanted (what can i say old habits die hard). Those initial posts looked great on paper (tons of likes, tons of followers) but they were mostly men and they weren?t achieving the goal. Very important to remember what you goal is and not get caught up in chasing likes.

Since we were aggregating content and not taking original content the plan was to try to make every post high quality and captivating. The first few posts we were guessing what people may like. Then I discovered the Iconosquare competitor tool. It was a game changer. This tool has a ton of data on your competitors? How many posts they make, what time they post, hashtags used, follower growth, like growth, etc etc. But the most valuable part of this tool for me has been seeing the Most Liked, Mose Commented and Most Engaging Content posts by your competitors. In our case here is a snapshot of @BombShellsportswear most commented content.

http://mysecretsanta.com/icono.jpg

If you just take the example I?ve posted above. This account usually gets 114 comments per post and their top post had 1400 comments. As long as it wasn?t a contest it clearly was a piece of content that was different and really struck a cord with the audience. By using this tool I don?t have to sift through 300+ posts this company has made. Instead in a quick snapshot I can see their top 4 posts and then make the decision if any of these fit with my goal for the account. Using this approach was huge. Made the account look very sharp and very high quality. The look of the account is so important and often overlooked.

Also, a key thing is to give credit to the photographer and whoever is in the photo. The more credit you can give the better. Tag the location. All of these things help drive more people to you. The more text you can add the better as well. Get your message out to the world people will connect with it.

Hashtags - Once you have the content you need to have a hashtag strategy. Hashtags are going to be the key to being discovered. I?ll be honest the hashtag system on instagram seems like such a crap shoot. It?s a shame there aren?t more tools that can clearly show you how much exposure each hashtag is actually getting you. I?ve used the approach of gathering as many relevant hashtags as possible categorizing them by size and then coming up with a group of 25 to 30 hashtags to use which are a mix of big, medium, and small. Obviously the hashtag approach is far more relevant and useful in mainstream.

How Many Posts - 3 to 5 spread out evenly throughout the day.

Engagement - We used the hard work approach on this one. Comment comment comment. If someone comments on our content we immediately thank them as well as look over their account and find a nice piece of content to comment back on. That is the basic approach. The next level approach has been to find the influencers/brands that our potential market would follow and interact with. Then engage with those influencers and brands and also engage with the people engaging with the brand. So if we take the bombshell account as an example. I?d go to a piece of their content IE https://www.instagram.com/p/BIEJtIADzRf/ find someone who made a comment i.e. https://www.instagram.com/missapesss/ then find a piece of content they posted to comment on i.e. https://www.instagram.com/p/BQ44xxRl...-by=missapesss That gets our account on the radar of a potential customer.

Those are the main techniques we've used so far. I'm nowhere near an instagram ninja but this hard work approach is seeing some slow but steady growth results. I think modified for most industries it could work.

What techniques and tools are you using? What's working best?

If you have an instagram account and would like some feedback or ideas for it feel free to ask or hit me up ;)

Who in the blue hell are you?

You just described my whole strategy for my two online lingerie shops. :winkwink:

Great post, Shap! :thumbsup

People who are working in this industry don't need to ask that question.. :2 cents:

:thumbsup:thumbsup
How's it working out?

You may like this post. I saw it a few weeks ago and it discusses pretty much everything I've been doing
https://medium.com/@edmo_nyc/growing...3ae#.exf95frb5

I haven't done anything with Instagram, mainly Facebook and Twitter, but I think Instagram could be good for some adult niches.

I've added it to my list of stuff to do some tests on, especially in adult. :thumbsup

How has fb and twitter worked out for you?

For mainstream, great. I haven't done anything in adult, as I left in 2012, but I'm gearing up to build something in it again utilizing Twitter, Reddit, and now Instagram for traffic building.

Getting started on the FB stuff any tips? :thumbsup

Where do you get the photos? Is reposting content ok/allowed (if you just get them from IG itself)?
How did you kick start it with first followers? Simply by commenting somewhere else?

Shap - your engagement strategy is right on track - the only thing I would add to that is to make sure that you comment on what stands out as the "influencers" in your niche. Make sure you follow them and ask for follow backs...get your name/brand known to them.
Once you are ready to launch, if you have given them some love...they will be more likely to help you out even if it costs a little....much cheaper than anything mainstream.

Definitely set up a biz facebook....if for no other reason but to mirror the insta acct postings for the time being...once you have stock, the content should be posted at the same rate as you mentioned on insta...and then demo-target ad the heck out of facebook. :thumbsup

Learn Snap - make content for that as well :thumbsup

Instagram is very interesting about this. I was reposting photos other people had taken and posted. I was sure I'd get some complaints. Not a single complaint. In fact the opposite. People thanking me for "featuring" them. Very interesting. People want exposure and recognition and are happy for you to use their content if it helps get them that.

One nice feature the iconosquare widget has is you can download the HD version of any instagram photo. Very helpful ;)

First followers is always tricky. I loaded up the account with 5 to 10 pictures to start and then started using the tactic I described above. Surprisingly they started rolling in. The more niche the market the better and quicker the growth. I've tried this in both leggings market but also in the travel market. The travel market was far more responsive and quicker to grow.

Agreed! The influencer plan is already working. Many have reached out ready to work together when the product is ready.

My original plan was to show the journey. We haven't been able to nail that down yet but it's part of what we will work harder on as it moves forward (snap included in that for sure).

FB page up as well. Working on building that.

Are you not risking a ban if someone complains about stolen photo? Or you are only risking deletion etc so no big worry?

And when you say feature does it mean you link to their account, or feature means solely you "taking" and posting their photo on your account without any links to them?

So much spot on IG info tools and techniques in your post thank you!

I'm so glad you're posting again this place was getting depressing I just wanna give you a great big hug :thumbsup


I bought the InstaFollow app by Innovatty LLC. and a bunch of the in app upgrades and it was a game changer

Insta Apps

With the app I was able to tell what followers were ghosts and it ranks the followers with the highest engagement in your IG as well as the number of followers they have, who unfollows you (so you can unfollow them), likes, unlikes, your most popular posts with media insights etc. Tons of stuff!

I used the data with the app to know which followers were most important to engage with. I also used the data to know which followers' - followers were most valuable to harvest, follow and engage with.

I stopped posting on my IG awhile back. I had a couple HUGE IG's with thousands of followers deleted due to fake copyright claims. I used only my own G rated content that I shot for IG specifically. You can't defend IG copyright claims effectively and it's prude third worlders you're dealing with on the other end.

IG is highly competative with ruthless people at the top who'll target your account once you get to a certain level on their radar. So many stories of this happening to up and coming account and IG does not care about how popular or by the letter you are, it's very "by the numbers" with copyright complaints, sexual content complaints, etc.

You're doing mainstream so hopefully you'll be fine. Love the stuff you've done looks perfect for your targeted niche :thumbsup

I haven't heard of anyone get banned for posting someone else's photo. Just a different mindset. Takes a while to adjust to. I still get pissed if someone takes a photo I've taken from someone else :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Here is an example of what people feel is being featured.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQCx6CJA...by=hello.ibiza
Someone else's photo but photo credit given. This approach makes people happy and satisfied on instagram. Most will msg you thanking you for posting their photo.

Thank you so much. I really hope we get to meet one day :thumbsup

I loved instafollow until the terms and conditions of insta changed and a bunch of features stopped working. Then I contacted them and they were ghosts themselves so i just went straight to apple for a refund. But to be fair I had bought it and used it my first 2 weeks of building the account. So the value was limited. May have to revisit it :thumbsup

I can see that. Certain niches and certain areas are so competitive on IG. The one thing I've noticed though is if you put in just a little more effort then you get disproportionate return on that. For example my wife takes 10 to 15 minutes per post to write up her thoughts. It's like a mini blog post and just that little time and caring goes a long way because anybody who sees the post instantly can tell there is a real caring person behind it. Not just an automated algorithmic approach.

Do you worry about these "leaks" (especially if credited IG account is better than yours? Have you considered skipping giving links to those accounts for this reason?

Bookmarked

I heard a great podcast recently with Seth Godin. He said it's so important to stay true to what you are trying to achieve and not get pulled in to Kardashianing your content or posts. Which basically means stick with targeting your market and don't lower your standards just to get a few cheap extra likes.

You can't fear others. Instead you just have to be the absolute best you can possibly be. If someone is doing it better then adjust your game to find a way to be better. There is always going to be someone a step ahead of you on social media. They may be spending more the may be buying likes. I think the key is having a gameplan and knowing exactly what your goal is and what you are trying to achieve. Then stay true to that.

Honoured :winkwink:

Yes people can tell when there's love behind an IG, that goes a long way.

Do you have your wife post her topic appropriate personal pics on rare occasions so females know it's not an automated IG, or a man behind the account?

Tip: I've always had a couple backup IG posts handy for those lucky times where you hit a high traffic sweet spot where follows & likes are high after a post. I'll post another in a few minutes, with the same hashtags, to milk that result just in case the post wasn't the reason, it gave me better than average returns about 50% of the time.

Interesting idea. I like that. It's funny how some days you can just tap into something great eh? I've also noticed lulls in follower growth. Will have two days of huge growth, 5 days flat, 2 days huge growth again but not always on the same days. I like this idea because it because milks the situation when you hit a hot time and hot spot with the hashtags.

Your sig is very distracting in a good way :winkwink:

Definately! Below is a good starting point :thumbsup

In my experience it was a waste of time trying to build up a page organically or attempt to do it viral, but to target posts at my market I wanted, and use that to drive likes to my pages... After a few ads, I had a decent follower list on the page for that type of content and was able to retarget them for free.

Your biz discussions distract me from being a shitlord, haha. Always admired you and what you did with Twistys. Good to see you're still around. :thumbsup

Thanks! That is great. It's weird because one of our best times is Monday 7:30am UK time. Which goes against everything you would expect. One thing I'm trying to do is gear hashtags to the time of the post. So early morning UK posts use UK hashtags to really nail this market. Likewise the same approach for the US time zones.

Ahhh thank you. Very kind :thumbsup

What do you guys do regarding people following and unfollowing. At first I got pissed and unfollowed those who unfollowed me. Then I realized majority of those were strictly bots not human decision. So I switched to following who I think is a good follow and don't worry about who's deleting me. What do you do?

When it comes to Twitter I score each follower or potential follower and follow if the threshold is met or surpassed.

You don't want to follow bots who aren't following you, liking and commenting because your potential followers will see you're following bots and not follow you thinking you might be one :2 cents:

You need to think of IG as your lighthouse where you are your own rainbow drawing people towards your light & energy and occasionally following other rainbows or quality potential rainbows only.

Create a second account where you follow competition or sites you're researching etc. then have your main account follow that one, this will also give you insight on people who follow you, then goto follow who you're following, it's an advanced way to spot bots and spammers too.

Join Date: May 2001
Respect
:)

I'm sure his reputation supersedes his join date here... :2 cents:

Agree with BW's response - don't let the bots contaminate your account.

BTW - failed to mention something else...with the new Insta Stories - similar to Snap...can be used well for branding again

Also agree that documenting the journey will fortify the brand..the sooner the better...and remember there are a lot of people out there that will watch because the content at the beginning is amateurish...they know that their own journey is going to start with at a low level and relish seeing someone else succeed with that starting point.

And I know you already follow him, but make sure you post your journey on Gary's Insta...you'd be surprised what can happen :thumbsup

The most important metric in social media is your engagement ratio.
The rest is interesting but mainly noise.
Most people just don't get it.

i can't believe this is for real or it is?

What can you not believe is real?

The bulge in your shorts Shap, you're embarasding these ladies but they can't look away or believe their eyes!

First off, I don't automatically follow them just because they follow me; which probably accounts for numbers going up and down.

Secondly, if I am following someone it is because I like them or their content. I really don't know who is following me although many come up and introduce themselves and take a selfies with me

Ok, last questions from me :)

Some of the photos on ibiza account does not give any feature/credit to photographers. Does that mean you choose not to give credit/feature sometimes? How you decide which photos to credit and which not to?

Unless these not credited are your photos...

And - how do you direct followers to your business, in this instance to your Ibiza guise business.
Or is it only your description of "Helping you have the best time in Ibiza" and that is it?

Lets say you have an Ibiza guide website you want to direct people to. How do you do it? Can you post a link up? Or do you only link to it via messages? Something else?

It exists. 3 dmcas and you are shutdown, no matter how big you are. Generally happens if you don't credit the source

I am reading about some guy on reddit, he has 40 accounts, 3 mill followers total. He steals photos (unwatermarked) from the internet. He claims he only received few messages asking to take those photos down and he complied. With that many accounts, posts and followers it does not seem like a huge risk (he only post stolen pictures).

His niches are not adult though, but stuff like camping, weed etc.

Ps: he also says do not steal content from other IG pages and he stress that out. So it seems like no big deal (in terms of banning) to take content from the internet, just not from IG (uncredited).

Great! I didn't know that. I think the key is to know who would dmca and who wouldn't. There are some amazing professional photographers on instagram and I wouldn't recommend re-posting any of their content without permission. I imagine those are the guys that will give you trouble.

Hey when you get a chance could you drop me an email? askshap at gmail ;) Thanks

Some of the no credit photos are my own (not many) the others were found on other sites that aggregate content and had no credit. Anytime the original poster is known I'd credit.

The ibiza account was set up just to test a theory. I wanted to take the same approach of what we did with fitness and see how the response would be in a different market. See if it would respond the same way in terms of growth and see if there would be any requests or inquiries for any of the posts.

Driving traffic from instagram is not ideal and not efficient. There are only three ways to have clickable links. #1 is in your profile. So what most people do is keep changing the link in the profile to what they want people to click. IE If you want to rent this house click the link in my profile for more information. #2 is via direct msg. PEople would have to hit you up first for that. This is the least efficient. #3 is with instagram stories you can now link to the url you want them to hit. Probably the most efficient at the moment.

Yeah I think it all depends on the approach you want to use. The one thing I've noticed is that the big accounts that have really good engagement are really good at picking great content. It's not as easy as it may look.

Cool post. One thing i see people doing to get more followers ia to use a catch account on tinder. So a hot girl or guy...then in the about section include the instagram.

I can see that. So many tricks being used. I think it boils down to what is your end goal. The end goal on the leggings account is to build a following and sell leggings so any approach that is a short cut to tricking people onto the account will yield such a small actual following it's not really worth that time. But if I had a dating platform I was trying to launch then yeah that would work great ;)