Awesome! I’m much more clear now. I was wondering if hashtags really work to get more followers
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In my opinion they are the best method!
If you mix this method with following, liking, posting daily, commenting on others posts and your own, your golden.
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I’m only following/unfollowing and posting daily. I use like 8 hashtags, I always choose the most popular ones, and as my niche is not saturated I’m always in the top posts.
Gaining 1,000 followers per week average from 0 followers.
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Nice! Happy to hear thats working for you.
If your looking to expermenet and see if you can get better results try liking only users who are active (liking and commenting) on other niche accounts similar to yours. Also try using the above method with 30 hashtags. Since you already got Popular hashtags, try adding some less popular ones, and more popular ones. Your engagement will go up along with your followers more than it is now.
Im getting on average 2,5k followers/week starting from 0 followers (350/day). This obviously compounds once there is more engagement on the page.
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Great info Brandon…thanks a lot!!
I am new to the IG world (however not FB/Twitter) so this will help me a lot. I do have 2 questions though…
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How do you go about finding popular, less popular, and banned hashtags? I found this site >> http://hashtagify.me/ which seems like it might be a good place to start, but it doesn’t tell you which ones are popular/less popular/banned.
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According to the majority of MP users in the group using IG, the consensus seems to be that 5 hashtags is the norm for newer accounts. Are you not experiencing any banned accounts with the 30 hashtag quota?
Thanks again!
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No Problem 
Welcome to the IG word where dreams come true haha.
I Personally have collected hashtags in different niches and have looked up each one manually and wrote down the amount of posts for them, along with the average amount of likes are under the Top Post section (Add up the likes for all 9 pictures and divide it by 9). This list is personal, however someone else posted something quite similar but a bit outdated HERE.
Weird, I have never had any problems using 30 hashtags from brand new accounts. However there are so many variables which come in to place that will change how safe this is for new accounts refer to THIS post. Try testing this on one account and see if you are successful. If so start adding 30 hashtags to more accounts. Its always good to use baby steps with everything from posting, liking, following, commenting or any other social action for that matter.
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Thanks Brandon…
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Yeah, saw that post earlier. I think I’ll stick to the resource I posted earlier. It actually gives you popularity rankings and a lot more info than what I had originally spotted. Still not sure what your metrics are for regarding popular hashtags, less popular, and banned hashtags. Do you have a scale you go off of?
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I am simply using my main ecommerce IG account now and want to build it up, as opposed to spending a lot of time purchasing/making IG accounts and playing via trial and error. I suppose I’ll start off with 10 or so and work my way on up to 30. I’ll also connect my IG account with my FB account to lower the chances of a ban.
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Hi Brandon what do you use for posting in instagram? your phone or bluestacks app or something else?
Thanks for the share
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I do have a rough scale that I work with. Basically if a picture is receiving under 500 likes/picture I will use the mostly Less Popular Hashtags, and I will add a few really good Popular Hashtags + Some Semi-Banned tags. If a picture is receiving more than 500 likes/picture I will change the scale and replace some of the Less Popular Hashtags with more Popular ones. Every account is going to be a bit different, so you will need to watch your statistics. I check the stats every 3 days, and If i notice a stead increase I dont touch anything. If I notice very little increase, or even a decrease for 3 days or more, I will make some changes.
Sounds like a plan Stan
Connecting to facebook is always a good way to lessen your chance of a ban, so nice work
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@BrandonBerner amazing info mate. I am sure many people just did the hashtags thing randomly or on instinct, never using it to its full potential or with a clear plan in mind. This makes it so easy to know exactly what you need to do with each account/post. Granted, it involves a little research and leg work, however all good things do.
Appreciate the share 
@MrNobody you can get the instagram poster module for mass planner, it’s a one time payment and you’ll be able to post to instagram with no problems.
Thanks for the praise
It does require some research, and leg work, but you end up spending less time waiting for your account to grow, so It end up being more productive in the long run. Spending 5-10 min on one account, could save you hours of trial and error with accounts not growing much. “Work Smarter…Not Harder” is my moto
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ok thanks for the advice as will do as you said…
Hello Brandon…again, thanks for the rock solid info man!
Sorry, but I am still having a bit of difficulty with your metrics…
- Within your 1st reply, you stated that you judge off of “post count” when determining what is popular/less/banned hashtag. The last reply (2nd) you seem to judge based off of likes. There seems to be some overlap here.
When I enter a hashtag into IG, I do see post count, so that seems pretty straightforward. What is the post count metric you use to determine if it’s popular/less/banned hashtag group?
I am assuming you use the like count metric AFTER you post your pics right? If so, what are you doing according to this metric as you have already posted your pics with 30 hashtags.
- What determines a “banned hashtag”?
Thanks in advance for the clarification!
Hi @grafx77
Can you quote my replies so I can know exactly which ones you are talking about so I can clarify.
I personally use the following categories Super Popular, Very Popular, Popular, Almost Popular, Not Popular, Very Unpopular, Semi-Banned (Top Posts + Limited Latest Posts), Semi-Banned (Top Posts Only). For the sake of this tutorial I kept it to a minimum to make it easier to understand.
Super Popular = 10m+ posts
Very Popular = 5m+ posts
Popular = 1m+ posts
Almost Popular = 500k+ posts
Not Popular = Under 250k posts
Less Popular = Under 100k posts
Semi-Banned = N/A
If the account is not getting featured, I eliminate Super and Very popular hashtags. I will then wait till the account is growing and has some good engagement. once that happens I will start adding Very popular hashtags. Once I notice some of my pictures are getting in the Top Posts of Very Popular, I then add 1-3 Super Popular hashtags. There is not really a strict plan I follow since every account is completely different. One thing to mention is that I never change the setting unless I see 3 days of constant low growth.
I am not sure what you mean by this. Can you re-word it.
There are 3 types of Banned Hashtags
Semi-Banned (Displays Top Posts + Limited Latest Posts)
Semi-Banned (Displays Top Posts Only)
Banned (Displays NO Posts)
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How are you able to track the accurate growth(when you implement the hashtag growth strategy) of your accounts, do you rely on mp stats dashboard only?
As of right now I dont have a good method to do this. I mostly do guess work, and trial and error.
Its not very time consuming as I basically only have 10 main accounts in different niches. The remaining accounts are divided by 10, and copy each main accounts niche. So although I manage thousands of accounts, I am really only working on 10 accounts.
When i post pictures I manually check under each hashtag to see which hashtags my accounts are getting featured under the top posts, and which ones do not. I record this for 3-7 days and then remove the hashtags which are not getting my pictures featured and try different ones. I have one niche which pictures get featured under the top posts on almost all 30 hashtags. It has taken me around 8 months to get to this point. Now I just copy those hashtags and apply them to the other accounts in that same niche. Now im working on fine tuning the other niches.
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