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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Hello again Brandon…sure let me clarify…
So your first reply mentioned likes (as opposed to posts). This is where I got confused.
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.
The reply below was AWESOME and really needed! Thank you! That really cleared things up.
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.
Regarding this statement you made…
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
When do you first check your hashtags for results/monitoring? As soon as you post them?
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Hey @grafx77 I now see where the confusion is coming from.
In that quote I was saying that if my own posted pictures are receiving less than 500 likes, I will decrease the amount of Super or Very Popular hashtags from the posts and use more Less Popular hashtags instead until the pictures start receiving more than 500 likes each.
In other words, thing about website SEO. Lets say you have a computer repair company and create a website. Lets say you use short-tail keywords like “Computer Repair”, “Computer Fix”, “Windows Repair”. Your website will obviously receive little to no traffic from search engines because you are competing with much larger businesses. Instead you would want to use long-tail keywords so your website appears on the first page of search engines like “Computer Repair in [City]”, “Where Can I Get My Computer Fixed In City”. You will need to use long-tail keywords until you can get your website some good traffic. Then you can start to shorten them and get some decent results in search engines.
In this analogy the short-tail keywords are (Super Popular Hashtags), long-tail keywords are (Less Popular Hashtags), and larger businesses are (IG Accounts receiving way more likes compared to my pictures).
I was not stating that I look under a specific hashtag and base off the post count and the amount of likes on others pictures.
This quote explains the above also.
I check as soon as I post, and I watch it for 30-60 min. If it stays at the top in the recent posts, or if it makes it into the top post section I keep that hashtag. If it disappears from the recent posts, but remains in the top posts section I keep that hashtag. If my post does not appear in both, I record it, then continue to monitor after every post. If i notice it gets featured very rarely or less, then I switch the hashtag and try something different.
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I check as soon as I post, and I watch it for 30-60 min. If it stays at
the top in the recent posts, or if it makes it into the top post section
I keep that hashtag. If it disappears from the recent posts, but
remains in the top posts section I keep that hashtag. If my post does
not appear in both, I record it, then continue to monitor after every
post. If i notice it gets featured very rarely or less, then I switch the hashtag and try something different.
Good stuff! ^^^^ I believe I (and others reading this) have a pretty clear roadmap now as to how to run your hashtag strategy.
So to sum it up…
-
Find hashtags with post counts that fit within the criteria you outlined above. Use the metrics scale to place each hashtag into their own group (Super Popular - Semi Banned) using an excel spreadsheet.
-
Check those posts immediately and continue to monitor them for 30-60 minutes. See where they fall and take note.
-
Remove hashtags according to if the post disappears from the recent posts or top posts. If so, re-add new hashtags and monitor again.
Think I got the jist?
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Hey @grafx77
Seems like your getting it
Yes it takes some time out of your day, but if you think of the long term it will save you tons of time
Being impatient or lazy with automation will just result in bans. You end up working harder by being lazy. So work smarter not harder 
Also remember if you create multiple accounts in the same niche you can copy all the hard work you did on account #1 and apply them to all the other accounts in the same niche. No need to work this hard for each account in the same niche.
Exactly. I have always done this with all other traffic venues. Find out what works on 1 account and scale out to multiple accounts. I’m assuming this type of strategy would work on Twitter/Facebook as well. Might be worth giving it a shot.
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Great! Your in the smarter percentile haha.
Sure, I dont see why not. I personally have not tried these methods on either Facebook or Twitter, but hey, its always worth giving it a shot!
Make sure to let me know if it works!
LOL…yeah, I’ve been doing this for about 11 years now. Only social media platform I haven’t really touched yet is Instagram.
Will do. May do a few posts and monitor it today.
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Do you think that when we post hashtags on the first comment it will be the same as sharing it with the picture ?
Hey @Salamouna great question!
I personally only use hashtags in captions for the main reason that they are active as soon as the picture is posted without delay. If I were to use popular hashtags there is only a few seconds of organic exposure. By posting the picture, then adding the hashtags you are lessening your exposure time which results in less followers, likes, comments and overall growth of the account.
Disclaimer: This is my own opinion, and is biased due to the fact I rarely post hashtags in the comments. Maybe someone who posts in the comments can chime in and explain why they do it.
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