So, considering this is my first created post, you’ll have to forgive my terrible attempt at stalling time whilst writing this very sentence. Anyways, I’m a small account with 8k followers, and have made just about every mistake in the book when I first started growing. I am by no means a master yet, but any questions no matter how simple, I will give you an honest opinion from my experiences. Bio creation, hashtag research, feed aesthetics, etc 
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Looking forward to this. We have these in other levels, AMA style. We all started from somewhere.
I’ll go first. How long does it take you to do Instagram hashtag research?
How often do you change your tags?
What tools do you use?
What is your strategy with them? Number of likes? Number of tag uses vs number of likes received?
What is the number one mistake people make when doing research?
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Looking forward to listening to the grandmasters in their AMA’s.
When I first really started understanding the importance of hashtag research, I started simply by just taking a notebook, opening IG, picking a broad niche related term, and kept going down the rabbit hole of related terms. Finding 30 good tags back then took me a whole half hr handwriting them all, I was too critical. But nowadays it takes less than 5 minutes to come up with a set.
I specifically have about 4 sets of tags that I use, depending on the type of post. I have a luxury/quotes page, entrepreneur motivation. So i.e I’m posting a clean ride, I have my car tags. Next post is a quote, etc etc.
I still mainly use IG search to find niche tags, looking at popular posts and finding the sub tags. A lot quicker to copy and paste into my notes rather than hand write. Another tool I use is Preview, which give decent suggestions when looking.
Strategy is based mainly off of tag uses. My main goal is to hit the top posts, bump up my trust score with the Instagram gods.
Number one mistake people make is not choosing niche related terms. Sure, tagging #Love and #hotgirls and #pleaselikethisimdesperateforgrowth may get short term engagement, but you’re only putting a bandaid on a bleeding wound.
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what kind of strategys of growth you mainly used and use today
did you combined any of them?
at the start, middle of your journey, and today
which you find the best working for you?
thx for your wisdom 
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Awesome question @petcobra.
When I didn’t know any better whilst starting off. I tried to use “Top ten Instagram hacks you should know” type stuff. Terrible advice like trying to l4l with randoms, following 3k+ in a day, and kicking them all to the curb the very next day. I wobbled my way to around 3k followers doing that, with crap engagement.
Then I learned about telegram rounds. Basically large scale engagement groups. Around this time too I got into better quality hashtag research. So I used the rounds to boost me into the top 9 spots and grew like that. When IG started rolling out the shadow bans, I lost inspiration and walked away from the account for about a month.
3 weeks ago I decided to stop whining and use what I actually know. So I took all those tactics I mentioned, but used them correctly and better. Now I’m working on getting back to my glory days of 800-1100 likes per post, gaining around 120-160 followers a day with my automation.
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how do you get shadow banned by engagement rounds? i mean i did it also a day ago
and got ranked in 2 hashtags 3th place and 7th, with a total of 770likes on a post (didnt got a shadow ban) i quess your suggestion is a no no for engagement rounds? and if so, why?
how much it took for you to make it to 3k followers at your beginning of the journey?
You don’t, or not really, not through that. There are other theories about how it happens, but they’re not due to engagement groups and that kinda thing.
However, engagement groups may have negative consequences. As soon as you stop using them your numbers plummet which may drop you out of ranking hashtags and discovery via the Explore tab.
Another thought is that if all the engaged users are not following you, nobody related to them will discover your content - counterintuitively to how the explore feature works. Users get suggested based on friends, or similar content to what they’ve already liked / followed before, and if a bunch of random people are engaging, none of their friends will ever see your account - or they may and won’t be interested.
I guess one way around that is related account engagement groups, though I’ve never been part of one of those so I can’t prove one way or another if they work in your favor or not.
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yea thats exactly what ive been thinking about this!
i quess its just common sense, gotta join a engagement group which has everyone related niche
thats what ive understand from 2-3 day experience
I have yet to come across an app or software that spins out the perfect set of tags to use. Nothing beats good ole fashion research.
What I do is go on IG, and search for related tags that competitors are using, so I can draw ideas from that. Basically ask yourself, “if I was X, what would I like to see on IG?” And then fill in the blank.
I.E- If I was a mom of 3 kids in California, what kind of stuff would I like to see. Then get creative, check out some accounts that cater towards that demographic. Don’t use tags like #bikergang #deathmetal and #partyallnight, but maybe #babiesofig #mylovelychildren #momknowsbest etc.
Those were totally random hashtags I’ve never used, so of course you’d have to use that method and find tags that you can actually hit and whatnot. But this is how I’ve come up with my 4 sets of tags that I rotate between posts
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So, could you all use some free tools? They will not be mind blowing by any means. You still need to do a lot of it yourself.
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I’m up for any extra perspective on my research 
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I’ve been busy lately, but adding topics for level 1 has been on my mind for a while now.
I don’t see anything wrong with the way you do your research. Perhaps an actual guide might be of more help to everyone in level 1 though.
I will leave it up to you. If you want to write a guide, that will help you get to level 2 faster. Or I can write one for level 1. AKA Hashtag research 101
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I’ll take lead on guiding the level 1 rookies.
If you don’t see anything wrong with my research, I’ll have a guide up in less than 24 hrs. It’s early morning in Texas right now, and having university classes in the morning, I’m about to head to sleep.
What other topics do you see needing to be filled here in level 1?
Eh, that’s really up to you guys. What is it you are looking for? Please be mindful of the public facing side of MP social. AKA no bots!
I’m personally looking for better ways to make my engagement go up in proportion to my followers right now.
And yes, I’ll be mindful. Night night now 
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Great thread- look forward to the guide! Working on better hash tags as we speak! Thanks!
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It worked 
