So what is a trust score? It is how IG ranks your account :Trustworthy or spam? If IG analyzed your account and activities, where would you fall? I can only speak from the experience gotten from this test account and what I have read about.
Let’s dig in shall we?
I have a test account that was ruined by a couple of…actually many action, going against the tos of Instagram leading to a DEAD ACCOUNT.
What do I mean by a dead account? An account where you have over 30k followers but after posting high quality content, you end of with 30 likes after 24hours aka ZERO engagement. Or even if you reposted the same content that did really well on a competitor’s page, you still get lower engagement.Yikes.
What caused this?
Buying of fake likes: Initially it seemed like it was a necessary boost to end up in explore page or make the account seem “cool”. However, this became like a drug. The more we bought, the worse organic engagement got. As a lot of members have explained, the reason this causes a constant plummet in engagement is because:
Accounts producing these fake likes have ZERO engagement and like a wide variety of niches. Instagram therefore does not know which niche to put you in.
Because of the new IG algorithm, IG shows your content based on who likes your stuff. That means IG will show your content, again to the above inactive followers…aka showing it to nobody. (Test this with an account you do not follow. Like their content but do not follow them. You will notice that after a while, you keep seeing their posts in your explore feed).
(Low quality) Follow/Unfollow: I am not against f/uf as that is how this test account was grown. However, understand that if you want your content to be seen by your target audience, you are better off following people WITHIN your niche. It has to be very very specific and targeted. Engage with content, users, brands, influencers, consumers within your niche. Not always easy with automation!
Lack of engagement on your part: Just hoping by wave of a magic wand, you will be discovered.
So if this is you and you are wondering what can be done…
Obviously STOP buying the likes. Yes, do the “walk of shame for a while”. You are probably thinking ermm everyone is talking. How can I have only 20 likes with 30k followers? Actually not a lot of people care (well people care but I mean notice). Only if likes were real money (though the point is to get them to be real money).
Another obvious one, stay within your niche. This may require purging of followers and following. Again, as long as you are not worried about people talking, do it.
If you cannot do that, start a back up account immediately and be “smarter” this time. (I confess @wortime also gave me this idea). Once grown, delete the old one and convert this one.
Get an influencer within your niche to engage with your comment. LURE THEM TO YOUR PAGE. Be patient.
If you absolutely cannot be bothered with waiting, purging and looking like a “loser” (perspective, really), then delete the account and start all over.
What you are trying to do is to get back into Instagram’s good books and get the right people to your account.
Have you had experience with a ‘dead’ account? Did it ever resurrect. Would love to read others’ experience.
Follow only people who like or comment. 300 to 700 a day for a few days. Don’t start unfollowing till you get around 6000 or 7000.
Like those who are the biggest over and over. It they don’t return back don’t like them anymore.
Screw HQ pics or your idea of what they should be. ‘ Borrow pics from top of explorer feed in your nich. 2-4 times a day. You need actives on your account.
Do everyday and it will pick back up. One of my accounts took over a year to go from dead to active. 90k with 100-300 likes to now 123k 5 percent eg.
4 stay away from telegram and create own Eg group in DM’s
Do you mean like "Post 2-4- times a day AND
A. even if you dont get many likes, leave those low-performing pics in your gallery?
OR
B. if the likes are not high, delete those pics?
I am just wondering, because if IG is determining the exposure depending on the received likes from followers of the last x pics (e.g. last 12 pics?!), how is it then possible to get out of this vicious circle?
My approach is currently “Reducing the no. of posts, blocking ghosts and trying to re-activate followers by giving likes to them”, but maybe I am totally wrong with that.
I’m in the process of blocking 15k followers based on the criteria No Profile Pic or over 2,500 followings. I’m hoping this will have a large impact on engagement. I’m also following based on likes and comments which should help as well.
Interesting! How big is your acc.? If you have already some results like those from VERONA could you maybe post these results in the mentioned thread above?
Thanks for that, will give it a try on a dead acc. This will be totally different from my current approach what seems to work, but as said, maybe I am wrong. Therefore I am thankful for your advices, dear Albert!
Hope you are fine and your billion accounts and businesses are running good
Im wondering what you guys would say about the frequency of posting. Because if it is an influencer account and you want super high quality explore page creative content it takes a lot of effort to produce it on your own.
Do you think it hurts the account if you post only every third day, but are delivering really high quality?
I have tried both. Post often (to reach more people at various times and kinda max out engagement as possible) and post less (since IG shows older posts, to again max out engagement…let people who missed out on it see it and therefore increase engagement score).
I think for a dead account, it might be better to post more to increase overall “activity”.
Yes, sounds reasonable. Dear @Florin22xxl , as far as I know, you have more experience with online marketing and IG. So actually I am just trying to consider loudly from what I’ve read. Feel free to correct those thoughts if I am wrong.
Going on with growing with f/u might be problematic. Why?
without a loyal “fan-base” (e.g. many engaging followers), the no. of likes will be low and therefore the reach will be lowered and lowered. The lower the reach, the less non-followers will see the post. Therefore there wont be or hardly “organic growth”.
Ilobi’s acc. is 30k. Let us assume (s)he is able to follow around 1,000 people and has good “targets” (=FBR ~ 50%) and (s)he would gain 500 followers/ day.
Goal: 1,000,000 followers
Currently: 30,000 followers
Gains/ day: 500 Days left to reach the goal: (1,000,000 -30,000) / 500 = 1,940 days (e.g. more than 5 years)
Okay, this was just a theoretical calculation. Of course, 1 Mio. is not a “must-goal”. Pretty sure you made some decent sales with smaller accounts
Main question is:
can a dead acc. still gain a lot of new followers without f/u?
I have too less acc.s. to answer this question, but I am pretty sure, you have more reliable experience
You have a point- engagement does always drop as an account gets larger. However, when the engagement rate of an account is higher, and when hashtags are being used, the chances of organic growth increase due to posts ranking in the top 9 section more frequently.
There is no such thing as a influencer account. It’s a fancy title we give it to sound better. It is a Instagram accounts -,no more no less. Unless you are Kim k. Or the rock with a few hundred mill it’s a regular account subject to rules same as a tiny 1k one.
You cannot work on follower count and eg at the same time. Priorities must dictate which and it leans toward eg. Then and only then can a account do stuff.,when it has the firepower of high activity
to active. 90k with 100-300 likes to now 123k 5 percent eg.
are running good 
