[Guide] How to achieve a higher Follow-Back-Rate

Instagram Marketing
#1

Hey guys, since I’ve been learning a lot in this forum in the last couple of weeks, I decided I would share a simple, straightforward method I use to achieve a higher follow-back-ratio (~35-50%) for my accounts.

Disclaimer: I typically use this method if the current goal for the account is to get many followers in a short period of time and to get social proof and NOT if the goal is to achieve a better engagement-rate, find the perfect customers etc.
-> I always use this method for new/small accounts, since I believe social proof is (sadly?!) a very important factor in SMM, once I have a relative good amount of followers, I typically (not always) use different methods with even better targeting! (follow-back-rate goes down to the common 10-15%)

So here goes the method:

  1. Find as many large accounts in your niche as you can (min. 30) and follow all of them! (Make sure you use an account you’re not actually growing for this task, you’ll understand why! It should preferably be an account with a profile pic, a bio, some posts and some followers, basically a “real” account)

  2. Wait around 24-48 hours, many people will have followed your account

  3. Use those accounts that followed you as sources for your account. Use “Follow followers of target accounts”. Those accounts, you guessed it, are doing f/u themselves, meaning their followers followed them back because they followed them -> they will probably follow you back aswell!
    Make sure you properly analyze those accounts first though. Use tools like igblade, ninjalytics…

  4. Now, like I already said, the followers you’ll get with this method are not necessarily going to be of the best quality, since they may have just followed you back because you followed them, not because they like your content. Using filters like “has a profile image”, “has min. 2-3 posts”, “has under 1000 followings” etc. will help you get the better quality accounts to follow you back though.
    I would advice you to constantly keep track of your engagement rate. Typically it isn’t the highest while using this method, but if you used filters properly, it will still be ok. Then decide depending on your goals if you want to keep using this method, or switch to a method for better engagement rate, sales etc.
    Again, the main purpose of this method is to build quick social proof, while still maintaining a relatively good engagement rate :wink:

Note: Point 1 just showed you the fastest way to find people in your niche that are using f/u to grow. Keep in mind that most of the good marketers using f/u don’t typically use the large accounts in the respective niches as sources, but actually smaller ones (I’d say under ~300k) with better engagement rate. With more research, you can find better quality accounts doing f/u and use those as targets. This will deliver better results in terms of “quality follow-backs”.

I hope this guide helps some of you, if you have any questions or feedback regarding this method, make sure to let me know! :smiley:

38 Likes
#2

Thanks for the awesome nuggets, as you said that the followers we’ll get using this method won’t be of the best quality but by gaining such followers for social proof, will it actually harm the organic growth rate of the account?

2 Likes
#3

Properly using filters will still give you fairly good quality followers, I would definetly advice you use filters to avoid being followed by bots and mass-followers. I have some accounts who still use this method and the engagement rate is pretty good, you just have to filter out the “bad accounts” with filters! :wink:

Also check out the “Note” again, this will give you better results aswell :wink:
Lmk how it goes!

5 Likes
#4

This is definitely a great strategy. I often notice that for clients I’m doing F/UF, using other clients in a similar niche usually provide the best follow back ratio - issue is that they dont engage.

That’s the biggest problem, especially with more difficult niches, is that you can F/UF all you want, but at the end of the day the client will look like the have fake followers ~ 10k Followers, 100-200 likes a post.

1 Like
#5

Yup, that is why you have to keep track of the engagement rate all the time! I also use “like posts of own followings”, this tends to help with ER combined with this method :slight_smile:

1 Like
#6

What do you consider a good ER these days?

#7

Depends on your niche and especially on the amount of followers you have, typically the more followers you have the lower the ER is which is considered normal. For under 100k followers I’d say over 10% is pretty good! :wink:

#8

Fantastic advice, thank you! Only our imagination sets the limits to what is possible when it comes to automation

1 Like
#9

very very true, this forum gives even the dumbest ones a great kick-start though haha

1 Like
#10

thanks StayStyled, this is a good trick

1 Like
#11

Damn I used to do this back when I was spamming with Instagram, good old days :stuck_out_tongue: Anyway, thanks for sharing this, it truly works.

1 Like
#12

Thanks for this, looks like a good way to gain pure numbers and get social proof.

What kind of followback ratios have you seen with this method and in what niches?

1 Like
#13

It’s usually around 40-50%. In the men’s fashion and in the hip hop niche, but should work in every niche as long as you can find people doing f/u

1 Like