How To Grow Your IG Account Fast Using Hashtags

Hey People Of Mpsocial :smiley:

I though I would share one beneficial strategy for getting your pictures the maximum exposure possible. Following these instruction will get your pictures in the Top Post section under BOTH Popular and Less Popular hashtags. This method works for every Instagram account. Whether you have ZERO followers and likes, or if you have thousands.

Lets Get Started!

The main point of a hashtag is to increase your exposure when users search pictures under specific hashtags. When a user does so, they will first see the Top Post section which contains 9 pictures which received the most amount of love, then if they keep scrolling they will see the Recent Post section which has a cluster F*** of pictures.

Post Sections

Top Post Section
This is the section we all want our pictures to be in. When a picture is in this section, your picture will be seen my thousands if not millions of people. Not only that, your picture will remain in this section for a while. If you have ever noticed that one of your pictures received 5x or more likes compared to your other pictures, then its most likely it was featured under the Top Post section.

Recent Post Section
This is the section where every picture is shown in when they use that hashtag. The chances of getting exposure from this section is slim to none since your picture goes further and further down the list every time someone posts a picture with the same hashtag after you. If you used a popular hashtag like #happy #smile your picture will be gone within a blink of an eye. The only way to be successful in this section is to use hashtags that have above 5k posts, and under 500k posts (Better to say on the low side). The lower the posts on a hashtag, the longer your posts will remain visible.

Hashtag Types

Popular Hashtags
These hashtags have the highest amount of views but also has the most amount of posts making it very difficult for your pictures to get lots of exposure unless they are in the Top Post section.

Less Popular Hashtags
These hashtags have a lower amount of views every day, and also has a lower amount of posts every day. This makes it easier for your pictures to get some exposure, and its also easier to get your picture in the Top Post section.

Semi-Banned Hashtags
These hashtags usually have a higher amount of views compared to Less Popular Hashtags. Although they are semi-banned they will still show the Top Post section, and maybe a few Recent Posted pictures.

The Strategy

Now that you know the 2 sections, and the 3 types of hashtags I will explain a good tip/trick which will help you get your pictures in the Holy Top-Post Section.

  1. I always use 30 hashtags with every post. More hashtags, more chances of getting your picture seen.

  2. Mix your hashtags. Donā€™t use all popular hashtags, and donā€™t use all low popular hashtags. You need to mix it up. Your hashtags should include Popular, Less Popular, and if your niche hash lots of half-banned hashtags add some of those also.

How Does This Method Work?
Make sure to have a cup of coffee!
When you use all 3 types of hashtags, your pictures will first start getting some extra exposure from the Recent Posts under Less Popular Hashtags. This will get your pictures some extra likes, and comments, along with some new followers. Now that your picture has received some more engagement, your pictures will then have a higher chance of getting into the Top Post Section under the Less Popular & Semi-Banned hashtags . This will further increase your exposure. Now that your picture is in the Semi-Banned Top Post Section, your going to receive even more engagement. This should be enough to get your picture to appear under the Top Post section of the Less Popular Hashtags (If its not already). Now that your picture are in the Top Post Section of Less Popular & Semi-Banned hashtags categorie. They will continue to keep getting more engagement for at least a few hours. Now this is the fun part. Every now and then your pictures will end up in the Top Post Sections of the Popular Hashtags. This is when you see your account growing thousands of followers in a day if not sooner. Each category of hashtag has its own purpose. When you let them work as a team, your growth will skyrocket.

Summary

  • Get your picture some likes from Less Popular Hashtags
  • Get your pictures featured in the Top Post Section for Less Popular & Semi-Banned Hashtags
  • Get your picture featured in the Top Post Section for Popular Hashtags.

TIP: Accounts with little to no engagement should have more Less Popular Hashtags. Accounts with good engagement (400+ likes/picture) should have more Popular Hashtags.

TIP: If you use 1 Less Popular Hashtag, your posts will have a lower chance of getting exposure. If you use 20 Less Popular Hashtags, your posts will have a 20x higher chance of getting exposure.

PRO TIP: Stop acting like your account has millions of followers. I have seen hundreds of clients who have 200, 500, or under 20k followers and dont want me to post more than 3 hashtags on their posts because it looks tacky. You will rarely ever see the day of your account reaching 1 million followers. Stop following what accounts with million of followers do. They dont need to use the methods smaller accounts need to continue to grow since their accounts grow naturally form the Top Post section, and from the amount of shares they get on their pictures. Your choice, Tacky and become popular, or proper and fail (majority)


How To Research & Prepare Your Hashtags

  1. You will need to collect a ton of hashtags that relate to your niche

  2. You will need to lookup the post count of each hashtags

  3. You will need to look at the Top Post pictures under each hashtags, and record the the highest and lowest amount of likes and comments.

  4. Review your account, see how much likes/comments you are receiving.

  5. Find hashtags that contained posts similar in likes & comments, and use these hashtags with your posts.

  6. Find hashtags that have slightly more likes & comments and use under 5 of those with your posts

You should have 25+ hashtags that have a similar amount of likes & comments, and you should have 1-5 hashtags that have slightly more likes & comments.

In total you want to post always 30 hashtags.

If you found this useful let me know by clicking that little heart button :slight_smile:

260 Likes

BOOOM!!! another awesome share!!! thanks @BrandonBerner!

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Aw snap Brandon sweet share my man!

Thank you.

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The big question, are you sure youā€™re getting /real/ likes and followers, and not bots?

Popular hashtags are there, but man, getting likes/follows in like split nano second the moment i posted some top 10 hashtags is too good to be true. The moment i changed my username to include ā€œfollowersā€ i get like a few follows. Bot much? LOL

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The majority yes, but also note that fake likes just higher your chances of getting your pictures in the Featured Top Posts Section. I always include a few tags which encourage bots to like my picture. The majority of the accounts that use this method have a 30% engagement rate.

I dont think you understood or read the purpose of this strategy. I said nothing about getting your pictures exposure from the Organic or Latest Post section of Popular Hashtags. Its a method showing how to get your posts in the Top Post section of Popular Hashtags, Less Popular Hashtags, and Semi-Banned Hashtags which keep your posts visible to millions for a while (some cases days).

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Awesome! Iā€™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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Iā€™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 Iā€™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.

7 Likes

Great info Brandonā€¦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 thoughā€¦

  1. 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 doesnā€™t tell you which ones are popular/less popular/banned.

  2. 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 :slight_smile:

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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http://gethashtags.com/
this is a nice little site to look for hashtags,but outdated a bit.

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Thanks Brandonā€¦

  1. Yeah, saw that post earlier. I think Iā€™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?

  2. 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 Iā€™ll start off with 10 or so and work my way on up to 30. Iā€™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 :slight_smile:

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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 :slight_smile:
Connecting to facebook is always a good way to lessen your chance of a ban, so nice work :slight_smile:

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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 :wink:

@MrNobody you can get the instagram poster module for mass planner, itā€™s a one time payment and youā€™ll be able to post to instagram with no problems.

Thanks for the praise :slight_smile:

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. ā€œWork Smarterā€¦Not Harderā€ is my moto :slight_smile:

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2 posts were split to a new topic: Good ways to monetize my traffic