[METHOD] Unheard methods: How to increase the reach on Instagram 🔥 (including my own secret sauce and golden nugget)

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Hey, guys! Coming up with another guide. Trying to help you guys as much as possible :slight_smile:

Most of us are managing client accounts or own network of accounts on Instagram and thinking about how we can increase the reach.

Some of my tips (and some of my secret private tweaks and twists are):

  • Link Instagram profile to FB page (yes, it actually helps to increase the reach as Instagram favors accounts which are linked to FB profile as it gives more authenticity and gets better trust score)

  • Making it to a public profile, instead of having private account (yes, it actually helps too to increase the reach as you will be ranking in hashtags easier and getting into explore page too)

  • Not making the profile into Business profile (actually having Business profiles, in most cases, decreases your reach because Instagram is earning more money from Business profiles and wants them to spend money on ads more to get better visibility and reach thus decreasing it on purpose)

  • Engaging with your followers constantly (yes, this also helps in getting better reach on your posts because Instagram sees your account as a constant engager thus giving you a favor)

  • Replying to followers’ comments and DM’s as fast as possible (yes! this is definitely a must thing to do on your own account! I hardly advise you to reply to followers’ comments and DM’s as soon as you get them - preferably in within 30 minute frame)

  • Preferably, do not post hashtags in the comments (as this was patched a long time ago and is not working as effectively as while back) - most people use this to make caption better-looking by placing hashtags into the first comment, but please put them in the caption

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Posting only relevant hashtags in the captions (yes, it helps you to get a better reach on upcoming posts if your previous post has a lot of relevant hashtags. Instagram implemented alt text a while ago which determines what is in the image by implementing their image recognition. You can find alt text on any image in HTML code where it says “Image may contain”. By the way, not all images have alt text.

I will tell you one trick that no one has been talking here around:

  1. Download an image and its alt text.
  2. Then, find those keywords as tags in Instagram
  3. Scrape all related hashtags of all alt text keywords
  4. Use them in your post caption
    TADAA! Now you have only related hashtags (in most cases) to your post.
    (THIS IS HOW INSTAGRAM DETERMINES IF YOUR HASHTAGS ARE RELEVANT TO THE POST!)

Don’t tell anybody about this secret lol :grinning:

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BUT NOW, I WILL GIVE YOU A GOLD NUGGET RIGHT NOW FOLKS. NO ONE HAS BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT AROUND THE INTERNET. Probably some of the experienced Instagram marketers already found out about it, but no one is talking about it and keeping it as a secret to their own needs (bastards… :smiley:):

I ran several tests while back ago and did this:

  1. Posted the image which I downloaded from some random Instagram account
  2. Removed MD5 hash (as all content reposters do)
  3. Posted the image on a test account

Then, I tried to do this:

  1. I did exactly the same as in the first test, but uploaded a picture I took with my Samsung phone and uploaded

And you know what? My reach increased! I tested it by following both test accounts with a bunch of other accounts that I created just for the sake of this test to determine which accounts see my posted images on the feed.

Why I got lucky (maybe)? Because Instagram tracks GPS coordinates of each published post. Reposted content don’t have those, while original posts (taken with a phone/camera, made in photoshop, screenshots, etc.) have! You can do this test if you don’t believe me: upload a picture/video on your Instagram account via mobile app and you will see that Instagram will give you suggestions of locations to tag on this post before publishing it. Do you think those locations were given just for fun, randomly? Of course not! Instagram checks those GPS coordinates on image’s/video’s METADATA and then provides you such suggestions.

You can see the difference METADATA of the same image here:

All reposted content (downloaded from the Internet, scraped from image sources, or downloaded from other Instagram accounts) don’t have METADATA (here is the proof):

Original posts (taken with phone/camera, photoshop, etc…) have METADATA (proof):

At least, give it a like on this post for my effort writing this guide lol :smiley:

To be continued… More guides are coming up for you guys!

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You’re a big help man. Thanks dude

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Great Post ! Well written . Thanks man :slight_smile:

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@MrRedJacket @Kilroy Thank you! Trying to help you guys to discover new things :slight_smile:

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Another great compilation of methods that will surely help a lot of people here. By the way, I love the graphics that you use as separators, they keep your topics nice and clean.

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I will find you and I will marry you. These knowledge drops are amazing, thank you!

The point about business profiles totally makes sense. I’ve also seen people reporting drops of ER when changing, but very few are aware of this effect and they are quickly shut down and the blame is put on something else. Have you noticed a large difference in switching between types of accounts, or is it just enough to be noticeable if you’re aware?

Your golden nugget also makes so much sense! I mean why wouldn’t they?

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Xexe :smiley:

Thank you for reading my topic! I hope you will implement some of those on your accounts (I hope :smile:)

Tested it on some accounts, and I have noticed that it impacts the reach. Also, some people here and in Facebook groups noticed that too :slight_smile:

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Interesting!! Thanks for the share!

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You said that images/videos posted through the app get more reach/engagement but what if we have tons of accounts we have to post on? Also if we need to post daily multiple times scheduled out, how do we accomplish this? Or are we screwed on that part?

Also what about programs like batch purifier for clearing photo data, will that help?

Great post!

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@koliman22 Thank you! I hope you liked it! :slight_smile:

@RustyBread I didn’t mentioned that images/videos posted thought the app get more reach/engagement. I mentioned that having the metadata affects the reach :slight_smile:

I have never used batch purifier since I only modifying metadata since it brings me the best results.

-pow

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Another great guide, thanks for this.

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Nice one man, bad ass tips and I am also really feeling your graphics, awesome!

The GPS metadata one is really interesting, would like to test how it goes when entering metadata and coordinates ourselves to reposted pics. I actually assumed the location suggestions where coming in from where you are posting and logging in from (IP geolocation), since that seems to affect follow-suggestions and what not.

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Thanks @pow. I’ve already thought of some of those points but the last one it’s golden. If I may, I want to share a tip. You can create METADATA profiles in Adobe Bridge and you can bulk modify METADA of whatever pictures you have. I will run some tests with this and we’ll see how this goes. But yes, you can add this to your post :grin:

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Thank you for reading it thought! :slight_smile:

If the image/video you are trying to post doesn’t have any GPS coordinates in their metadata, Instagram then will give suggestions based on your geolocation (IP) :slight_smile:

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Great tip! Thank you for sharing it :slight_smile:

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Nice tip there. I use bridge in general and was sure that it could handle something like that although I never needed to do it before.

It might be fun to combine the geo location from the self-edited metadata with an appropriate location check-in for maximum effect. Worth testing out to see how IG likes that double location whammy.

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Big up for the last shares!

This is true.
U can use these tools:

GeoSetter (Windows).
GPSPhotoLinker (Mac OS X).
GPicSync (Windows and Linux).
HoudahGeo (Mac OS X).

Though, keep in mind that IG will show ur posts to peps that interacted with those Geos/or who have been in these places. Coordinates always override the geolocation u choose when publishing with the app.

Couple of years back it was keyword stuffing, now it’s geolocation stuffing.
Lol.

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Great guide, thanks! I actually already knew about the alt text, but not about the geotag… I’ll look more into it :wink:

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Thank you, very detailed!

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Can anyone else back this up? Having done this for years, I’ve felt that the consensus was always that it makes no difference. They work equally well.

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