Hello steemit community! this is my first ever post here, let's get right
into it, hope you enjoy :)

For those of you who don't know me, allow me to tell you a little about
myself. I have been an online marketer for quite a while and have always
been interested in computers and online related stuff. I soon realized that I
could make very good money online and tried various ways to make
money more effectively and in less time. I know what works and what
doesn’t, and through my experience and advice, you will learn how to avoid
the pitfalls and enjoy continuous success.

My effective online money
making systems are guaranteed to help you make more money online in
less time and with a lot less effort. I will show you proven step-by-step
methods that thousands of others have already used successfully to make
money online. I can teach you some of the secrets of Internet
moneymaking by showing you how to set up a straightforward system
requiring minimal skill to set into motion. I’ve dedicated a lot of time and
effort to writing this book so that both new and experienced online
marketers can follow my step-by-step blueprint to online marketing
success.

Now here's what I learned from this; You can grow your followers very
quickly and immediately start making money using Instagram
whether you have 50, 500, 5,000 or 50,000 followers.
“In September 2015, Instagram presented its latest user count confirming it
had passed 400 million users, surpassing Twitter (320 million) and
SnapChat and Pinterest (both with 100 million) with over 80 million photos
posted per day.

Instagram has only been in existence for 8 years and it
took Facebook almost 9 years to accomplish the same growth. In terms of
social networks, Instagram is still extremely new, yet currently has the
fastest growth rate and above average engagement of any social network.
NOW is the time to create and grow an Instagram account to take
advantage!”
Let me begin to teach you how to grow your Instagram account &
make money…below are 6 Instagram basics taken from my Advanced
Instagram Training Guides.

Choose your device

Android or iOS?
Instagram by design only legally allows its users to upload photos via a
mobile device (phone or tablet) that run the Android or iOS Instagram app.
I use both devices to manage my accounts, favoring Android for it’s
increased productivity that I will outline in detail.
There are only 2 aspects that iOS devices excel at over Android devices
when it comes to Instagram; image processing and image capturing
capability. Both Avatar (profile photo) and photos uploaded to Instagram
from an iOS device have better anti-aliasing, which means a slightly
sharper resized image for your profile picture. I notice this the most when
uploading profile photos, so if you want your profile photo/logo to look the
best upload it with an iOS device. It goes without saying that the iOS
cameras are superior to any Android camera (especially in low light), so if
you plan on taking live photos to post, then iPhone 6/6+ is going to yield
the best photos if you don't have the best newest smartphone.

The biggest shortfall with iOS that negatively affects my Instagram
workflow and productivity is the inability to directly access a cloud based
storage drive from Instagram (when selecting a photo or video to post).
When you have multiple ad partners sharing DropBox/Google Drive folders
with their content, this becomes a major headache for iOS users because
you have to open DropBox/Google Drive separately and export the
photo/video to your Camera Roll first before you can use it in Instagram.
DropBox/Google Drive also allows for easy access to photos you’ve edited
or curated on your laptop/desktop and want to quickly post on Instagram.

Apps

If you create your own unique high quality content, then I highly advise you
watermark your photos. It helps you establish and reinforce your
brand/logo and curbs blatant photo theft, which Instagram is plagued with.
I have been using Add Watermark Pro (paid version) for my Android
watermarking needs since I started playing with Instagram and have no
reason to use anything else. It is simple to use, allows for easy
size/transparency adjusting, batch watermarking and the quality of the
watermarked photos is equal to the original photo. It also has NEVER
crashed on me!

As for iOS, I use iWatermark (paid version) that gives the same results and
features as Add Watermark Pro.
Watermarks should be small but visible. I am much more likely to share a
photo on my network that has a small clean logo than I would a larger one
that takes away from the image.

SwiftKey Keyboard

The next major productivity tool essential is the SwiftKey app (iOS &
Android). SwiftKey is a predictive keyboard app that does 90% of my
captions for me. Install it and link it to your Gmail account, teach it some
predictive text (@usernames, captions, #hashtags) and then access your
predictive keyboard list from any future mobile device. This has proven to
be one of the most valuable apps I depend on.

Cloud based storage

DropBox & Google Drive are the two widely used cloud based storage
utilities used by Instagram power users. If using an Android device you
have an added advantage of being able to directly access photos/videos
stored in your cloud storage when selecting a photo while in the Instagram
app. I highly recommend you take advantage of this functionality
where/when it makes sense for you.

Chatting apps

Instagram communication depends on page to page. Some people list their
email addresses on their BIO (remember NOT to list the email address you
used to create your Instagram account) while others don’t but willrespond
using Instagram Direct Messaging platform (DM).
Kik Messenger has become the default Instant Messaging (IM) app to
communicate with other Instagram account owners. It allows you to remain
private (doesn’t show your phone number) and requires you to select a
unique username to represent yourself. Most Instagram accounts have
their Kik username is the same as their Instagram account. You can also
create group chats. Be careful when communicating by KIK, not everyone
who has a page owns his or her username on KIK. The safest way to know
if you are actually communicating with the page owner is through
Instagram DM (Direct Message), or the exact email or KIK username listed
on their BIO.

Setting up Instagram

Two new email addresses
Before you start to create your first (of many) Instagram accounts you need
to setup 2 NEW email addresses. There is no substitution for this. This is a
hard requirement. Create 2 simple NEW Gmail email address. It’s ideal to
have a similar email address to the Instagram name you are going to
create (for branding continuity) but not essential. Just make sure they are
clean, short as possible and professional. Avoid using “_” or “.” in your
email address as it can translate into errors when people try to reach you,
and ultimately lost revenues.

Why 2? Because 1 you are going to use to register your Instagram account
and not tell anyone about that email address. Then you are going to list the
other one on your Instagram account for people to reach you at for
advertising or partnership inquiries. You never want anyone to know what
email you used to register your Instagram account as it increases your
vulnerability to hackers. Trust me I have seen and experienced everything.
Do this and you will be hack proof!

Make sure the passwords to your new email addresses are strong and
different than each other any of your previous passwords for anything
online. Never give these password to anyone it’s your lifeline and 1st level
of security. If you adhere to this rule I can ensure you never loose your
Instagram account to a hacker! Yes you heard that correctly, I say this with
100% certainty.

You might think it will be a pain to manage several email addresses, but
Gmail has evolved and makes managing multiple Gmail addresses without
having to always remember the password. Furthermore, if you use Hotmail
or Yahoo or any other service as your main email and only ever want to
check that account, then just forward your new Instagram Gmail accounts
to your main email address. This way, anytime someone emails your
Instagram email (which you will list in your Instagram account Bio) these
emails will always be forwarded to you, and because you have that
account locked down with your strongest unique password, no one will
ever be able to hack it. You can sleep stress free knowing that your future
moneymaker will always be safe as you grow your account day after day.

New IG account and username

Now you can create your first Instagram account using your new highly
secure email address! Your username should be as short as possible, yet
as descriptive as possible to accurately describe what your page is all
about. Keep in mind that your username has 50% to do with people
searching for accounts to follow. Make sure you choose a DIFFERENT
PASSWORD than your new email address. This is your 2nd level of
security. Do not share this password with anyone. EVER.

Try to avoid using “.” in your username. It’s a complete pain in the A$$ for
people using predictive text programs like Swiftkey. If you must use a
separator to get the desired username, use underscore “” and never more
than 2. Do not ever use 2 of these underscores “_” in a row, it’s extremely
confusing and makes your account look amateur.

Also Note: Per Instagram’s Terms of Use...
You must not use domain names or web URLs in your username
without prior written consent from Instagram”

Bio

On to writing your Bio! Your Bio is your chance to sell yourself and your
account to attract new followers. Every new potential follower that comes
across your account is going to spend only a couple seconds evaluating
your page.

They will either scan your Bio to checkout a couple of your
posts (to see if you post quality content), or they will just post spam ads
and decide if you deserve to be followed, keep your BIO short, descriptive
with proper spelling and grammar and go easy on all those emoji’s, they
make your account look amateur.

If you want to have bullet points and
maybe line spaces to make your content look clean use a notepad app on
your page to format your Bio how you want it to look, then copy and paste
it to the BIO field of your Instagram profile. Limit your Bio to 4-5 lines so
that your BIO doesn’t take over your profile page and push all your home
page photos so low that users have to scroll down to see your first row of
photo thumbnails.

Display Picture

Next to having an impactful Bio, your Avatar/Profile Photo visually reveals
more about you and your brand to your potential followers. Keep your
Avatar simple with little to no text. If you must use letters to abbreviate your
page name, use a clean simple font. Regardless of what device you are
going to be using to manage your account(s), please upload your Avatar
using an iPhone/iOS device with picture resolution of 1080 x 1080 pixels
as it will ensure your profile picture is razor sharp, high definition without
aliasing. Also, consider how your Avatar will look in your follower’s news
feed. Again, the simpler the design, the more effective it will be to maintain
your brand when a users sees it on your post in their Instagram feed.

Final touches

The final piece of setting up your Instagram account is adding a URL to
your Bio. This is the only click/linkable URL that Instagram allows on each
of our profile pages, so lets use it to our advantage. Unless you are
proficient with your own website analytics, I highly suggest using a URL
shortening service such as http://bit.ly, which allows you to shorten a URL
to a custom Bit.ly link and will also track the number of clicks it receives to
provide you with valuable feedback. If you are going to use a big long
Affiliate URL, or even a YouTube URL to a specific account or video, then
please use a URL shortening link. There is nothing more amateur than
seeing some long URL in someone’s Instagram profile. Keep it short, keep
it clean and keep it professional if you want to be taken seriously.
Always keep your account public
If you want to run an account with the goal to establish your brand/account
and make money, then keep your account PUBLIC. There is nothing that
turns off potential followers than arriving at your page and having to follow
a PRIVATE account to see what you post. If you are running a personal
page then you might want to consider making your account PRIVATE in
order to shelter your personal information from stalkers, weirdo’s and the
Internet in general. You never know who is going to use your photos for
what reason.

Telephone number

Next to your brand new email address you created (the one you created
solely for your new Instagram account), your 3rd level of security is to
add and link your smartphone telephone number to your Instagram
account. Adding your telephone number into your Instagram account
profile adds another level of security in the event you lose your password
or get hacked. Instagram allows you to do very quick SMS text message
password reset directly from the Android app BUT NOT from an iOS app. If
you have an iOS device, make sure you have a good friend on speed dial
who can initiate an SMS reset for your telephone number on their Android
device. Hopefully iOS will add this functionality.

Facebook connect

You’re 4th level of security is to connect your Facebook account to your
Instagram account. This will add another level of security by allowing you
to login and do a password reset (in the event you forget your password or
get hacked) with your secure Facebook Connect credentials.
Two-Factor Authentication
Instagram recently (Feb 2016) rolled out Two-Factor Authentication.
Enabling this new 5th level of security will secure your Instagram account
tighter than Fort Knox guarded by sharks with laser beams! Setup the Two
Factor Authentication feature in your account options with your telephone
number so that that every time you log into your Instagram account,
Instagram will send your mobile phone an SMS message with a new
confirmation code to verify that it's you logging in. Set it up and know that
you are now completely hacker proof!

Posting content

Photo & Video size
Given that Instagram originally forced us into using a square based photo
(due to the mobile nature of their app), it’s best to use that entire square
crop real estate to wow your followers with an edge-to-edge “full bleed”
photo or video. This is also known as a 1:1 aspect ratio. This means no
white/black bars above/below/side of your photos to mimic the square crop
format from whatever aspect ratio you are using on your DSLR camera
such as 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 etc. The minimum resolution that Instagram uses in
their photo uploads was 640x640 pixels.. This means that any photo you
upload to Instagram should be no smaller than 640x640. Now, you should
ideally use 1080x1080 pixels for all your photos to ensure they are in line
with Instagram’s latest size/resolution updates. This will allow you to
deliver the highest quality photo experience to higher resolution mobile
screen resolutions. Remember content is king!

Captions

Captions are extremely important. A caption can make or break even the
most spectacular photo or video. A poorly written caption can make you
look like an amateur, while a clever/witty/proper one can transform a
mediocre post into a viral one. This will help boost the average
engagement of likes & comments, which ultimately results in new
followers.

Captions can be long or short. It really all depends on your audience and
the purpose of your account and posts. If you are simply providing your
audience with photo or video content you might want to consider using less
than 130 characters in your caption including no more than 2-3 descriptive
#hashtags to ensure your caption are shown before the “more”. If you want
to use more #hashtags put them at the very end of your caption.
The number of lines in your captions shouldn’t exceed 5-6 in order to
ensure the effectiveness of your message or advertisement. Anything more
and the user won’t read it.

Update: In October 2015 Instagram has updated how much of the caption
is displayed before it shows “more”. Make use of these 3 lines and 130
Characters before the “more” to get your Call To Action visible. This will
ensure that it’s seen whether or not the user clicks on “more” or leaves a
comment and scrolls up to read the expanded full caption.
Some examples of Call to actions are: “Follow @username”, “Visit a
www.website.com”, “Click The Link in Our Bio”. You can stuff all 3 of these
actions into the first 3 lines of your caption if you want to brand yourself or
your advertisers! Keep it clean and short and use 1-2 Emoji’s at most.
If you choose to use other people’s photos, you should provide photo
credits linking to their Instagram username in the caption and tag them in
the photo. Remember that even if you post other peoples photos and tag
and credit them, this does not ensure you will never be reported for
copyright.

There is no exception for posting other people’s photos without giving the
photographer credit - NOT the page you stole it from. This will land your
account in serious trouble and ultimately opens the risk of having your
account disabled by Instagram. I learned this the hard way while I was
black box testing the Instagram system early on growing one of my first
accounts.

Hashtags

#Hashtags are dead to me. They always have been. I am growing every
single one of my Instagram account without relying on, or even using
#hashtags.
Surprising, right? Well, the keys to becoming a top, and more importantly,
money-making Instagrammer might surprise some given the mainstream
“knowledge base” about Instagram, but that’s why I, along with my
fastgrowing/money-making students and brands that I work with, have
been able to grow leaps and bounds faster than other people who rely on
common assumptions instead of time-tested facts.

In June 2015, Instagram updated their search functionality by displaying
the Top 9 #Hashtags (based on # of likes and age of photo) for any
searchable #Hashtag. I have been testing this out and I haven’t seen any
noticeable change in the number of daily followers or likes on my photos.
As of now, I continue to evaluate the impact of this change, but
have yet to find any evidence that my Top Post #Hashtag rankings are
contributing to growth or likes on those photos.

With the massive amount of photos being updated daily, and the number of
spam #Hashtags being used, I have found the use of common high level
#Hashtags to be useless when it comes to growing your account or scoring
meaningful likes. Using hashtags to target specific niche keywords,
descriptive keywords that fit your content or competitor keywords can be
effective, but remember that using a competitors #Hashtag is free branding
for them.

Use less than 2-3 #hashtags in your top of captions and if you must plague
Instagram with more put them at the bottom of your caption so they are
hidden below the “more”. Remember, your posts and choice of #Hashtags
will reflect you, and more importantly, your brand.
If you’re posting a photo of a red apple, don’t just use #apple as your
#hashtag; use a more descriptive one such as #RedApple. By using two
word descriptive #Hashtags, your chances of attracting new users with
specific #Hashtag searches will be more targeted and effective!

Tagging

A great way of getting your photos noticed is to tag other accounts in the
photo you are posting (unfortunately you can’t tag a video the same way).
Don’t waste your time tagging irrelevant accounts that your photo has
nothing to do with or they might ban you. Also make sure you check the
accounts you are tagging so that you are not wasting your time tagging
them. Some accounts turn off the ability for others photos tagged of them
to show up in their “photos of you”.

Posting

When should you post and how frequently should you post? No matter
what time zone you are in, it’s essential to post during peak time to
maximize exposure and growth. Using the New York (ET) time zone here
in North America as my example, I have found that the hottest times to
post are first thing in the morning, between 8am-11am; in the afternoon,
between 2pm-4pm; and in the evening, between 7pm-9pm. I find my
photos perform the best and yield better engagements during these time
slots.

Frequency

When you start your account from nothing, I suggest you post 1-2 photos a
day: one in the morning and one in the afternoon or evening. When you
reach 5,000 followers, you can do 3-4 posts a day, followed by 4-5 posts
per day when you hit 10,000 followers.
I have always posted as soon as my last post hits 50% of its average
number of ikes. Once your account is over 1000 followers you should have
a stable sense of what your avg. number of likes per photo is. You can
quickly calculate this by adding up the total number of likes of your last 10
posts and then dividing by 10 to get the “avg. # of likes per photo.

As an example, if your “avg. # of likes per photo is 100 likes, then after you
post a photo and it hits 50 likes, your followers and Instagram are ready for
your next post. Just remember that as your post frequency increases the
chances of loosing followers’ increases. So take it slow, focus on posting
quality content, with relevant short captions and hashtags and interact with
your followers and commenters. When you want to increase your daily
number of posts, add in 1 photo per day for a couple weeks and see how
that affects your total # of likes and comments and most importantly
gain/loss of followers.

Scheduling apps

Hootsuite and Latergram are my two favorite apps that allow you to setup
photos + captions ahead of time and then get a notification on your phone
to post at a time you have setup. These apps won’t post for you but will
push your specified photo + caption into Instagram where you can edit the
photo and paste the caption into the post before hitting post/share! These
apps are extremely helpful and allow you to setup an entire day or weeks
worth of posts (via laptop or mobile) ahead of time. All you have to do is
click on the notification (for whatever specified time you have setup the
scheduling for), enter the caption (via paste function from your clipboard)
and hit the post/share button!

#Engage Your Audience & Peers
I highly suggest you start engaging with your followers as soon as
possible. As you start engaging with your followers others will see this and
want to join in on the conversation.
Several ways that you can do this is by asking them questions in your
captions to see what content they want to see, or what they like about the
photo/content you are posting.

You should also be reading and monitoring your comments during the first
5-20 minutes of each post. This is when many people will attempt to troll
your account, or other users. I have a zero tolerance for users who spam,
swear or bully. I immediately ban first time offenders and delete their
comment trail in order to keep my posts and account clean and
professional. A page that isn’t monitored or managed is a turn off for ANY
ADVERTISER!

Analytics

There are several different Instagram analytics tools available for you to
get more information about your account and your followers. The three free
ones for personal/business that I use and recommend you check out are:
Iconosquare.com, SocialBlade.com and SocialRank.com. All three use
the Instagram Connect login module, which means that when you login to
these sites with your Instagram account, you are logging in as safe as you
would be to your Instagram account on the Instagram app.
https://pro.iconosquare.com/ shows you a full suite of statistics about your Instagram
account such as top followers, posting frequency, engagement, account
growth, popular posts etc. I use it to see my Geo graphic breakdown of my
followers so that I can better determine what to sell them and when/what to
post based on global time zones of my followers, i also use it to browse
accounts at a high level to quickly determine how many average likes their
posts get relative to their account size.

By bringing up an account of
interest, I can immediately see how many likes/comments their last 20
photos got and quickly calculate their average engagement per post. I can
also see how many of their posts hit the PoP/Explore page, which is shown
by a golden star next to likes/comment count.
This average engagement of likes per photo is extremely helpful in
determining which accounts are going to give you the best results (views,
engagements, comments) for your dollar. For example if you had an
account with 100,000 followers and their average photo gets 1000 likes,
this would mean their account sees an average of 1% engagement likes
per post. However if you came across another account that only had
50,000 followers and their average photo also gets 1000 likes, their
account sees an average of 2% engagement likes per post. The account
with 50,000 followers probably charges you less per post (to advertise)
than the 100,000-follower account, and yet you would be getting a better
deal with the 50,000-follower account. Keep this strategy in mind when
evaluating whom to advertise with, as it will help you stretch your budget
when growing!

It also allows you to view your posts and filter them by number of likes and
comments, which is an easy way for you to see what type of posts/content
is best performing on your account.
https://socialblade.com/ shows you growth/follower statistics about any account
on a granular daily/monthly level. It also gives you the ability to see how
many people they follow/unfollow and how many posts they post/delete.
Growth is another very important metric that I use when evaluating an
account against other accounts. One thing to keep in mind is that when an
account grows (especially in the 100,000-500,000 follower size), their
average likes/comments per post should grow as well. It’s easier to see
this with smaller accounts than accounts over a million followers. Accounts
over a 500k-1M followers tend to have slower increases/gains to their
average number of likes per posts as they grow due to their size and how
Instagram distributes photos amongst your followers. As of March 2018, I
am seeing just about every major page having less likes per photo that I
did the last 2 years. Instagram is starting to throttle engagement just like
Facebook did. Prepare yourself to have to “pay to boost” your content to
get that original organic engagement we saw for the last couple years!
SocialRank.com is another great tool that helps you better understand
who your top followers are from an influential perspective. It allows you to
sort and view your followers as; most valuable, most engaged, bestfollowed
etc. It allows you to search your followers BIO for keywords,
search location of photos and hashtags. By targeting and engaging with
my biggest followers, I’m able to drive more awareness, likes and
comments from them, which ultimately results in more growth for my
account.

Growth

Growing your account organically by posting quality content takes time.
Gone are the days when you could create an account in a new niche and
grow quickly because you were the first one. This doesn’t mean that it’s
impossible, but it’s definitely harder now that there are so many niche
accounts. Growing your account organically is easier once you have
established your account. I find that once an account hits 50,000 followers,
organic growth gets easier and easier.

So lets kick start the growth and throw some fuel on the fire in order to get
your account up and running quickly.
The quickest way to get your account up to 10k, 50k and 100k+ is to pay
larger accounts for shout outs. Keep in mind you get what you pay for, so
make sure you are paying accounts that would have a demographic you
are interested in for your page. There is no use paying a highly dominant
female oriented page for followers/shout outs if you want to market and sell
male oriented products.

A major factor that will contribute to the number of followers you receive
and retain from a shout out will depend on how professional your profile
looks. You can maximize this potential by choosing a great avatar/profile
picture, a simple professional bio, and high-resolution photos. Pricing
varies from account to account as well as from niche to niche, so shop
around and see what pricing some of your favorite larger accounts charge
to help promote whatever account or niche you are going to enter!
Do not give your account login/password to anyone claiming to be able to
get you thousands of followers for cheap. People offering these services
will attempt to steal or pollute your account with fake followers, which will
lead to your account being disabled by Instagram. Just like anything in life,
there is no FAST WAY to achieve anything worthwhile. If someone’s offer
to grow your account sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a scam!
Another common way to grow your account is through participating in a
shout out for shout out (S4S). This is where two accounts of similar size
will promote each other’s page in an attempt to help one another grow. It
works out very well, not to mention it was FREE!
There are several apps and web services out there that claim to
automatically grow your account by following and un-following a set
number of followers (that you instruct it to from other major accounts) per
day as well as automatically commenting on your behalf. I have never used
these apps and highly recommend that you do not either. I have seen so
many people using these accounts have their accounts disabled by
Instagram when they reached 5k, 10k, 15k because of how these apps
automatically follow/comments. I have never seen anyone successfully use
these apps to grow their accounts beyond 15k-20k before their accounts
have been disabled for violating what Instagram observes as normal
human behavior using their app.

Tips

Checkout https://hashtagpaid.com/, https://openinfluence.com/,
https://speakr.com/ and http://www.snapfluence.com/ to name a few of the top
communities to list your Instagram account.
Thank you very much for reading this! I hope you have benefited a lot from
this and become my next success story.
Good luck!