Instagram and Twitter are some of the best platforms to use when growing a brand and building connections.

Using automation I’ve been able to grow multple Twitter and Instagram accounts in just a couple of months while travelling with very little effort.

The amount increases exponentially once you appear to be an authority and popular. This has helped me gain exposure, customers, writing opportunities and some online friends.

Using social media software makes it extremely easy for people to get exposure and gain followers organically and quickly. The software mentioned in this post are the simplest and most effective.

 

Growing Instagram and Twitter accounts

Instagram is one of the best ways to market your business, product or service. It still has a great organic reach compared to other social media and is known to bring in high quality traffic, create awareness and brand presence.

Twitter on the other hand, does not have the reach of Instagram but certainly has its own benefits.

By combining these 2 efforts, you will gain some serious reach and targeting, getting your name and brand out there really quickly and effectively.

The software was used while I was travelling. It was virtually no effort and will take a maximum of 10 min of your day once you are all set up.

I gained tons of followers but also got accounts banned using Instagress and Archie at the same time and boundary testing. To avoid getting banned rather do this slowly but also make sure you make the most of the free trials.

Instagram and Twitter growth hacking – the basics

• The best ways to gain followers on both Twitter and Instagram is by following people that are interested in what you do, what you offer, or share the same interests as you.
• By engaging (following someone, liking their post, commenting on posts) it shows that you are interested in them and this leads to them checking your profile out (so make sure yours is appealing and worth following).
• A good bio and quality pictures go a long way.
• When choosing to follow or engage, try be specific, choose a niche, topic, or area.
• Focus on engaging with people who would be interested in what you do or offer.

Using Twitter to gain followers and authority

Twitter is great for building followers and getting a little stream of website traffic and SEO link authority to your pages or social profile :)

With Twitter there is always the chance that your tweet goes viral which helps everything!

It is also a great platform if you want to direct some traffic to a page, offer, post or competition over the course of a day or week. Simply just tweet about it with the link every hour or more and your tweets would have brought in a reasonable trickle of traffic (depending on your amount of followers – that’s why getting a lot of really relevant followers is so important).

Twitter has been playing with their limits of late but you can initially only follow 2000 people first and then they cap you, once you have close to 2 000 followers following you, you can start following more people again.

Once you have followed 2 000 you can start unfollowing those that did not follow you back and reduce your followers to under the Twitter cap and start following new people gain exposure and more followers.

Twitter is one of the few social media platforms that you will get away with posting multiple times a day and not seem spammy. :)

Using Instagram to gain followers and authority

Instagram works on the same principles as Twitter. As mentioned earlier, following and engaging with people is the best way to get people to follow you.

Gaining followers on Instagram

Instagram has a cap of 7 000 followers so follow people and they will follow you back.

You need to make sure you have more than 12 pictures if your profile if you plan on gaining followers.

For the best follow back ratio make sure your pictures are good quality.

Manually

If you starting a new account its good to start it manually, this makes you actively engage with the audience and get to understand them, besides that who is going to follow an account with 20 followers anyway? Try and get your account to at least in the hundreds before you start using automation sofware.

Find and choose people through hashtags or Instagram explore option.  Click “Follow” from and then follow the suggested relevant people they offer. This is seriously labour intensive and can be really hard to do on a continuous basis and still have a social life or get work done.

I would not suggest following more than 500 – 1 000 people per day with Twitter or instagram as this could seem spammy and may lead to a ban.

The only 2 sofware you really need for gaining Twitter and Instagram followers

 

Twitter and Instagram growth hacking – some tips

Some pointers to try and get the more out of these automated tools.

• If your account is fairly new or just getting started, its good to state it in the bio.
• To make the more of twitter send a Direct Message to new followers asking them to like your FB page, check out your website or simply say hello.
• Make sure your accounts have some details and a good bio with content, people want to know what they following at a glance, a first impression is all you have – make it count.
  When you have finished the free trial but don’t have money you could try using Tweepi for Twitter. Unfortunately there is no Tweepi equivalent for Instagram.

Instagram Comments

• Make your comments very broad. The comments with target your hashtags the broader your comments are. eg. Someone take a picture of their burned ruined flopped muffins and tags #yummymuffins (which they will do, people love using hashtags for the most irrelevant or sarcastic things) and you comment “Wow, awesome job they look delicious” . This does not look good for your account.

• Also, make more than 20 comments, if Instagram recognizes that you posting the same comments you will get flagged and banned.

• DO NOT PUT “Follow @nameofyouraccount for more awesome pics” in the comments, it’s spammy and Instagram tracks the word “follow” You will get flagged as a spammer and possibly banned.

Other Tips

Hashtags

When putting hashtags into Archie or Instagress, use targeted more specific hashtags. Its pointless having tags like #awesome and #yummy because anything can be those things, by adding an extra word you can make them more targeted. eg. If I’m a photographer in Africa I would want to add maybe #africanphoto, this will target people that really like Africa.

If you a personal trainer or into fitness target #gymselfie and this will target people who like spending time of fitness and gym.

The more targeted the more followers you will gain.

Increase your followers > increasing your pic likes > increasing engagement > therefore increasing your reach > ultimately increasing your page traffic and authority.

If you a baker target #yummymuffins and this will target people who like muffins and baked goods.. Also try have around 5-10 hashtags, not 30 and not 2.

Here is a free tool to generate hashtags.

Add-ons/extensions for Twitter

Download the Tweepi chrome extension, save on clicks and time.

By clicking on the Tweepi button it automatically does every action on the page instead of having to click on “follow” on every one. They also have an option/promo to Tweet about them and then you can load 40 people in your list instead of 20. – This is a big time saver, and you can delete it after.

Followers

Try and have your account following less people than your followers. I try aim for 2/3rd or less… You could maybe go to 1:1 but I wouldn’t go anything more.

Example

following less, looks a lot better than…

following more than followers

How to not get your Instagram account banned with Instagress or Archie

Don’t run the Instagram on Archie and Instagress at the same time. Maybe finish with Archie free trial first and then use Instagress free trial.

Give your accounts breaks. This is not a sprint it’s a marathon, you are already in the 0.1% that is aware and using this software.

Rest your accounts, run it for a couple of hours, tweak it and then run it later again.

On Instagram, don’t follow and unfollow more than 30 people an hour, they limit you at around 50, but my goal is to try and get you followers and not get your account banned.

Run your account on “slow” settings. I don’t want to recommend anything faster but the rule is that the older your account the faster your settings can be.

Use tools like Social Blade to keep tabs on your  fans and monitor your progress.

THE BIGGEST MARKETING TIP OF ALL

Everything in this post is to try and get you followers but that should not be your end goal.

Instagram is going to start reducing reach and the only way to have high reach, the only way to maintain a high reach is to create fans.

Fans are the ones who actively view their Instagram feeds and engage with you on a regular basis. As your base grows you will improve your engagement and so will your reach.

Having followers is all good and well but what you should really try to gain is fans.
This part isn’t as hard as it seems, but takes time. respond to all your comments. Make sure you try to respond to all comments.

The key here is to use your fans name in your reply to their comment. Calling them and mentioning them by their name is the best way to turn followers into fans, and fans into a community. That is the biggest tip on this whole page – if you leave with anything leave with that

A page a page of 1000 engaged fans is worth way more than a account with 10 000 uninterested fans.

Get to know and understand your followers and turn them into your fans and supporters.

Instagram and Twitter growth hacking.

Instagram is one of the BEST ways to market your business, product or service. It has a much larger organic reach than any other social media and is known to bring in more conversions.

Twitter on the other hand, does not have the reach of Instagram but certainly has its automated benefits. By combining these 2 efforts, you will gain some serious reach and get your name out there really quickly.

Currently I have more than 30 000 followers across all my business Twitter and Instagram accounts. You can do this too.

I’ve been using this method for almost 2 months while traveling. It’s virtually no effort and will take a maximum of 10 min of your day once you are all set up. I have gained many followers and got accounts banned through my experiments and boundary testing.

I’ve done a ton of research and testing since then to avoid that and we are going to do everything in “cautious” mode in this post to avoid getting your account banned.

I want to share with you some free tools that small to large companies can use to grow their brands and social exposure on a national to a global level. I have tested the boundaries and received the repercussions so you don’t have too. Unfortunately If you don’t follow my/the guidelines you can expect the same to happen to yours.

This blog post is purely to help people I know, and their friends. For this article I ask you not to share it on social media but are more than welcome to send it to friends trying to make a brand – please DO NOT send this to any marketers, it’s super easy to make money like this and I would hate my advice to be monetized, I stand to lose on all fronts that way.

I’m doing this for feedback, so I would really love to know what happened, was it easy to follow and would you want something like this again etc. Anyway let’s get started!! :D

Instagram and Twitter growth hacking – the basics

The best ways to gain followers on Both Twitter and Instagram is by following people that are interested in what you have.

Using Twitter to gain followers and authority

Twitter is great for building followers and getting a little stream of website traffic and SEO link authority to your site or social profile – yes you can use social profiles to boost social profiles. :) This helps the web pages/social profiles gain authority and rank better on search engines. With Twitter there is always the chance that your tweet goes viral which helps everything!!

Twitter is also a great tool if you want to direct some traffic to something over the course of a day or week. Simply just tweet about it with the link every hour or more and your tweets would have brought in a reasonable trickle of traffic (depending on your amount of followers – that’s why getting a lot of really relevant followers is so important). Twitter is one of the few social media platforms that you will get away with posting multiple times a day and not seem spammy. :)

 

Gaining followers on Instagram

Instagram works on the same principles as Twitter.

Follow people and they will follow you back. You need to make sure you have more than 12 pictures if you plan on gaining followers and make sure the last pictures on your account are awesome, for the best follow back ratio.

 

Twitter and Instagram Tips

Some pointers to try and get the most out of the Social media tools.

Make sure your accounts have some details and a good bio with content, people want to know what they following at a glance, a first impression is all you have – make it count.

Followers

Try and have your account following less people than your followers. I try aim for 2/3rd or less… You could maybe go to 1:1 but I wouldn’t go anything more.

Example

Looks a lot better than

Hashtags

Use targeted more specific hashtags. Its pointless having tags like #awesome and #yummy because anything can be those things, by adding an extra word you can make them more targeted. eg. If I’m a photographer in Africa I would want to add maybe #awesomeafrica, this will target people that really like Africa and will be more inclined to increase your followers > increasing your pic likes > increasing engagement > therefore increasing your reach > ultimately increasing your page traffic and authority. If you a baker target #yummymuffins and this will target people who like muffins and baked

If you a baker target #yummymuffins and this will target people who like muffins and baked goods.. The more specific the better. Also try have around 5-10 hashtags, not 30 and not 2.

Add-ons/extensions

Download the Tweepi chrome extension, save on clicks and time. By clicking on the Tweepi button it automatically does every action on the page instead of having to click on “follow” on every one. They also have an option/promo to Tweet about them and then you can load 40 people in your list instead of 20. – This is a big time saver, and you can delete it after.

 

Comments

Make them very broad. The comments with target your hashtags the broader your comments are. eg. Someone take a picture of their burned ruined flopped muffins and tags #yummymuffins (which they will do, people love using hashtags for the most irrelevant or sarcastic things) and you comment “Wow, awesome job they look delicious” . This does not look good for your account.

Also, make more than 20 comments, if Instagram recognizes that you posting the same comments you will get flagged and banned.

DO NOT PUT “Follow @nameofyouraccount for more awesome pics” in the comments, it’s spammy and Instagram tracks the word “follow” You will get flagged as a spammer and possibly banned.

 

 

 

Bonus : Automation for Pinterest