Skyrocketing your business with the power of INSTAGRAM
by ORionDig
Instagram is a mobile photo-sharing app and social network created in 2010 by founders Kevin Systrom
and Mike Krieger. In 2012, Facebook purchased the service for $1 billion. According to Instagram, the
social platform has more than 300 million daily active users and 500 million monthly users. Instagram is
photo- and video-centric, so users can edit and post images and short videos, record Instagram stories,
and go live with video.
Instagram is not for everyone. If you make the decision to join this unique social network to promote
your business, please be sure to carefully read the rules and proceed with caution.
Using Hashtags
Using hashtags is a great way to help other users find your content on Instagram, just like on Twitter.
Hashtags can include letters and numbers, but they can’t contain any non-numerical symbols
(#JackAndJill might work as a hashtag, but #Jack&Jill does not, for example.) Because users can both
search for hashtags and click on hashtags they see in posts in the app, using relevant hashtags can be a
highly effective tool for getting noticed.
However, just like on Twitter, you have to make sure you’re using the right hashtags for your brand and
that you don’t go overboard. Hashtags such as #nofilter (a photo that hasn’t been heavily edited with
filters added), #selfie (a picture of yourself) and #tbt or #throwbackthursday (old photos) are all
incredibly popular on Instagram, but they may not work for you or your brand. It’s a good idea to look at
other established brands (or even personal users and bloggers) in your industry for examples of what to
do when it comes to hashtags. Instagram allows a maximum of 30 hashtags in a post or comment but
using that many would be excessive. The fewer hashtags you can use to get quality responses, the
better.
Using a lot of popular hashtags might earn you a lot of likes from other users, but it probably won’t
increase your following all that much, and the interactions you get will likely not be from people who are
interested in your brand, but rather those who just saw and liked your image.
Instagram Followers Limits and Policies
There is a limit on the number of people you can follow on Instagram. According to Instagram, in order
to “reduce spam”, they limit the number of people you can follow to 7500.
Not that many of us will follow those many people, but keep this in mind if you’re an active follower on
Instagram. If you’re approaching that limit, it might be time to go through and determine if there are
people worth unfollowing. There may be delinquent accounts or irrelevant accounts that you could stop
following.
Instagram will also limit how many people you can follow within a period of time. If you follow too many
people within an hour, or even a day, you will receive a message telling you the limit has been reached.
As far as I’ve been able to confirm, Instagram only allows you to follow/unfollow 160 people per hour.
According to multiple people, but with no official word from Instagram, there is now a new limit
restricting users to follow and unfollow no more than 20 people per hour. There is no limit on how many people can follow you.
Instagram Contents
There is no limit to the number of posts you can share. There is no photo limit on Instagram – whether
per day or total.
If you want to delete posts, you can only delete them one at a time. And while I can’t confirm a limit on
the number of posts you can delete at a time, you may receive an error message if you try to delete too
many posts. For some people, this happens after 5-10 deletions. If you receive this message, wait and
come back later to resume deleting more images.
Your Instagram feed shows the last 200 posts of those you follow. Anything past this limit will not be
viewable from your feed.
If you do reach any of these limits on Instagram, you will receive an error message that will look
something like “Rate Limit Exceeded Instagram Error.” If you receive this error, determine which limit
you’re violating and either wait for the time restriction to pass or take the steps to lower your activity.
Most people using Instagram for business or personal use won’t reach most of these limits. Please make
sure you are avoiding the use of automation tools (bots) to quickly follow and unfollow users or to
hyper-actively like other posts. This is not the way to use Instagram. You should be interacting
authentically and generating real relationships with your audience. If you’re doing this right, limits on
Instagram shouldn’t be a big concern for you.
As on other social channels, businesses have the option to advertise on Instagram. There are three
different formats for advertising:
- Photo Ads: These look like regular photo posts, but they have a Sponsored label above the
photo. They also have a Learn More button in the bottom-right corner, under the photo. - Video Ads: Like the photo ads, these look like regular video posts, but with a Sponsored label on
top. - Carousel Ads: These ads look identical to photo ads but feature multiple photos that users can
swipe through.
All three ad formats appear in users’ home feeds while they scroll through the app. These ads support
four different objectives: video views, clicks through to your website, mobile-app installations, and mass
awareness.
What will get you banned from Instagram
Slight abuse of these rules won’t get your account blocked, but all actions get summed up, and if at a
certain period a critical amount of such actions piles up, it will lead to your page being banned or
pessimized. These includes
Technological infractions
- Frequent change of IP-address. In cases when you log into the account from different services
that use different IPs to connect; - Frequent change of devices. Instagram keeps track of logging devices, and switching between
them too often during a short period of time might get your account blocked until your
circumstances are clarified; - Buying an account. Buying an account from an unconscientious seller who had registered and
filled up hundreds of pages from one IP gives you high chances of getting this account banned; - Creating accounts. You should avoid creating accounts with automated devices, scripts, serial
adders and other unsanctioned devices.
Boosting up the key figures
- Spam comments. This category of forbidden activities includes using the self-advertisement
service, repeated comments, comments with commercial spam, for instance, website URLs and
promo codes; - #hashtag spam. Instagram can freeze your posts’ hashtag indexing in case you publish several
images one after another with one and the same set of hashtags. You can tell it’s happened to
you when your images are getting published without a description or with non-functioning
hashtags; - Mass following. A drastic and rapid increase in followers puts Instagram algorithms on guard
and practically always results in the blocking of your account; - Mass liking. The situation is the same as with the previous point – a rapid increase in popularity
doesn’t go unnoticed by the algorithms and shuts down by having the account blocked.
Forbidden content
- Photos that were taken by other people and people in the photos. Publishing the materials copied from
the Internet and publishing the photos of other people is forbidden. The accounts that do that
can be blocked at any moment; - Document photos. Pages get banned for publishing emails, social security numbers, credit card,
passport and driver’s license information, and mobile numbers that belong to you or another
person; - One image in several pages. You shouldn’t publish one and the same image in several accounts
at one and the same time. This can get all the accounts banned, even though each of them is
using its own IP-address; - Brand pages. If you’re creating a brand page for an organization or any other corporate entity, in
this case, Instagram will require you to provide proof you’re entitled to this kind of activity.
|f you carefully follow the laid down rules, then your account should flourish and you should be able to
promote your business effectively.
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