Today Instagram confessed to an ugly bug that caused people to “lose” followers. Sounds like that loss is not permanent, unlike past Instagram fake account purges that we’ve written about before.

This is good news for all of our customers who were concerned about the sudden loss of followers. You can gain quality, real followers with Gold Nitro, well, as long as Instagram is not bugged.

We’re aware of an issue that is causing a change in account follower numbers for some people right now. We’re working to resolve this as quickly as possible.

— Instagram (@instagram) February 13, 2019

 

Update: we’re expecting to have this issue resolved by 9 a.m. PST tomorrow. We understand this is frustrating, and our team is hard at work to get things back to normal.

— Instagram (@instagram) February 13, 2019

Getting more Instagram followers can often seem like a dark art. It’s hard to understand how to get more followers and Instagram growth strategies are always changing. In the old days, it was simply enough to post great content and use the right hashtags to gain visibility. Unfortunately, as Instagram’s feed algorithm becomes more personalized, it becomes harder and harder to get more exposure on Instagram.

At Gold Nitro, we’ve helped connect over 15 million Instagram followers to all our customers. Along the way we’ve learned a lot about what works when it comes to getting more Instagram followers.

Our research shows that the most cost effective way to get more Instagram followers is a combination of good Instagram practices and running automation software to accelerate your growth. We advise our clients to avoid buying fake Instagram followers and stay away from purchasing sponsored shoutouts. Neither of these strategies has proven effective to get more Instagram followers and both are more likely to hurt your account rather than to get you more Instagram followers.

We believe that these five areas are the most important ways to grow organically on Instagram:

• Content is king: On Instagram, content is the reason why some of your posts will get more engagement than others. It’s really important to take note of what kind of photos and captions your audience engages with. For instance, longer text posts have been found to have higher engagement rates.
• Hashtags: Picking the best hashtags can be tricky, but make sure you avoid really popular ones. Your ideal hashtag has 10 times as many posts as you have followers. So if you have 1000 followers, look for niche hashtags that have 10-20k posts.
• Posting: With the new algorithm changes, there isn’t a right or wrong time to post. However, it is important that you do post consistently and regularly. Ideally we’ve seen 3-7 times a week to work the best.
• Stories: Instagram stories are still relatively new, but they are super effective for maintaining a daily audience. It’s easier to try out different types of content here without risking your engagement ratio. Some popular accounts only grow through their stories. Make sure you also add hashtags to any stories that you post.
• Messages: It helps a lot to send a welcome messages to any new followers joining you account. A simple, ‘hey, thanks for following’ can go along way. Research has shown that this will also improve your chances of being shown in your followers’ feeds.

Our approach is simple and effective: you get to focus on your content, while we focus on your growth. Many have started businesses using our help. Signup for a free trial at Gold Nitro to get more Instagram followers today.

Let us know what you think of this post below.

We’ve improved the AI behind Gold Nitro’s targeting system to increase the likelihood of follow backs and engagement.

What this means for you is that you can add many target hashtags, locations, and accounts, and not have to worry as much about how they perform. We’ll figure it for you!

 

Many Instagram marketing services offer followers in bulk. These are usually fake accounts (ghost accounts) that are created only to follow other Instagrammers. They produce no content, usually provide no engagement, and will never convert into fans or customers. (This differs from automation services like Gold Nitro, where we simulate human Instagram activity to provide organic growth.)

Despite the drawbacks of buying bulk followers, people still do it. Their followers increase by 1000 or 10000 overnight.

A bigger problem is that these followers are shed rapidly over time. Instagram aggressively deletes fake accounts, as we saw with the September Purge. The providers of the fake accounts eventually hit the 7k following cap and stop following you. What’s worse, if you’re on a subscription service for fake accounts, canceling can cause them to remove those followers as quickly as they appeared.

Here’s an example from one account that bought bulk followers twice but was not using Gold Nitro. You can see the spikes when they purchased hundreds of followers, then the giant cliff when they were lost overnight.

Below is another example, where the account bought 10,000 fake accounts over the course of a few days, only to see half of them gone a couple weeks later.

For the majority of Gold Nitro users who are not buying fake followers, they can gradually but consistently increase their followers over time.

 

There’s a hidden trick in Gold Nitro’s Pro plan: you can target activity to people who have liked your posts by adding your own account in account targeting. Further interacting with people who like your content can increase the chance they follow you.

To use this, just add your own Instagram username in the Account section of Targeting.

 

You can now continue following people who follow you back. Gold Nitro will not auto-unfollow users who follow you back when you check the “Keep Follow Backs” option on your dashboard.

This can help you retain followers: people we auto follow are less likely to unfollow you if you continue following them. Though, remember to keep your overall “Following” number low.

You can turn on “Keep Follow Backs” in the Gold Nitro dashboard under Unfollows.

We’ve added PayPal as a payment option! If you’re seeing credit or debit card declines, PayPal is an excellent alternative. You can add it by clicking the PayPal button on the Billing page.

We’ve also switched billing providers so you’ll start seeing new invoice and receipts — no longer from Stripe. We now have more subscription email notifications, a place for company name and VAT number, and separate invoice and receipts that show all of your company details. These are common customer requests and we’re excited our new billing provider has these!