Instagram experiment

In this next post of my #BlogLife series, I wanted to try out an Instagram experiment. This experiment was to try and gain more followers and what was the most effective way of doing this.

This experiment lasted five days. You can see my results below and what I believe is the best way to gain more followers on Instagram.

First of all, for my experiment, I decided to make sure I use the same hashtags on every photo I post. Instagram lets you add up to 30 hashtags to a post so I sat and worked out what I wanted to use. There are so many that can be used that I chose not to, not because I didn't think they would work but simply because I didn't research enough. I suggest researching your hashtags first depending on what you're posting. You could use the same hashtags every time or you could mix them up. I post my photo with a caption and then I add my hashtags in a comment so everyone doesn't have to see them.

So, here's how my experiment went:

Day 1

Tuesday. Started with 434 followers. I posted 9 times throughout the day with the same hashtags as mentioned. Gained 32 followers. Now at 466 followers.

Day 2

Wednesday. I posted 3 times on this day, morning, afternoon and evening. I had lost a few followers from the previous day, which if you are familiar with Instagram, you will know this happens all the time. Some people like to play this sick perverted follow then unfollow game. Twats. Gained 4 followers. Now at 470.

Day 3

Thursday. I didn't post at all on this day. Lost 4 followers. Now at 466.

Day 4

Friday. Again I posted no photos but I decided to try and gain followers from another social media platform. I decided to tweet my Instagram link and asked people to follow me. I made up a few rhymes to try and make it fun. I tweeted at 8 am, 1 pm and 8 pm. Gained 4 followers. Now at 470.

Day 5 
Saturday. Same as day 4 but instead, I used Facebook. I posted from my blog FB page and then shared it with my own personal FB page. I used the same script as I used on Twitter. Gained no followers. By the end of the day I had lost 1. 

I finished on 469 followers. This was a gain of 35 followers in 5 days which I consider to be a success, especially as my Instagram account is very slow. From the stats, you can clearly see that posting often is as you might expect on a photo sharing platform, the best way to gain followers.

I am not a big photo taker and this is mainly due to working full time, so unless anyone wants to see an Instagram feed full of wool or paintbrushes then you will have to wait until my days off to really see the amazing shiz that I post.

There you have it, my advice is to post regularly but not too much. 9 posts in one day is a bit excessive and when I next aim to push my Instagram following I may just go with 4 photos in a day. You get up to 30 hashtags, so use them. They really do help, try it yourself, post a photo with no hashtags, then post one with 30 and see what the difference in likes is. My likes went up from 2 likes per photo to around 60 per photo just from adding in hashtags.

Thanks for reading, if you liked this then please give it a share.

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