How many followers till instagram pays you

How To Make Money on Instagram in 2022 (7 Best Ways)

This guide will explore 7 quick and easy methods for how to make money on Instagram.

You’ve probably heard stories of Instagrammers cashing in on the pictures they snap and share every day. You might’ve even looked at your own sizable following and thought, “Maybe I can do that full time too.”

Together, social media reach and influence offer the opportunity for Instagram creators to explore multiple streams of potential revenue, whether they want to build an empire or just earn some extra cash and free stuff.

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How to make money on Instagram
How much do Instagram influencers make?
How many Instagram followers do you need to make money?
Getting paid on Instagram and beyond
Make money on Instagram FAQ

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How to make money on Instagram

Collaborate with brands on sponsored posts
Become an affiliate
Open your own ecommerce store
Create an Instagram shop
Sell your photos online
Monetize your content
Sell old stuff

The methods that may work the best for you will depend on your unique brand of Instagram content, your target audience, and your level of commitment.

The beauty here is that chasing one revenue stream doesn’t necessarily rule out another.

So let’s start with the most common approach to Instagram monetization: partnering with brands as an influencer.

1. Collaborate with brands on sponsored content

The term “Instagram influencer” gets thrown around a lot these days.

An influencer is basically anyone who’s built themselves an online reputation by doing and sharing awesome things online. To their audiences, influencers are tastemakers, trendsetters, and trusted experts whose opinions about certain subjects are respected.

Many brands just can’t compete with that, so they partner with influencers on sponsored content like posts, Reels, and Stories that help get the word out about their products.

But it’s not just the follower count and reach of your Instagram account that brands want—it’s your audience’s trust and engagement with high-quality content.

It can be hard to balance your revenue as an influencer and your integrity as a creator, but if you’re not relying on your Instagram marketing income to stay afloat, you always have the freedom to be selective about the brands you work with, just as brands will be selective about the Instagrammers they work with.

How to decide what to charge as an influencer

Typically these influencer deals involve the creation of content—Instagram ads, a post, a video, or a Story—and will sometimes include permission for the brand to use this content on their own site or in an ad.

Most of these deals are negotiable and can involve a single post or an entire campaign in exchange for a fee, a free product, a service, a gift, the promise of exposure, or some combination of these.

Keep in mind when negotiating that you’re not just offering content but access to your audience—a potentially large reach on one of the most popular social media platforms around—and usage rights.

The average influencer who has upward of 100,000 followers charges up to $500 per post, just to give you an idea of what some brands are willing to pay and how to negotiate based on the cards you’re holding.

Finally, it's important as an influencer to also know your own audience.

What is the makeup of your audience, and what is your engagement rate (total engagement divided by your number of followers)? You can dig up numbers to back this up in your Instagram analytics report, if you’ve switched to a business account. This will help you be prepared when it comes time to negotiate.

How to find brands to work with

If you’re big enough, chances are brands will find you. But you can also look for brands to work with that are on a similar level in terms of personality and values, so your audience won’t feel like you’re “selling out.”

You can reach out to them directly to try to work out a deal, but you can also list yourself on one of the many influencer marketplaces out there to increase your chances of being discovered, including:

Fohr. Connect your Instagram, blog, YouTube channel, and other social platforms to create an influencer “card” that shows your different profiles and total reach to brands shopping for a partnership. You can also access a list of brands and their wants, so you can take the initiative to reach out too.
Crowdtap. Do small content creation tasks to earn rewards. This is great if you’ve got a smaller audience. Available in the US only.
indaHash. Brands post campaigns you can participate in. Post a picture with the specified hashtags on Instagram and get paid. You need at least 700 engaged followers to be eligible.

The rules vary when it comes to sponsored content, but to be on the safe side and respect your audience’s trust, consider adding a #sponsored hashtag to indicate sponsored posts.

You can find examples of sponsored posts and how Instagrammers integrate brands into their story or caption by searching #sponsored on Instagram, like this one from How They Asked, an account that shares wedding proposal stories and partners with a jewelry business:

Instagram also has a “Paid Partnership with” tag that prominently identifies sponsored posts, which some brands might require you to use to disclose your relationship with them.

2. Become an affiliate

Unlike an influencer, an affiliate is more invested in making sales for the partner brand—not just generating awareness—in exchange for a commission.

This is typically done with a trackable link or unique promo code to ensure clicks actually translate into sales. Use a mix of clickable links in your Instagram bio and Instagram Stories or through stickers. Since you can’t put links in Instagram posts, you can create promo codes so you can make money from different angles.

Consider reaching out to one of the many online merchants offering affiliate programs. Or you can explore popular marketplaces like:

ClickBank. An affiliate platform with a tier-based commission that’s open to everyone.
LTK. An invitation-only fashion and lifestyle influencer network that offers 20% commissions.
Amazon Associates. A popular option that pays out a 10% commission.

Though it sounds like a numbers game, affiliate marketing is also an art, and you’ll have a better chance at success if you have a plan going into it and expand your online presence to include a website and other marketing channels.

Tip: Affiliate links can be long and ugly, so I recommend a URL shortener like Bitly, especially if the links are going in your Instagram bio.

3. Open your own ecommerce store

By now it might sound like the only way for an Instagrammer to make money is to sell out and work with other brands.

But creators of all kinds are in a good position to “sell out” with their own products: physical goods, services, or digital items that can be an extension of their brand, building a business with an audience at its center.

The ability for [content creators] to sell products is just so natural because their abundance of content allows them to have those moments of plugging their products.
Chris Vaccarino, founder of Fanjoy

You need to invest some time upfront, but in today’s world, it’s almost natural for creators to make the leap to entrepreneurship. That’s becoming easier with the growing list of Instagram tools available to build an audience.

Just look at Loki the Wolfdog, one of the biggest Instagram dog-preneurs of his time.

By selling your own stuff, you don’t need to worry about integrating messages from other brands into your posting strategy. Better yet, you can get your own brand out there on the products you sell.

Fans can show their love and support your work by buying from you—a purchase they can feel good about.

There are a few ways to sell your own merch:

You can use a print-on-demand service to print and ship your own t-shirts, pillows, coffee mugs, wall art, and more.
You can sell services such as photography or consulting using your bio to direct interested people to a contact email or a link to your professional website.
You can sell digital products such as online courses, ebooks, or design templates.
You can use your Instagram business account to launch a startup selling your own original products. You can use dropshipping fulfillment so you don’t have to deal with holding inventory or returns.

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4. Create an Instagram Shop

The past few years have been huge for ecommerce brands and creators who want to sell on social media. Instagram has released a ton of features under the Instagram Shopping umbrella, which allows people to easily shop your business’ videos and images on the platform.

Instagram shopping tags are so effective—and over 130 million people are tapping on shopping tags every month—because they allow people to go from product inspiration to product information in just a few taps."
Taylor Loren, in an edited excerpt from the course How to Make Money on Instagram

It all starts with an Instagram shop, a.k.a. your storefront. There, you can share your story and sell products. Instagram provides a sleek experience for shoppers to browse and buy your collections. All you need to set up Instagram Shopping is a Business or Creator account.

You can customize your shop by creating collections or curated products presented in themes. Common themes include new arrivals, gifts, or seasonal trends.

Just like your online store, you can also create product description pages in your shop. Here you can include all relevant product information, like pricing and descriptions. You can send people to your website to complete a purchase or let them buy through the app using Instagram checkout.

It doesn’t stop there. People can also buy your products throughout Instagram via features like:

Shoppable posts and Stories. You can use product tags to showcase items from your catalog in videos and images. People simply need to tap to learn more about an item.
Shoppable ads. You can also add product tags to ads and extend the reach of your shoppable posts. Setup is simple inside Ads Manager, or you can boost existing Instagram posts in your feed.
Instagram Shop tab. Instagram’s shopping tab is a destination for people looking to discover new brands that are relevant to them. This helps you more easily reach new customers on the app.
Live shopping. Do you love livestreaming content? Then you’ll find Instagram live shopping helpful for making money. Just go live and tag products from your catalog (or Facebook shop) to feature in your broadcast. The product will show up at the bottom of the screen, where people can tap to purchase instantly.

The best part? Setting up an Instagram shop is free. You’ll only pay a commission if someone purchases through Instagram checkout.

5. Sell your photos online

Someone might get famous on Twitter by telling 140-character jokes, but Instagram is a photo-sharing app at its core. And photos are assets that can be licensed, printed, and sold in a variety of ways.

If photography is what got you into the Instagram game in the first place, you can list your photos in marketplaces like 500px or Twenty20, where brands and publishers might license them.

However, you can also sell your photos as prints and on other physical products using a similar method described in the last section. Services like Printful and Teelaunch let you put your photos on posters, phone cases, pillows, and more, taking care of fulfilling orders and customer service, so all you really need to worry about is making sales.

Take the story of Daniel Arnold, who, according to an interview in Forbes, went from “eating toast three meals a day” to making $15,000 in 24 hours by offering to sell prints of his popular-but-controversial photos. If you've already got the demand, all you need to do is take the initiative and offer your audience the opportunity to buy your photography from you.

6. Monetize your content

Monetize your videos with ads

Another way for entrepreneurs to make money on Instagram is through in-stream video ads. With these ads, brands can promote themselves within the videos you produce.

How much you earn depends on the amount of views your video gets, or “Monetizeable Plays,” according to Instagram. You’ll get 55% of ad revenue generated from each view, paid monthly to your bank account.

Turn on In-stream Video Ads and start earning in three steps:

Go to Account Settings. Tap Creator, then In-Stream Video Ads.
Tap Get Started. Read and agree to the terms and conditions.
Toggle Allow Monetization on your existing Instagram videos, then tap Continue to finish.

To earn through In-Stream Video Ads, your content must be original and you need to own the rights to any music. Your video needs to be two minutes or more to monetize. Images, polls, looping videos, slideshows, or text montages don’t qualify.

Live badges

Live badges are a newer feature, helping creators and influencers make money on Instagram. A popular concept taken from Twitch and TikTok, think of Instagram Live badges as tips you can receive during a live broadcast.

With this feature, viewers can purchase a badge during the livestream that shows in the comments and unlocks features, including a place on the creators’ badge list and access to a special heart.

People can buy:

One heart for $0.99
Two hearts for $1.99
Three hearts for $4.99

7. Sell old stuff

If you’re not an influencer and just want to make some extra cash, Instagram is a great place to sell old stuff. Whether it’s furniture, clothing, collectors items or even Mason jars, you can make side income selling it on Instagram. Plus, you can declutter your home and help save the environment.

Take Lavender Loveseat, for example. Based in Chicago, the team finds older pieces of furniture, refinishes them, and sells them through Instagram. The brand shares fun, entertaining content on its page to attract buyers and earn sales.

Read More: From Likes to Dollars: Here's How to Sell Your Products on Instagram

How much do Instagram influencers make?

There are a number of factors that determine how much an Instagram influencer makes. They can earn anywhere from a few dollars to a million dollars per post.

The amount you make depends on a few factors:

Number of followers
Engagement rates
Affiliate marketing tactics

The good news? There is room for any size account to make money on Instagram. There are generally five tiers of influencer marketing, broken down by follower count.

Nano-influencer: 1,000–10,000 followers ($10–$100 per post)
Micro-influencer: 10,000–50,000 followers ($100–$500 per post)
Mid-tier influencer: 50,000–500,000 followers ($500–$5,000 per post)
Macro-influencer: 500,000–1 million followers ($5,000–$10,000 per post)
Mega-influencer: 1 million+ followers ($10,000–$1 million+ per post)

If you don’t have a lot of followers, don’t get discouraged. Earning your followers’ trust and engaging with them will help your account grow. More than the number of followers, brands look for influencers to work with that have an active following.

So even if you only have 1,000 followers, you can still make some real money. To give you a little inspiration, here are some examples of the top non-celebrity influencers who have made the most of Instagram with their accounts:

Lele Pons: 46 million followers
Charli D'Amelio: 44.4 million followers
Addison Rae: 40.1 million followers
Sommer Ray: 26.8 million followers

Related Article: It’s Your Time to Shine: How to Find and Work With Instagram Influencers

How many Instagram followers do you need to make money?

If by now you’re wondering how many followers you need to start bringing in real revenue, the short answer is: not as many as you think.

The long answer depends on factors that range from:

What niche you’re in and how easily you can directly tie it to a product category (fashion, food, beauty, and fitness are popular niches, based on top Instagram hashtags)
How engaged your followers are (100,000 fake followers won’t amount to much)
Which revenue channels you explore

Naturally, the more engaged followers you have, the better. Check out our tips on how to get more followers on Instagram.

While top Instagrammers make thousands of dollars per post, even those with small but engaged followings of 1,000 have the potential to start making money.

Getting paid on Instagram and beyond

What started as a hobby—making people laugh, doing silly photoshoots with your dog, or sharing pictures of food—can snowball into the chance to turn your Instagram page into a source of income fueled by your engaged following. But why stop there?

There’s a world of possibilities for creators to make money on the web. If you want to open up more revenue streams online, be sure to check out our tips on how to make money on YouTube. Your Instagram followers are bound to join you on other channels. You just have to open the doors for them to walk through.

Ready to create your business? Start your free trial of Shopify—no credit card required.

Make money on Instagram FAQ

Can you get paid on Instagram?

Yes. You can get paid on Instagram in the following ways:

Create sponsored posts for brands that want to get in front of your audience
Become an affiliate and making a commission selling other brands’ products
Create and selling a physical or digital product or offering a paid service
Set up an Instagram Shop
Sell licenses for your photography or videos
Monetize your content

How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?

The more followers you have on Instagram, the more money you can make. Rates are also determined by engagement, quality of content, name recognition, audience demographic, and skill set. The standard is $10 per 1,000 followers, but can vary depending on your contract and sponsor.

How much money does 10K Instagram followers bring in?

Micro-influencers, or accounts with 10,000 followers or less, can make around $88 per post on Instagram.

How Many Instagram Followers You Need to Start Getting Paid

How Many Instagram Followers You Need to Start Getting Paid Search iconA magnifying glass. It indicates, "Click to perform a search". Insider logoThe word "Insider".

Brand deals
Meta Platforms bonuses
Affiliate links

Angle down iconAn icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Tomi Obebe is a micro influencer on Instagram. Tomi Obebe

Updated

2022-06-27T15:33:45Z

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Brand deals
Meta Platforms bonuses
Affiliate links

A couple thousand followers on Instagram qualifies some users as "influencers."
But at what point — and with how many followers — can an influencer start making money?
Insider has talked with dozens of influencers about when they started making money, how, and how much.

With a few thousand followers on Instagram these days, it's easy to ask yourself: When can I start making money doing this?

The good news is, there's no strict minimum.

Three influencers Insider interviewed — all with under 3,000 Instagram followers — said they got paid by brands to post to their small audiences.

For instance, Kayla Compton became a brand ambassador for jewelry company PuraVida with less than 2,000 followers, she told Insider last year. She said her starting sponsored-content package at the time was $250, and that she also got paid by sharing affiliate links or codes with her followers and earning a small commission.

And now, it's easier than ever to share affiliate links on Instagram stories since the company rolled out access to link stickers to all accounts in October.

Instagram is also directly paying some influencers through incentive programs like "Bonuses" for Reels, which requires at least 1,000 views on Reels (rather than a follower minimum). On the other hand, other Instagram monetization features like "Badges," Instagram's tipping tool for IG Live, require that creators have at least 10,000 followers. Many of these programs also are limited to certain countries, have an age minimum of 18, and require accounts to be registered as business or creator accounts on the app.

While the doors have opened for many more creators on Instagram to start making a living, often they don't start making full-time incomes immediately (although a fair number of micro influencers with under 100,000 followers work full-time as influencers).

Read more: 19 content creators share how they turned their social-media side hustles into full-time jobs

Today, influencers no longer need hundreds of thousands of followers to start earning cash.

Here are a few reasons why:

"Nano" and "micro" influencers (typically accounts with fewer than 100,000 followers) are being hired by many brands across industries. These smaller influencers have demonstrated the power of niche and engaged communities on Instagram, where fake followers and disproportional engagement have flooded the platform. Influencers can earn hundreds to thousands of dollars from these deals.
Meta-owned Instagram is opening its multi-billion-dollar wallet and paying some influencers, which it announced last year with a flashy $1 billion investment into content creators through 2022.
Affiliate links are easier to share now than ever. Some affiliate programs do have their own requirements, however, such as LTK or ShopStyle. Instagram also is testing its own affiliate marketing program, which is available to a select number of creators at the moment. Influencers can get paid a commission on sales driven directly through Instagram. Bethany Everett-Ratcliffe, who's already enrolled and had 16,000 followers when Insider first interviewed her, earned more than $500 in one month.

Check out: Leaked commission rates from September 2021 reveal how much brands in Instagram's affiliate marketing test like Sephora were paying influencers

So, how much money are these influencers making on Instagram?

Insider interviewed over two dozen Instagrammers about how much money they make, with follower counts between 2,000 and just over 100,000.

Here's a full breakdown of our coverage:

From brand deals:

Natasha Greene, a food and lifestyle creator with 137,000 Instagram followers
Macy Mariano, a travel and fashion influencer with 102,000 followers
Jehava Brown, a travel and lifestyle influencer with 70,000 followers
Nick Cutsumpas, a plant influencer with 63,700 followers
Ashley Jones, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 45,000 followers
Tomi Obebe, a lifestyle influencer with 40,000 followers
Emma Cortes, a lifestyle influencer and podcast host with 47,000 followers
Britney Turner, a lifestyle influencer with 27,000 followers
Caitlin Patton, a lifestyle influencer with 22,000 followers
Mary Margaret Boudreaux, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 20,000 followers
Gigi Kovach, a part-time lifestyle blogger and mom of two with 13,500 followers
Tyler Chanel, a sustainability influencer with 12,000 followers
Khadijah Lacey-Taylor, a fashion and lifestyle influencer with 9,800 followers
Tess Barclay, a lifestyle blogger with 5,600 followers
Laur DeMartino, a nano influencer and full-time college student with 5,200 followers
Jalyn Baiden, a skincare influencer with 4,000 followers
Jen Lauren, a part-time lifestyle influencer with 2,900 followers
Amber Broder, a part-time skincare influencer and full-time college student with 2,300 followers
Kayla Compton, a lifestyle nano influencer with about 2,000 Instagram followers

From Meta Platforms, including Instagram:

Kelly Anne Smith, a personal finance influencer with 12,000 Instagram followers shares how much she earned from Bonuses in March
Jackson Weimer, a meme creator who got paid more than $6,000 for views on his Reels with 114,000 followers
Several influencers reveal the different 'bonus' payments Instagram is offering, with some stretching up to $35,000

From affiliate links:

Bethany Everett-Ratcliffe, a lifestyle micro influencer with 16,000 followers, makes money using Instagram's native affiliate program
Vi Lai, a skincare influencer, uses Instagram and TikTok to make thousands of dollars per month using affiliate marketing
4 Instagram influencers reveal what the platform's exclusive affiliate marketing beta test is like — and how much they're earning

Read more: Instagram is abruptly shutting down its affiliate marketing bonuses, which used to pay up to $400 a month

How many Instagram followers do you need to earn? - Articles of partners

12/16/2020

Modern Instagram is not just a social network for sharing photos, but a working tool for making money. And the money here is found very, very decent. Popular influencers earn tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars a month here. We will talk about how to become a blogger on Insta and make money, as well as the most popular Insta-professions in this material. nine0003

How to start making money on Instagram from scratch on your own?

Unfortunately, bloggers don't get paid just for beautiful eyes. Therefore, if you have thought about whether Instagram pays for followers and content views, the answer is “definitely not!”. You can monetize your blog in the following ways.

Likes, comments, saves and subscriptions

Engagement rate is the most expensive currency of Instagram. It should be noted right away that this particular way of earning is rarely used by well-known bloggers with a multi-million audience. But small accounts often resort to it. nine0003

The essence of earning is to register on third-party services, where for a small amount you need to perform various tasks: like, comment, subscribe to pages. For the implementation of such tasks they pay from 50 kopecks to 3 hryvnias. Of course, you won’t earn much on this, but this is the easiest and most affordable option for how to make money on Instagram without investing money for a beginner.

Advertising in posts and stories

Integrating ads into account content is the most profitable way to monetize Instagram. Popular and in-demand bloggers usually have their ad calendar scheduled several weeks in advance. Advertisers send bloggers clear terms of reference to follow during the “ad break” process. nine0003

It is very convenient to provide mediation services in the field of advertising through special exchanges, such as BloggerMall. From a large number of proposals, you can choose exactly those that are best "embedded" in the concept and theme of the blog. In addition, with exchanges, you don’t need to puzzle over how many subscribers you can earn on Instagram. Each site clearly defines how much audience is required to get started. In the case of BloggerMall, it is enough to have 3000 followers to get the first advertising offers. nine0003

Instagram modeling

Bloggers with model looks often become the “faces” of Instagram stores. Participation in the filming of various brands allows you to kill two birds with one stone: get additional earnings for the model and additional media coverage for the brand.

Promotion of their own brand of goods

Almost 90% of popular bloggers have their own clothing brands, Instagram stores with cosmetics or home decor. And it doesn’t matter at all whether the blogger sews things on his own or rents a workshop with hired staff. nine0003

The personal brand of a blogger and the presence of a loyal audience allows you to sell goods to "warm customers" and thus very quickly get promoted in the field of sales.

Brand Ambassador

Ambassador is a representative of the brand, its “face”, with which it is associated with customers. This type of income is many times more profitable than regular blog postings. However, there will be much more requirements on how to blog on Instagram and get paid as an ambassador. Often bloggers even have to give up their usual household appliances or smartphones in favor of the products of the brand they represent. nine0003

Subscribers should not feel cheated. People need to see and believe that the influencer really enjoys all the things that he promotes on his blog. In other words: you won't be able to be a XiaoMi smartphone ambassador if you use an iPhone.

Who can work on Instagram?

There is a fairly large percentage of Instagram users who want to make money on this social network, but are not ready to join the ranks of bloggers. For them, there is a proven instruction “How to make money on Instagram from scratch”, without investing huge funds in promoting your own blog. nine0003

Insta photographer

Everyone needs a good visual on Instagram, both bloggers and commercial pages. High-quality photo content for a social network allows you to increase sales, attract new subscribers and customers, and therefore they are ready to pay good money for the services of professional content makers. On average, the cost of one content shoot for a brand or influencer ranges from $300-$500.

Insta-copywriter

The ability to write posts is another cool way to start making money on Instagram from scratch on your own. Advanced copywriters who are able to express the idea of the author of the blog in such a way that subscribers do not guess anything, but at the same time they were interested in reading, commenting, reposting these posts. The average price of Insta-text is 200-400 hryvnias. nine0003

Instagram account administrator

Today, a lot of digital agencies are launching courses "How to become an Instagram blogger manager from scratch." This is not at all surprising, because the number of media faces on the social network is growing, and therefore the demand for administrative assistants is multiplying. Such a specialist is required to timely lay out posts and photos, and, if necessary, process the latter. Administrators communicate with subscribers in comments and Direct, monitor the integrity of the feed and maintain the page as a whole. nine0003

SMM manager

This specialist knows exactly how to start blogging on Instagram from scratch and earn money. SMM specialists promote other people's pages by improving their ranking indicators.

More subscribers = more money?

Almost all novice bloggers are concerned about the question of how many Instagram followers do you need to earn and not know grief? Unfortunately, only one number in the account is not enough for a comfortable existence. In order for advertisers to line up with a request to recommend their product, you need to make sure that the blog audience is lively, active and solvent. nine0003

The degree of involvement of account subscribers must be at least 30-40%. If your followers are “dead souls” from giveaways and cheat services, there can be no talk of any worthy promotional offers.

Therefore, when wondering how to develop your Instagram and earn money from it, immediately give up “easy followers”. Doubtful giveaways, buying bots and endless participation in draws is a road to nowhere. It is much more reasonable to concentrate on the quality of content and invest in a competent SMM specialist. nine0003

How to recognize bots in your Instagram account and remove them - Travelpayouts Blog

Why is it important to regularly clean your profile from bots and spammers among subscribers?

Many novice Instagram users do not pay attention to bots in their followers, or even promote their account by attracting bots.
It would seem, but what is it? After all, with a large number of subscribers, the account looks more solid. And who would guess that most of them are bots and spammers, no one will rummage through thousands of subscribers, checking everyone. nine0003

This is an erroneous opinion, which very often ruins accounts that begin their lives.

With the current Instagram algorithms, the number of followers is not directly proportional to how actively the account will be promoted by the platform. Only the percentage of active people from the total is important. That is, if you have 1,000 followers, and only 50-60 of them are active, Instagram will rarely recommend you to people, and your posts will be at the bottom of the feed.

The activity indicator on Instagram is called ER (Engagement Rate), or engagement rate. It is considered very simple - the sum of likes and comments on the last publication is divided by the number of subscribers and multiplied by 100%. If you want a more extensive analysis, then take the arithmetic average of the last 10-15 posts. nine0003

The more inactive subscribers you have, the worse the ER. And bots are definitely not active subscribers.

Look at the screenshots below: after cleaning from bots, the percentage of accounts that saw publications increases.

Also, cleaning from bots has a positive effect on actions with posts. The more live audience sees your post, the more actions are performed in relation to it.

How to detect the presence of bots

You need to carefully monitor your statistics. You can do this using special services, or you can switch to business account mode and open statistics on Instagram itself. nine0003

Pay special attention to reach and subscription growth. If it happens in sharp jerks, then most likely someone winds up bots on your account. This is what some unscrupulous competitors do when they want to lower someone's ER and thereby lower him in the top.

If you are actively using mass following as a means of promotion, then keep track of which subscribers come to you. It is better to sort out all suspicious ones in a timely manner so that they do not accumulate and do not have time to seriously affect the statistics. It is better to use not mass following, but mass liking and mass looking. The result will not be so noticeable, but there will be more live subscribers. nine0003

How can you recognize a bot?

No avatar, non-original nickname, empty or closed profile. Individually, this may not mean anything, but if the three points match, then you probably have a bot.
Comments with advertising. If someone writes newsletters under your posts, then you can be sure that this is done by a spam bot. The stories of such commentators about how they started earning millions by clicking on the link are nonsense. Clean these up as soon as possible. nine0097
Some business accounts use mass following to build an audience. These are not bots, but they bring no more benefits. The best solution would be to unsubscribe them from yourself, ridding the profile of the "dead weight".

Below is an example of a suspicious account. So many subscribers and subscriptions, but the profile is empty. Isn't it strange?

Analysis and purification

Analysis can be carried out manually or using services that clean the account automatically. Let's consider both options. nine0003

Manual account cleanup

If there are few subscribers and the activity is not bad, then you can analyze the account yourself. Based on the criteria above, you can check each account. This is a very tedious process that takes a lot of time.

Services for cleaning Instagram account from bots

There are services that automate all the shenanigans that you do.

SpamGuard

It will check and clean up your account in a few minutes:

Analyze the audience.
Adjusts the list of accounts based on your preferences.
Will clear the account.

It also provides protection against bot attacks and spam comments. Test analysis can be done for 1 ruble. Verification must be made within three days after payment. After three days, the full price subscription will be automatically activated. The subscription can be canceled at any time.

Try SpamGuard →

nine0002 Nofak.es

An English-language service, also focused exclusively on clearing an account. You can try for free. For regular use, you can buy a monthly subscription or pay once and use the service for an unlimited time.

Try nofak.es →

Zeus

This is a service for comprehensive account promotion. It can collect and filter the audience, provide detailed analytics and account reporting, and block bots. nine0003

You can use only the whole range of services, you can not pay separately and use only cleaning bots. You can try the Zeus service for free.

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How to avoid bot and spam attacks

It's not enough just to clean the bots, because they will come again if certain worlds are not taken. How to avoid it?

Mass following more carefully. After each call, check the newly arrived subscribers. If you don’t have the opportunity to look at Instagram so often, or if you just don’t want to take risks, then use mass liking and mass looking instead of mass following. nine0097
Do not click on suspicious links. Even such a seemingly harmless action can turn into not only an invasion of bots and spam, but also an account hacking.
Do not use #followback, #like4like and similar hashtags : they are often used by commercial accounts, bots and spam. Also, do not use millionaire tags, as there will be no live subscribers from them.
Respond quickly. Others come for some bots. Spammers often duplicate comments, and if you simply delete them, new ones will appear. nine0097
Do not wind up bots yourself. Seriously, don't.

How to promote your Instagram account

After all the warnings, a logical question arises - how then to promote your Instagram account?

It all depends on how much free time you have. You can promote your account for free, but it will take a lot of time and effort.

A faster solution is to promote your account for a fee. Allocate a certain amount for a month, not necessarily a large amount, which you will definitely invest in promotion. Money can be spent on advertising (from other bloggers or on Instagram itself), on special services for promoting and cleaning your account, or on the work of an SMM specialist.