Instagram Account Building, Girl "Influencer" Edition

[Jesse]

I have a side project that's been going on for about six months that involves my girl posting on a new Instagram account. This is a part of a larger campaign I have with this idea of turning her into one of these "influencer" types since she has a photography/videography background, has a good look, etc. and does quite a bit of freelance work herself.

My primary purpose has been using it to learn about how IG works in general since I didn't really know much about it, and all of the guides out there I've seen have shown the same 4-5 super generalized "tips" that aren't exactly mind-blowing.

I'm hoping to share what I've done here so far, what the results have been and what you guys have to say about it since Twitter, Reddit and Pinterest seem to get most of the discussion on BuSo.

Here were my instructions, which she has followed exactly:

• Post one selfie each day, showing at least some amount of cleavage or butt most of the time. (The first few weeks, it was only 3-4 times/week.)
• The description is always some goofy generic caption followed by skipping two lines with periods (.) and then the same set of 30 hashtags.
• I used the free Toolzu Hashtag Generator for Instagram to find 30 total hashtags that were broken up in the following proportions: 5 high competition, 10 medium competition, 15 low competition. They're all related to her specific look.
• No other promotion, reels, stories, etc. were done so far.

The first post was about six months ago, and she was still under 1,000 followers at the beginning of the year. However, it seems to have gotten past some level of time-based filter they have in place, and her followers have started to shoot up since then.

• Follower Gain Average Since Jan 1: +47/day
• 21-day Follower Gain Average: +65/day
• 14-day Follower Gain Average: +82/day

When the engagement numbers starting shooting up at one point (what I'm assuming showed I was "past" whatever spam filters), I tested the wagers by scheduling posts for three pictures/day for three days with three different sets of hashtags. Engagement immediately dropped back down to what it was before and stayed there for about 10-12 days even after I resumed having her post once daily without scheduling.

At this point, engagement does not seem to be affected by scheduling as long as it stays at one post per day. Also, I realize that things would have probably built faster if I would have done cross-promotion with Reddit and Twitter, posted stories and reels and whatever else, but I wanted to keep it isolated for the first X months so that I could see what would happen with just the hashtags.

I've done similar work with Reddit in the past and have that figured out almost to a science, but Instagram is a new animal to me, so any insight would be great.

 

[DanielS]

It seems like the you've got the content side of things sorted for your/her target audience.

The only thing you're really missing is the engagement side of the equation. Meaning, it doesn't sound like you're engaging with any other users, you're just posting content and using hashtags.

I'd start by leaving comments on new posts from accounts that post content similar to yours. Since your account has a decent number of followers, your comments will typically appear near the top of the comments section. Try commenting something that your target audience would be inclined to like so your comment can essentially get pinned to the top of the comments section. This is what verified accounts do. There are engagement groups where verified accounts in the same niche get together and comment on new posts from the members of the group to give an initial engagement boost to the posts.

You could also consider creating a "fan" account for your main account and using a targeted follow/unfollow strategy. Take 9 unique posts for the fan account, upload them, tag the main account in them (along with in the account bio) and follow approx. 100 people each day who engage on posts on accounts similar to yours. Follow people until you're following 1,000 people, then unfollow those who didn't follow you back within a week, then repeat the process. Also, you can promote new posts from your legitimate account via Instagram stories on your fan account(s). You create a "fan" account to use the follow/unfollow technique so your main account stays 100% organic in the eyes of Instagram. BTW- You can outsource this process if you have money to spend.

 

[MrMedia]

A case study on how to get dumped by your girl after she becomes insta famous and chad slides into her DMs....

What is the end game for this apart from becoming single

 

[Jesse]

A case study on how to get dumped by your girl after she becomes insta famous and chad slides into her DMs....

What is the end game for this apart from becoming single

Nah, not even a remote possibility, but not looking to dive into the topic of chick management here.

 

[secretagentdad]

You know you can grow a reposting account just as fast with out whoring anything out by just tagging people...... like you can just participate on the platform even with out unique content.

Also doood are you for reals?

 

[Jesse]

You know you can grow a reposting account just as fast with out whoring anything out by just tagging people...... like you can just participate on the platform even with out unique content.

Also doood are you for reals?

Thank you for taking the time to offer advice. I really do appreciate it even if it's about something goofy like this IG stuff. I don't really know much about social, but I'm learning quickly. Anyway, here's the deal since you're not the only person asking:

Sometime around spring of last year, I saw this really plain-looking girl (who had never done anything nude in her life) selling signed 8x10s of her selfies for $50 a pop to the point that she had to hire people to fill orders for her at her house.

I thought, "Hell, I can do that," and rallied the troops.

Originally, my plan was to wait to get to 10k IG followers before monetizing because I wanted to learn some about the platform first (we're almost halfway there). However, she's literally had guys, completely unsolicited, asking about buying signed 8x10s a few times each week for the past month to month and a half, so I think I'm going to go ahead and pull the trigger.

At first, I thought this was the dumbest thing I'd ever seen in my life, but then I realized that you don't even get the picture when you buy NFTs.

 

[regl8r]

Did you stick with this? What is current follower count?

 

[Jesse]

Time for an update.


Where We Are Now

Our average for the past month has been in the range of 500-550 new followers/day. We'll hit 100k followers later this month.

The approach has been roughly the same as what I outlined earlier in the thread. One new picture is posted daily, and reels are posted 3-4 days each week. Some stories are posted a few times each week haphazardly with the occasional "ask me anything" about once or twice each month where she fills her stories with short clips of her answering random questions from her following.


Monetization

I was originally inspired to this project by a girl who was selling 8x10s and other cheap merchandise with high margins through her social media following, primarily through Instagram. We are just now starting to get together everything for selling 8x10s, so I'll have to report back on that in the near future. The plan is to use Instagram's shopping platform in our first run, but we'll see how that goes.

However, Instagram recently came out with a "subscriptions" option. This allows you to make posts, reels, stories, etc. that only subscribers can see, and they pay a monthly fee to do so. We are getting on this with a schedule of content as well.

For other people wanting to go this route, it perhaps goes without saying that any amount of sex-related content would be a cakewalk (OnlyFans, custom sets, etc.)


What I've Learned

This could be a novella on its own, but I'll try to keep it as concise as I can manage. It's probably best to do this in two sections: What I learned about Instagram specifically and what I learned in general.

With Instagram specifically:

• The average likes on picture posts seems to average at about 5 percent of our total followers. This seems to hold with a handful of other girls in the same space, but I've not examined it for other industries/account types.
• When you get a picture removed for breaking their guidelines, you seem to have your engagement throttled for a few days afterward.
• Reels get a lower engagement for us than regular posts by about half. However, if we don't post reels a few times each week, our engagement on regular posts drops noticeably. Make of that what you will.

Generally speaking:

• This is probably obvious, but staying ahead and having content made well in advance (as well as scheduling that content) has been key to making this go as smoothly as it has.
• We've been branching out to Twitch and YouTube over the past few months. Planning content that can pull double duty has been pretty helpful. For example, we can do an AMA on Twitch live and then chop that up after the fact to create videos for YouTube.
• This has worked for other forms of cross-promotion as well. For example, she may do a TikTok video, take a screenshot from it and post that screenshot as an IG story telling people to go check out her new TikTok video, growing that account in the process.
• Reddit could be great for a girl wanting to get a following for sexual content, and I believe it could be done relatively quickly. I don't have a sufficient skill set to make Reddit work as well as I feel like it could for what she's doing at this time, but we have built a low five-figure follower count there.
• I should have gotten serious about monetization earlier on. Instead, I was caught up on other things I was doing and wasn't paying attention to this IG stuff so much.
• I should have put together a website to capture emails and other information earlier on.
• I should have cross-promoted harder early on.

That's everything I can think of off of the top of my head.


Regarding Other Concerns

A case study on how to get dumped by your girl after she becomes insta famous and chad slides into her DMs....

What is the end game for this apart from becoming single

Nah, not even a remote possibility, but not looking to dive into the topic of chick management here.

I basically blew this off with my reply above because I hate getting into the topic of managing women and relationships. However, since it's particularly relevant to what I've posted about here, I'll address it briefly in a way that I hope will be helpful for the topic at hand. To this end, I want to make two points.

First, in any business you enter with another person, regardless of the scale, trust is one thing. However, having protections in place in case things go sideways should be a no-brainer.

Second, if you're going to do this with a girl you're in a relationship with, then you need to know ahead of time that you're dangling her like bait in front of thousands of men on a daily basis. Some of those are going to be better looking than you, and some are going to be more financially capable than you. Some are going to be both. They're going to offer her anything and everything they can, many times actually being able to deliver, and it will often be the case that what they are offering is a lot more than what you can offer in that arena.

The catch is that the arena they're operating in is external, which makes it secondary. The primary arena is internal, which you will have locked down if you know how these things work. When that's the case, it's not a problem at all.

 

[Biggy]

I'm curious what's the profit now? Do you accept any promotions eg. like holding products etc. Is this even monetized yet? Why don't you get sponsored posts?

But it's funny to see how instagram is simillar to onlyfans. I don't use it as it's mayor time consumer, but when i tried oh man, there were 80% women half naked, ass, boobs.

I just wonder how naive those men are. Literally offering to some unknown women something. I kind of find this really sad how naive people are, but after all not just naive how unsocial we've become. Maybe i'm again just negative, but i see this as really fuc** up situation

We are doomed.

 

[Jesse]

I'm curious what's the profit now? Do you accept any promotions eg. like holding products etc. Is this even monetized yet? Why don't you get sponsored posts?

But it's funny to see how instagram is simillar to onlyfans. I don't use it as it's mayor time consumer, but when i tried oh man, there were 80% women half naked, ass, boobs.

I just wonder how naive those men are. Literally offering to some unknown women something. I kind of find this really sad how naive people are, but after all not just naive how unsocial we've become. Maybe i'm again just negative, but i see this as really fuc** up situation

We are doomed.

We've barely monetized at all, so our profit on this is only in the low-mid four figure range. Most of that is basically just guys throwing money at it because they feel like "donating." Some of it is from Twitch and IG subscribers.

I have three avenues for monetization that are in progress: subscriber content, merch and seeing what "influencer marketing" companies have to offer.

I'm having to basically go one thing at a time with this because it's a side project for both of us. It's a priority for me to make sure she learns the skills she needs for when this blows up like order fulfillment, maintaining a schedule and organizing content, maintaining backups, the mental side and so on.

But anyway, I don't want this to turn into a lab type log thread, so that's all I plan on offering in terms of updates.

As far as the social commentary, I don't disagree with all or most of what you've said here, but I don't like to get into a lot of discussion about it personally.

 

[Biggy]

We've barely monetized at all, so our profit on this is only in the low-mid four figure range. Most of that is basically just guys throwing money at it because they feel like "donating." Some of it is from Twitch and IG subscribers.

I have three avenues for monetization that are in progress: subscriber content, merch and seeing what "influencer marketing" companies have to offer.

I'm having to basically go one thing at a time with this because it's a side project for both of us. It's a priority for me to make sure she learns the skills she needs for when this blows up like order fulfillment, maintaining a schedule and organizing content, maintaining backups, the mental side and so on.

But anyway, I don't want this to turn into a lab type log thread, so that's all I plan on offering in terms of updates.

As far as the social commentary, I don't disagree with all or most of what you've said here, but I don't like to get into a lot of discussion about it personally.

Great feedback. Haha donating money lol. Just make a course or something how to get fit or whatever. Better than handling products.

I hope to see more of this case study. I would worry a bit about stalkers and creeps.

 

[MWWWconquest]

What type of content did you have taken down?

What protections do you have in place in case things go south?

 

[Jesse]

What type of content did you have taken down?

Instagram/Facebook has a very particular policy about not cupping breasts with a hand in any way, shape or form, and for whatever reason, that's what got got.

What protections do you have in place in case things go south?

I'm not sure that I understand the question. If you're asking about what happens if she acquires a stalker, then it's the pretty standard protocol for any attractive woman who acquires a stalker.

 

[MWWWconquest]

First, in any business you enter with another person, regardless of the scale, trust is one thing. However, having protections in place in case things go sideways should be a no-brainer.

I should have quoted you but this is what I'm referring to. For one, I'm not sure what protections you're suggesting.

I assume legal protections? But open to hearing about any protections really i.e. stalkers, legal, protecting yourself against heart-break etc.

 

[Jesse]

I should have quoted you but this is what I'm referring to. For one, I'm not sure what protections you're suggesting.

That's my bad for not realizing that's what you were talking about.

I'll try to be as helpful as I can by providing a way to think about protections: Use your imagination and some research to figure out the most likely way things can go wrong, and then come up with ways to protect against those situations.

As an aside, I won't give detailed legal advice since I'm not a lawyer.

But open to hearing about any protections really

Going off of the list you started on with just a few things for each to spark that imagination:

• Stalkers - Restraining orders, fake "real" information for people to eventually find, Second Amendment, training along those lines
• Legal - Who owns the accounts, talking to a lawyer for legal advice, contracts
• "Protecting Yourself Against Heart-break" - Harems, girls being more worried about losing you than vice versa, having full confidence in your ability to go find more girls whenever you want

You can just apply the same logic to any other area of worry.

 

[devise]

Does she own her profile or it's shared? @Jesse

 

[Jesse]

Does she own her profile or it's shared? @Jesse

All of the social media accounts that are a part of this project at this point are in her name.

Your timing after around a year and a half of the last post in this thread is kind of funny because over the past week, I was considering making a lab thread about this project (and had already written a draft) for two reasons. First, we're starting a push this month that increases the scope of the whole thing. Second, it seemed like people were going to get more involved on social media out of frustration with Google, so it seemed topical.

With that said, I looked over this thread and was reminded of how weird the atmosphere seemed to get as soon as a girl was involved. Additionally, I may have overestimated how much people were looking to get into social media, so it may not be as topical as I thought.

We'll see. Either way, here are some notes I posted a couple of weeks ago: https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/some-notes-on-instagram.7381/

 

[devise]

With the latest Google update, we all are looking for different traffic sources.

https://www.buildersociety.com/threads/google-algorithm-updates-2024-ongoing-discussion.7327/

With social media, you need a strategy to get emails imho.

With that said, I looked over this thread and was reminded of how weird the atmosphere seemed to get as soon as a girl was involved. Additionally, I may have overestimated how much people were looking to get into social media, so it may not be as topical as I thought.