I’ve written 12 previous posts in this “How to Rock Empire Avenue with Instagram” series. We’ve discussed everything from using hashtags, following back, the most liked photo subjects, the best time and day to post, non-photo content and more. All of them are good topics and strategies but it turns out they all pale in comparison to a strategy Steve Bretzke, aka (e)BRETZKE, has been advocating since before this series even started.
What is it?
“Getting people to follow you on Instagram. I’m not sure this statistic has any bearing on your score or dividends, but for the next two components, you’ll need followers to have someone to like or comment on your photos. The best and easiest way to get followers is to click on the popular tab in Instagram, then find a popular photo that is similar to what you plan to post. Then click where it says “### likes” then follow all those people. About 1/4 to 1/3 will follow you back. In two months I’ve followed 15,000 people and now have 5,000 who follow me.” -Steve Bretzke
I thought I had tried this a couple of months ago, but as it turns out, I made a dumb mistake which caused it not to work for me. Instead of doing this in the Instagram app, I tried doing in Statigr.am, which turned out to be too cumbersome and time consuming to be worthwhile.
About 10 days ago, I realized my mistake and tried it again in the Instagram app. Each time after I post an image to IG, I go to the popular tab, tap the image most like the one I just posted, tap the list of people who liked that photo, and take 2-3 minutes to follow 50-100 of those people. Here’s what’s happened since.
Followers
In my first 3 months on IG, I managed to attract about 2,000 followers. In the last 10 days, that’s jumped to more than 3,400 followers.
Likes
In my first 3 months of IG, I had only 1 photo that had received 70+ likes, this shot of a leopard that got 100 thanks to an EAv mission and entry in the EAvIG photo contest. In the last 7 days:
- 47 of 49 got 70+ likes
- 36 of 49 got 100+ likes
- 9 of 49 got 200+ likes
- 1 got 300+ likes
Yesterday alone, the 7 images I posted averaged more than 180 likes each. Talk about a dramatic increase!
The big difference is not only have I gotten a lot more followers, but by following people who like popular photos like mine, the new people who have started following me are much more likely to like my photos than the followers I was attracting before (many of which were doing follows/followbacks just to increase their follower count).
Network Score & Dividends
A couple weeks ago, my EAv Instagram network score had plateaued at 70. Over the last 5 days, my network score has gone up about 0.3/day. Its hard to say exactly what impact that has had on the dividend my share pay shareholders, but at 2.45e/share, it’s never been higher.
Quality Images
One final note on this strategy of following people who like photos similar to yours… The quality and content of the images you post matters a great deal. Before I started doing this, everything I posted was getting 30-50 likes. Two days ago I posted one image that got 66 likes and another that got 313 likes.
So, what do you think of this strategy? If you’ve tried it, how has it worked for you?
– Paul
(e)PDSTEIN
http://statigr.am/pdstein
Instagram #12: 7 Tips for New IG Users <– How to Rock Empire Avenue with Instagram -> Instagram #14: So Much for That Strategy
Empire Avenue Tips 
Apr 23, 2012 @ 15:47:58
That sounds like terrific information, and seems to resemble good practices for Twitter (or probably any social media network). Thanks for sharing the tips and your personal results.
Apr 23, 2012 @ 16:14:29
there have been variations of this approach recommended before, but this is a good aproach and has the advantage of following people while they are active and online
Apr 23, 2012 @ 16:29:33
Good point, David. I do get a lot of new people who follow back and like my photos immediately after I follow them.
May 04, 2012 @ 23:11:56
From http://instagr.am/legal/terms/
Proprietary Rights in Content on Instagram
3. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Instagram Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, (ii) the posting and use of your Content on or through the Instagram Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, intellectual property rights or any other rights of any person, and (iii) the posting of your Content on the Site does not result in a breach of contract between you and a third party. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of Content you post on or through the Instagram Services.
It does not say: To participate honestly on Instagram you have to post your own photos. That is a personal opinion.
Apr 23, 2012 @ 16:23:12
Hi Paul. I think I will have to agree with your post! I’ve had an EA score of 100 for Instagram since February 4th. Instagram folks are very active in liking and commenting, more so than just about any other network, thus the great boost and value to EA dividends!
Apr 23, 2012 @ 16:36:16
Absolutely, Steve. There’s no other network where I could get 1,200+ likes in a single day like I did yesterday on IG. I’m looking forward to seeing if I can get my network score up to 100 as you did.
Apr 26, 2012 @ 11:43:22
Reblogged this on Jason Ramsey's Blog.
Apr 26, 2012 @ 15:21:27
Well after three days this is working very well with about 300+ new followers so far
Also as a hint, if you use the Statigram viewer link then people who are logged in can FOLLOW and LIKE
http://statigr.am/viewer.php#/user/656408/
This does not work with the custom URL
http://statigr.am/davidanger
Apr 26, 2012 @ 15:30:02
Thanks for the update, David. And for the tip. I need to post another update as well as something to be careful of with this strategy. Maybe later today if I have the time.
Apr 27, 2012 @ 00:30:58
Interesting conversation on popular page algorithm:
http://www.appdaptation.com/2011/11/instagram-popular-page-rules/
Apr 27, 2012 @ 00:54:09
and a more recent update including perceived changes in the last two weeks:
http://www.appdaptation.com/2012/04/popular-page-instagram/
Apr 29, 2012 @ 16:53:46
To participate honestly on Instagram you have to post your own photos. Unfortunately Steve Bretzke does not always do so, but at times steals other people’ photos and passes them off as his own.
Frankly this is cheating and is not well regarded by those of us in the photographic community who make our living from photography. It is disrespectful and in many cases where he does not get permission or provide attrbution it is illegal.
Maybe the EA community can prevail on Steve Bretzke and others to only post their own photos.
Apr 29, 2012 @ 20:44:11
David, I guess I should clarify that the part of Steve’s strategy that I’m saying works best is the following of people who like photos on the popular page that are similar to yours.
I don’t know where Steve gets the photos he posts, but my understanding is that they are public domain. As I wrote in “Instagram #10: What’s up with posting pics you didn’t take?” ( http://ow.ly/aAMiB ) I don’t care for it but I’m not sure it would be considered unethical.
May 04, 2012 @ 23:14:04
Sorry, don’t know how this reply got posted above in the wrong place. Please remove if you don’t mind.
This is from http://instagr.am/legal/terms/
Proprietary Rights in Content on Instagram
3. You represent and warrant that: (i) you own the Content posted by you on or through the Instagram Services or otherwise have the right to grant the license set forth in this section, (ii) the posting and use of your Content on or through the Instagram Services does not violate the privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, intellectual property rights or any other rights of any person, and (iii) the posting of your Content on the Site does not result in a breach of contract between you and a third party. You agree to pay for all royalties, fees, and any other monies owing any person by reason of Content you post on or through the Instagram Services.
It does not say: To participate honestly on Instagram you have to post your own photos. That is a personal opinion.
May 05, 2012 @ 02:19:44
Well Steve, take this image for example:
http://instagr.am/p/KAPRM0lb_r/
The photographer whose image you are using is Don Andrews of Vancouver and he posted his image in fotocommunity
http://www.fotocommunity.com/pc/pc/display/24851448
The license terms on the image are standard Creative Commons attribution, non commercial, no derivatives.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/de/deed.en
This means that if you use it you have to state clearly that it is his image, which usually means his name plus a link back to where you took it from. You provided no attribution.
You did point out the Instagram Terms of Usage
According those terms you yourself are granting licensing rights for the image to Instagram. (“you hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, worldwide, limited license to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce and translate such Content, including without limitation distributing part or all of the Site in any media formats through any media channels”)
You also warrant (swear) that you are authorized to grant such a license (“you have the right to grant the license set forth in this section”)
You also warrant that “the posting .. does not violate the .. copyrights .. of any person”
Now these are not rights granted to you under the Creative Commons license; furthermore by not providing proper attribution you are not adhering to the CC license in the first place.
If you find images that are clearly marked as public domain that is one thing, but Creative Commons images have very specific terms you need to adhere to.
It would be a much better practice for you to always acknowledge up front when you are taking another photographer’s photo and to provide proper attribution with their name and a link.
May 10, 2012 @ 14:51:04
One last point:
Community Guidelines
The Short:
1. Post your own photos.
http://help.instagram.com/customer/portal/articles/262387-community-guidelines
Apr 30, 2012 @ 21:34:00
In other news I finally made it to the popular page today, but the bar is definitely getting higher than it used to be. Even with 6000 followers I had images that didn’t make it even with 600 likes in the first hour and 2000 likes in the first 24 hours. Finally with 7000 followers I got enough likes in a short period of time to “pop” to the “popular page” . Thanks Paul and everyone
Apr 30, 2012 @ 22:04:07
Congrats David! I’ve had a post about making the popular page on my to-do list for a couple weeks now since I started this strategy. With millions of new Android users and thousands of new users signing up every day, the bar for making the popular page has risen dramatically and continues to rise.
OMG – Be as Popular as a Teenage Girl on #instagram « So Genius
May 04, 2012 @ 13:50:01
May 17, 2012 @ 19:48:03
The sharing of other people’s photos on any network has always puzzled me. Many times they are of beautiful locations that I KNOW the person has never visited. But, i always felt that on Instagram it is even more implied that the account owner took the photo themselves. I have relented from my position that the photos should really be from a phone camera, even though a DSLR seems an unfair advantage over an iPhone. 🙂