I Spent Two Years Botting on Instagram – What I Learned

Its probably some combination of paid "shout outs" from popular accounts to the new account they are attempting to build and reposted or shared content where the popular account showcases a piece of content from the new account.

There are also likely to be large, influential, account networks that are real and when used to boost a new account, very effective (I know numerous people on instagram with multiple million+ follower accounts).

All of this is similar to content marketing and link building strategies that have been effective for a decade plus.

I honestly thought some social media marketers would come out the woodwork and agree - equally vaguely - but I guess they aren't here

Its more beneficial not to be more specific, and seeing that nobody else has anything to add and are more-so frustrated at the asymmetric information then its a form of validation.

But I've taken accounts from 0 followers to 10k+ followers within a week's time. All the follower's accounts are non-bots, any random selection would be highly engaged real humans, and new posts maintain around 2%-5% of the followers liking or viewing+liking without the use of hash tags at all. There are interesting skews in the demographics, worth its own article, but I'm fine without it.

For follower count alone, instagress would take months to do the equivalent, as its activity is slow and varied to avoid detection as a bot. Also the unfollow rate begins to match the speed at which it can safely attract followers, in the low thousands, if you don't have an exceptionally active niche.