Digital Marketing

The best Instagram rules you should know when posting

Instagram has provided some new examples of creative ways to use Instagram Stories ads. Nowadays it is one of the best methods to generate traffic on your blogs or websites.

1. Do not use prohibited hashtags in the publication

Not all hashtags are the same. Using one of the banned Instagram hashtags can land you in trouble and ignorance is no excuse.

While some banned hashtags are common sense and align with Instagram’s terms of service, others are not so obvious. According to HuffPo, the banned list includes #adulting, #citycentre, and #eggplant. Carefully research the hashtags you use, make sure they’re relevant to your audience and don’t have a secret urban dictionary or emoji that means you didn’t know… (Not that this has ever happened to me!)

2. Use a third-party publishing app

Instagram has a closed API – it does not allow third-party apps to post directly to Instagram. You can still use a social media dashboard like Agorapulse to manage your Instagram account, but the process is a bit more involved than it is for Facebook or Twitter.

Most legitimate social media management apps meet the challenge. For example, you can log into your Agorapulse account and schedule an Instagram post.

When the time comes, you will receive a notification. You can then log into the Agorapulse app which will take you to Instagram where you can hit post. The key is that you have to be the one to press publish.

But while we’re at it, there are some apps like Schedugram that post directly to Instagram for you, using your username and password to access your account. This is a big Terms and Conditions no no. Jumping through a few extra hoops can be frustrating, but it keeps your account safe.

3. Don’t post too much content

Instagram favors real, human posters, and all the do’s and don’ts are meant to prioritize them over spammers and bots. While Twitter has apps like Social Quant that can automatically follow and unfollow a group of people to increase your following, Instagram frowns on that kind of behavior. This is why they have an unofficial limit on account activity.

What exactly are those numbers? Although Instagram has not published official numbers, Ana Gotter did a deep investigation and came to the following:

Follow and unfollow more than 60 people per hour

Likes over 300 posts per hour

Posting more than 60 comments per hour

4. Stay away from robots

Look. In all other circumstances, I’ll be the first to point out the potential of bots to automate your marketing process, but that’s not what Instagram is about.

Bots that automatically comment and follow or unfollow people can be a tempting way to grow your account. You will be the type of person who uses them responsibly, right? But back to Rule 3, this type of behavior will get you noticed for all the wrong reasons. Keep up your human interactions.

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