This document provides a comprehensive guide on how to grow an Instagram following effectively by implementing strategies such as optimizing your account, using the right hashtags, and engaging with your audience. It emphasizes the importance of planning content using a calendar, leveraging IGTV and influencer marketing, and maintaining a visually appealing profile. The document also warns against common pitfalls like buying fake followers and provides insights on identifying and reaching your target audience.

2. How to Get More Instagram
Followers
Growing an Instagram followership can be a daunting
and challenging task; you can’t just post pictures from
time to time and call it a day. Besides, such an easy
approach is tedious and not at all effective.
But what's even worse is when your hard work doesn’t
get enough response - people don’t like or comment on
your posts, which might be confusing and frustrating.
This is why growing your Instagram followers takes a lot
of time and effort.
It goes without saying that before actually growing your
Instagram account, you should determine your goals,
build a marketing plan, and research your competitors to
realize if you need Instagram as a marketing platform at
all.
If you have done all of the above, you can now take the
next step: growing your followers.
In this guide, you will learn 14 ways how to get more
Instagram followers and make them interact with your
content.

3. In a nutshell, here’s what you should do in 2021 and
beyond to increase your followers on Instagram:
Optimize your Instagram account.
Use the right hashtags.
Use a content calendar.
Leverage IGTV.
Use influencer marketing.
Cross-promote your content on other platforms.
Use AR masks.
Communicate.
Write lengthy captions.
Build your own Instagram aesthetics.
Use locations.
Post at the right times.
Reach your competitors’ audience.
Be creative with content.
Now, let’s take a closer look at how you can get more
Instagram followers in 2021 and beyond.
Optimize Your Instagram Account
Instagram is a social media platform, but who said SEO
optimization couldn’t be helpful there? In fact, when you
leverage your SEO skills for your Instagram profile, you
have higher chances of getting discovered by your
potential clients.

4. To optimize your Instagram account, you need to focus
on your nickname, hashtags, location tags, bio
keywords, captions keywords and the Alt Text function.
Example of an IG account:
Let’s start with a username. Your Instagram handle
should be short, clear and easy to remember. Ideally, if it
also has a major keyword reflecting your business, for
example, @flowershop_nyc or it can be your brand
name.
Avoid including irrelevant symbols and numbers in your
username; otherwise, it will be hard for others to
understand what you implied
Try to make your username sound like a search query of
your typical target customer.
Hashtags, locations, and captions are what we will talk
about below but now let’s dig deeper into your bio.
Your Instagram bio is the right place to put relevant
keywords — both primary and secondary. But don’t
include too many keywords, and keep it easy-to-digest.
Your profile bio helps your potential clients discover you
on Instagram.
If you optimize it properly, your page will appear on the
top search results.

5. Not many Instagram users know about a handy SEO
feature Instagram has - Alt Text. This feature was
initially created to let visually impaired people enjoy
Instagram content. Marketers now use it for
optimization.
Alt Text option
To find this tool, start posting a new publication and
scroll down the screen on the page with a caption. At
the bottom of the page, you’ll see Advanced Settings.
Press it and head over to the bottom of the page until
you find Write Alt Text. Click on it and create a brief
description of what’s in your image.
Start the automatic IG Stories viewing. Click the round
button with the Instagram Stories logo at the bottom of
the Users window.
Along with this step, don’t forget to publish sharp and
high-quality pictures so that the Instagram algorithm can
identify what your image depicts. It’s vital since
Instagram will suggest the content to people who search
for similar posts.

6. Use Right Hashtags
It goes without saying that you should use only those
hashtags that are relevant to your business. On social
media, hashtags are search queries, so you want to
make sure that your hashtags will help your potential
customers find you.
If you spam and use hashtags that have nothing to do
with your post, you will hardly grow followership using
them.
That being said, your content is just not what people
expect to see when looking for posts by this particular
hashtag. That’s why it’s essential to use hashtags that
are relevant to your post.
Check what hashtags your competitors or accounts with
similar content use. Don’t choose popular tags — those
with over 100,000 posts. Otherwise, your content will
disappear in the content feed.
Before choosing which hashtags to use in your posts, do
some research. Combin Growth will help you find the
exact hashtags which suit your business. With Combin
Growth, you can also discover which hashtags your
competitors use.
Start growing followers with Combin!

7. To help people navigate through your content and share
user-generated content, you can use branded hashtags.
Thus you’ll create a loyal community around your brand
and help new customers discover you on Instagram.
But avoid adding banned or hidden hashtags.
Otherwise, you might get shadowbanned.
Use Content Calendar
To attract more followers, you need to understand that
your Instagram page should look appealing and
cohesive. But this can’t be achieved overnight. The best
way to make your Instagram grid and content more
consistent is to create a content calendar.
By making a content plan, you will control which content
you post, which time you choose for posting, which
hashtags you use, captions you write and so on.
Such a calendar is quite helpful when you need to work
with lots of content and need to structure it. Planning
your Instagram posts and stories, you will manage the
whole strategy and spend less time on content creation.
Just think: with a content calendar, you can plan a
month of posts in just 30 minutes!
It’s a lot easier to do with Combin Scheduler, a free
Instagram content planner. With Combin Scheduler, you
can create optimized captions, make different groups of

8. hashtags and edit your current Instagram campaign —
days and weeks before actual publication.
Plan, manage and schedule Instagram posts now!
To meet your business goals, publish as often as you
can and maintain a consistent posting frequency. There
is no ideal posting regularity and no perfect time to
distribute the content, but you can find yours while
testing various approaches.
Use IGTV
IGTV or Instagram TV is not a novelty already but still,
not many brands and influencers leverage its full
potential. What is known for sure is that IGTV isn’t going
anywhere since Instagram keeps on developing it:
monetization for creators and IGTV series are just some
of the updates IGTV has had this year.
People love watching videos. They are engaging and
are a lot easier to digest than text content. So why not
give it a try and start making videos for Instagram?
Especially now, when IGTV has a special tab on the
Explore page, meaning that users can discover your
content just by browsing other videos.
If you want to take your content game to the next level,
you can leverage the IGTV Series and create a series of

9. episodes that your followers will tune in like they do
watching shows on Netflix.
Leverage Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing has been an absolute trend during
the past couple of years. Indeed, with so many
potentially relevant influencers from different niches, it’s
now a lot easier for brands to reach their target
audience of all ages.
Besides, influencer marketing is not always a pricey way
of getting Instagram followers. Some influencers, such
as nano-, micro- or local influencers don’t charge a
fortune for sponsored posts and stories, so you will
surely find some that suit your goal.
But before reaching out to influencers, you need to do
thorough research on their content, the way they
communicate with their followers and ask for their page
stats.
You need to be sure that these influencers are relevant
to your business, your goals, audience and values.
You don’t want to spend money on sponsored posts that
will not resonate, so be sure the audience of an
influencer you’ve chosen is your target one. Learn how
to find influencers for your Instagram account with
Combin Growth.

10. Cross-promote Your Content
If you’re active on other social media platforms apart
from Instagram, have your website or a blog, you should
definitely use these channels to grow your Instagram
followers.
Whether it’d be a YouTube channel, TikTok account, a
blog on Medium, email newsletter or just a website,
don’t miss out on telling your customers that you now
have an Instagram account as well.
To tell your website visitors about your new Instagram
account, you can build your account grid into your
website design or at least add social buttons.
Don’t forget to cross-promote your brand Instagram
page on your personal account if you have one. This will
not only attract more followers to your main account but
will also look trustworthy because now your potential
customers will see an actual face standing behind your
brand.
Use AR Masks
Augmented reality or AR masks and filters are yet
another social media trend that is not going anywhere.

11. And though cute Snapchat-like AR masks are not new
on Instagram, this year they’ve gained momentum since
Instagram has made it possible for everyone to create
such effects; brands, influencers and regular users
included.
Now brands can create their own AR masks where an
object can be not a face only, but their product as well.
AR masks easily go viral, so even a no-name brand can
get its audience thanks to them.
All you need to do for it is to have a little time and basic
skills in Facebook’s Spark AR Studio. Some brands that
have already jumped to the bandwagon are ASOS, Kylie
Cosmetics, Gucci Beauty, Adidas, and others.
Communicate
This might sound obvious that brands should
communicate with their audience on Instagram, but in
reality, not all of them do it. By communicating, we mean
not only answering questions asked by followers but
also commenting on their posts, replying to their stories,
responding to them in DM, posting stories with question
stickers, have giveaways and so on.
Surely, commenting on every post of every one of your
followers is daunting and even impossible to do as the
followership grows. Still, it’s an effective way to get
several hundred followers at the very beginning.

12. That takes too much time to do manually, so Combin
Growth can do it for you automatically. With the tool, you
can send multiple different comments in-bulk just in a
couple of clicks.
Multiple Comments
With a little time and effort invested at the beginning,
you will grow a loyal community around your brand.
Write Longer Captions
Instagram is not all about visuals today. The quality of
your visual content is still a must, but this year, we’ve
seen a trend on lengthy Instagram captions that engage
and tell a story.
Longer captions allow you to be open to your audience,
be transparent about your brand, its goals, values and
mission. So don’t forget to write lengthier captions to
your Instagram posts. Yes, this can be quite challenging
at times, but try to give your followers a bit more than
just a fancy package from time to time.
Share with your followers what you have in mind, and
you’ll see that this will help you build stronger
relationships with them, attract new fans and retain
those who are already with you.
Build Your Own Instagram Aesthetics

13. Though now Instagram is not that visually-focused as it
was when it first started, the visual aesthetics of your
account will definitely do no harm. On the contrary, when
your grid looks coherent and appealing, you will attract
more followers to your page who will be glad to see your
little masterpieces in their feed.
Users typically need just a couple of seconds to decide
if they want to follow your account or not. And with
appealing visual aesthetics, this decision will be made to
your benefit.
And the good news is that you don’t have to be a
professional designer to build a beautiful Instagram
account. You only need to choose a color palette for
your page and maintain the aesthetics of your page.
In free Combin Scheduler, you can style your Instagram
grid layout and preview how the upcoming posts will
look like together with those already published.
Grid Overview
If what you see is not to your liking, you can easily
change the way posts are going to go live, edit them and
then return to the grid preview.

14. Use Locations
If your business is geographically bound to a street, city
or a country, we strongly recommend you tag locations
in your posts. This will help you attract followers that live
nearby and look for services or products you’re offering.
But even online businesses or those who offer
international shipping shouldn’t disregard location tags.
On the contrary, you should tag different locations from
time to time to attract people from those areas. And if
you want to have fun, you can create your own custom
location and tag it.
Post at Right Times
When you only start growing your Instagram account,
you don’t know when exactly to publish your posts, and
that’s fine. You should assume when your target
audience is more likely active.
When you already have followers, however, Instagram
will give you insights when your followers are most
active. To see those insights, you have to switch your
Instagram account to Business or Creator.

15. Audience Statistics
If you know the time when your audience is active, you
can assume when a similar target audience that doesn’t
yet follow you is active as well. Then, if your followers
engage with your post, it has all the chances to appear
on the Explore Page and attract a new audience that will
find your content interesting.
Speaking of the post frequency, it’s all up to you. Some
businesses post up to three times a day but the
following and engagement are low. Others publish three
times a week and nail it with their content.
Though there are some general recommendations on
when it’s best to post on Instagram, they might not work
for your business and your audience, especially if your
followers are from different cities, countries or even
continents.
If your audience is diverse, you should be ready to post
when it’s not entirely convenient for you. To help you
publish content at the right time without a necessity
being online 24/7, you can use Instagram content
planners, such as free Combin Scheduler.
Reach Your Competitors’ Followers
If you don’t know where to start, begin with researching
your competitors and their followers on Instagram. Find

16. your competitors that have large followership. These
followers are your potential customers, so it would be a
crime not to reach them.
It’s a lot easier to do with Combin Growth. With the app,
you can not only find followers of your competitors but to
detect the most active ones - likers and commenters,
and engage with them in-app.
When liking or commenting on these users’ posts, don’t
be too pushy and try to sell your products right away.
Just communicate with them: answer their questions,
like and reply to their comments. Thus you’ll draw their
attention and make them visit your profile. Who knows,
maybe they will be your clients afterward?
Be Creative with Content!
Last but not least. If you want to attract as many
followers as possible, retain your current audience, and
keep it engaged, don’t let them get bored. You need to
experiment with content all the time and try different
types that Instagram offers - feed posts, carousels,
videos, stories, IGTV, stories stickers, Instagram Live,
giveaways, etc.
Don’t forget to use Highlights and pin all relevant and
useful information there so that your followers could
easily find it.

17. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers what they want to
see next: maybe, they want a story about how your
brand started, Q&A session, live stream or a video
guide.
Also, don’t be shy to ask followers to share their
opinions and reviews on your products and mark such
posts with your branded hashtag. Thus, you will have
user-generated content stockpiled.
Analyse your content performance within Instagram
insights: this will help you realize what posts worked
best for your audience and which ones had no response
at all.
How not to Increase Instagram
Followers:
Don’t buy fake followers, bots, fake likes and comments.
Don’t let irrelevant people follow you: purge your
Followers tab from time to time and remove ghost
followers who are not your target audience or look like
bots.
Don’t collaborate with irrelevant influencers and
bloggers.
Don’t participate in engagement groups; Instagram
easily detects such fraudulent activity.

18. Don’t host giveaways too much and don’t offer generic
prizes, such as iPhones, cars and so on. Offer
something business-specific instead.
Don’t spam with comments, posts and Direct messages.
How to Find Your Target
Audience On Instagram
Defining the target audience is the primary task every
marketer has to take on to develop an effective
Instagram growth strategy. Before you present yourself
or your brand in any way, demonstrate your product or
services, you need to know exactly who you do it for to
cater to the audience, make it resonate with you and
want to be a part of your community.
What’s their age, gender, interests? What content do
they consider great? Once you answer these and
determine your audience, you will need to figure out how
to find it on Instagram, engage and grow it. Let’s go over
all the ways you can easily find and reach the audience
with Combin.
Finding Audience with Hashtags
Hashtags have been the predominant mode of user
exploration on Instagram since day one. You can tag

19. your posts with relevant hashtags to boost the
discoverability and find interesting publications of others
by running a hashtag search on Instagram.
Combin search module works on the same principle,
user types a hashtag into the search form and receives
Instagram posts tagged under it. The only difference is
that with Combin you have a number of other search
settings and filters, and can simultaneously target
multiple hashtags.
Launch Combin and open the Search tab.
Type in a tag of interest into the Hashtag field. Click the
plus icon to add fields for more hashtags to target.
Select the time period at the Posted form to specify
when the tagged posts should have been published.
Set the range of Likes and Comments count that the
found posts should fit in. This way you can specifically
target the hottest content, mildly popular publications or
overlooked posts.
Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality
to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify
Language, Gender and audience size (Followers and
Followings count) of the accounts that published the
tagged posts.
Click the Find button. Once the search results are
loaded, you can select some or all and attract attention
to your account by liking and commenting on the posts,
and following the publication’s authors.
Finding Audiences Within Specific Locations

20. Targeting people geographically nearby is a surefire way
to attract more foot traffic and drive sales for local
businesses. Combin allows performing location based
targeting by one and multiple places at the same time,
finding all posts tagged within the location on Instagram.
Launch Combin and open the Search tab.
Type in a place of interest into the Location field. Click
the plus icon to add fields for more locations to target.
Other than typing the place name, you can use Combin
interactive map to define the search area radius and
target specific establishments located within. Click the
map icon next to the Location field and follow the
instructions.
Select the time period at the Posted form to specify
when the tagged posts should have been published.
Set the range of Likes and Comments count that the
found posts should fit in. This way you can specifically
target the hottest content, mildly popular publications or
overlooked posts.
Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality
to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify
Language, Gender and audience size (Followers and
Followings count) of the accounts that published the
tagged posts.
Combining Hashtags and Locations
Reach niche communities and increase local awareness
by targeting with hashtag + location combinations.
Combin also allows combining multiple hashtags with

21. multiple places, saving time from running the searches
one by one.
In order to combine relevant hashtags with locations,
open the Search tab and fill in both Hashtag and
Location fields and select other search parameters as
described above.
Targeting Accounts that Engaged with
Specific Users
Keeping an eye on competitors’ business is one of the
keys to success on any platform, Instagram included.
Besides getting ideas for further brand development and
engaging content from your Instagram account’s
competitors, you can also find and attract their
audience. Or any other Instagram account’s audience,
including yours. Combin lets you target all — followings,
followers, likers and commenters of any public or
accessible Instagram account.
Launch Combin and open the Search tab.
Select the Users search type at the top of the
application window.
Click the Search by field and specify whether you want
to find Followings, Followers, Likers or Commenters.
Enter the account username into the User field.
Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality
to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify the

22. preferable Language, Gender and Followers/Followings
count of the accounts that engaged with the Instagram
user you selected.
Targeting Accounts that Engaged with Specific Posts
Instagram accounts that already engage with your
content or publications of your competitors, are likely to
become the foundation of your brand’s loyal audience.
They are already interested and active, all you need to
do is single these accounts out and reach out to them.
Here’s how to find them:
Open the Search tab.
Select the Users search type at the top of the
application window.
Click the Search by field and pick either Likers or
Commenters from the menu.
Paste in the link to the Instagram post into the Post field.
Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis functionality
to automatically sift irrelevant users out and specify the
preferable Language, Gender and Followers/Followings
count of the accounts that engaged with the post.

23. How to find influencers for
your Instagram account
Working with influencers is an important part of every
brand’s marketing strategy - they bring the most
impressive traffic numbers and raise sales rate
significantly. Finding the right influencer is not the
easiest task, but Combin is here to save time and help
you find lots of potential influencers.
Combin’s functionality allows using 3 influencer
searching strategies:
1. Searching competitors’ followers
and following lists
Open Search tab, pick user search and type in
competitor’s username, specifying
followers/commenters’ last activity time and search
results number. After getting the results, sort them by
number of followers.
Accounts at the top of the list could be your potential
influencers - check their profiles for more information
and contact them about the details of possible
partnership if they seem suitable for advertising your
product.

24. 2. Searching popular posts by relevant
hashtags and locations
Open Search tab, pick posts search, type in relevant to
your business hashtags/locations, specifying post date
and search results number. Sort the results by number
of likes/comments, look up the posts uploaders’ profiles.
When picking an influencer, pay attention to the
following:
Make sure real person is managing the account.
Potential influencer’s account shouldn’t look spammy -
focus on the image quality, the language and meaning of
the captions and account description, and the way they
communicate with the followers, if they do at all.
Don’t pick the influencer based only on their huge
following. It doesn’t always mean success + it can easily
be just an army of bots. In order to prevent dealing with
the latter, check a handful of the posts and see how
many comments the account receives on average - the
more the following rate, the more comments there
should naturally be. Be aware of shady accounts with
massive following and single to no comments under
their posts.

25. 3. Searching popular posts’ authors by
event hashtags
Open Search tab, pick posts search, type in relevant
event hashtag, specifying post date and search results
number. After getting the results, sort them by number of
likes/comments. Look through the hottest content and
visit profiles of authors’ posts - potential influencers for
your brand.
4. Searching by accounts’ bio
Open Search tab, pick the users search, select search
by bio. Type in a keyphrase the potential influencer
could have in their profile, depending on your business
field and location (for example, ‘fashionista seattle.’)
Sort and filter the found accounts, hover the cursor over
their profiles to see more information (bio text, their
language and gender.)
Note that search by bio works the same way Instagram
search does, so it doesn’t bring over 100 results and
cannot be updated.

26. How to Schedule Instagram
Posts?
Scheduling Instagram posts is a solid management
solution that’s used by many avid platform users,
bloggers and businesses. Frequent content updating
makes your account impossible to miss when scrolling
the feed, whereas consistent posting is rewarded by the
platform algorithm, bringing more engagement to your
publications. Planning Instagram posts ahead saves
time, keeps your content in the limelight, and increases
your productivity.
Combin Scheduler provides an easy way to plan
Instagram posts for future publication. Follow the steps
below to schedule posts to your Instagram account.
Install Combin Scheduler. It’s available for Windows,
Mac and Linux.
Scheduler Logo
Plan, manage and schedule Instagram posts now!
Login to your Instagram account within Scheduler. It
doesn’t store or share personal information with third
parties, using your password only for sending an access
token request to Instagram. Two-factor authentication is
supported.
Once you are logged in, Scheduler automatically locates
you at the posts scheduling page. Click 'Add New Post'
at the bottom of the application window to start planning
your post.

27. Drag and drop images or click Choose Photo to select
pictures for the post.
Add text for caption into the input field. Intervals,
paragraph breaks, symbols and emoji will remain
unchanged in the published post.
If you want to, you can tag location in the post. Type the
name of the place into the Location input field.
Select the posting date and time. Scheduler
synchronizes with the timezone of your OS.
Click Post Now. Your post will be published at the
scheduled time.
Keep Combin Scheduler launched until your posts are
on Instagram. If the look of the opened Scheduler
window annoys you, leave the application running in the
background instead of quitting it.
At the menu bar, click Tools and select Preferences.
Enable the setting Run Combin Scheduler in
background when it’s closed. After that, Scheduler will
be minimized when you click X to quit it.
How to automate Instagram
activity without getting banned
Automating Instagram activity with specialized bots,
applications, and cloud services is a widely used

28. method to increase the engagement rate and followers
count. However, automation has never been a fully
secure way to promote an Instagram account since it’s
prohibited by the platform. The reason is obvious, it’s in
the interest of Instagram that users buy advertisements
rather than use third-party services and bring no profit
off of it to Instagram.
Instagram introduces various changes every year to
make it more difficult to automate activity. But none of
the previous updates can be compared in severity and
magnitude with the Instagram changes of the summer
2019. They included the hourly and daily activity limits
reduction by more than half, and an apparent addition to
the number of scenarios that are considered spam-like.
That's why it's so important to follow all known safety
rules when automating Instagram activity, regardless of
whether you are using Combin Growth or some other
service. Check the list of recommendations below and
make sure that you adhere to them when automating
your Instagram activity.
Important! Following all of the given recommendations
doesn’t guarantee 100% safety. Instagram does not
disclose specific rules and action limits, so the full list of
reasons for an account ban and other types of
punishment, is not known. Combin team has taken the
below information from personal experience and
Combin user reports, as well as from studying and

29. gathering publicly shared information on the topic by
other Instagram automation users.
Don’t leave your Instagram profile without
information
It may seem obvious, but this simple thing is what
compromises some accounts before they even get the
chance to establish on the platform. Make sure to
upload a profile picture, add a description in bio, and
publish a few posts. It’s best when there is a real photo
of yourself or your company as it makes the profile look
authentic. Don’t go out there automating Instagram
activity of an empty account — it’s a sure way to get a
quick ban.
Confirm your phone number and email
address
Again, a small basic thing that saves from a lot of
trouble. The email and phone number confirmation is a
sure sign for Instagram whether it’s a real person or bot
running the account. Be sure to confirm both email and
phone number as many instances shown that Instagram
takes action against active Instagram accounts with an
email confirmation but with no phone number attached
to the profile.

30. Don’t automate activity of a freshly created
Instagram account
In case you just created a new account, it’s really a bad
idea to rush to automate your activity or even follow, like
and comment a lot manually right from the get-go. This
is a typical behavior of spam accounts and there is no
way Instagram will let it slide.
Imagine how active you’d be on the platform if you didn’t
know about the automation method and weren’t keeping
the goal to get as much attention as possible. It most
probably would be just a dozen of follows and likes, a
couple of comments if any. Maintain a modest amount of
hourly and daily actions throughout your first two months
on Instagram, gradually increasing the amount of
follows, likes and comments.
Keep a consistent Instagram posts
publishing schedule
Being active in interaction with others on the platform
and sporadically (or never) posting something of your
own to the account is not good in Instagram’s book.
Though it’s not as bad as blatant mass-following on a
day old account, it’s still rises suspicion, plus
significantly reduces the reach and engagement rate.
You don’t have to post every day or even every other
day, the most important thing is consistency. Once you
established convenient regular posting schedule, try

31. your best to maintain it. You can try Combin Scheduler
to get the publishing consistency question out of the way
for good.
Use proxy when automatic activity of
multiple accounts
If you’ve started tapping into Instagram marketing before
2019, you are likely to remember it was possible to
manage up to 5 Instagram accounts safely from one IP
address. Well, not anymore. Since the platform was
updated in 2019, automating activity of even just two
Instagram accounts from one IP has become
dangerous.
The platform allegedly started to record an IP address
from which an account logged in, and then assign it to
the account — in case more logins detected from the
same IP or an account has logged in from an unusual IP
address, Instagram considers it suspicious. Repeated
authorization attempts and overall activity of multiple
different accounts from the same address leads to ban.
Combin Growth, as well as many other Instagram
automation tools, offers the possibility to simulate
connection from different places using an in-app proxy
setup. It allows changing IP for all accounts at the same
time, as well as set different proxy for each account.
Learn where to find proxy to protect your Instagram
accounts from blocking.

32. Learn your unique activity limits and stay
below them
Mass activity is as effective for Instagram audience
growth as it is destructive for an account when managed
carelessly. Before you even start automating the activity,
it’s better to determine your limits. Count how many
follows, likes and comments you do in a day manually,
consider this information when starting to use any
automation tool. Start slow, set less actions that you’d
usually do, then gradually start increasing the number
each couple of days. Monitor how many actions are
allowed and stay below them at all times. Sudden peaks
of activity lead to serious repercussions.
Approach mass-commenting carefully
Of all types of activity, commenting is by far the most
sensitive when it comes to automation and safety. The
bottom line here is to tailor all comments to each
account and situation specifically, otherwise an
out-of-place comment may be noticed and reported by
the receiver even faster than by the Instagram
algorithm. Don’t comment with a transparent intention of
promotion and avoid one-word or all-emoji comments
like fire. See our dedicated article on safe Instagram
mass-commenting for more information.

33. Avoid any spam-like behavior
Automation is not the sole reason why your Instagram
account could be banned. There have been plenty of
cases when users manage to ace activity automation,
but the account suddenly goes belly up because of
automation-unrelated actions. It could be an empty
profile, sketchy comments, as mentioned before, or the
absence of authentic content like in cases when brands
only repost other Instagram users’ publications. The list
could be long and we can’t know all the cases and
behaviors considered spam-like by Instagram. A rule of
thumb is to revise your intended action with a question
‘Does it look natural?’ before you apply it. Remember,
it’s your account, content and audience that’s at stake,
approach the automation and overall activity on
Instagram with caution.
How to leave multiple
Instagram comments with
different text in batch
Here’s how you can leave multiple comments with
various contents and create comment templates for
future use in Combin:

34. 1. Assuming you already did a search on a hashtag or
location, select Instagram posts you’d like leave
comments for:
Select the posts you want to leave comments for
manually by clicking on each post
Alternatively you can select all found posts in one click
2. Click the comment symbol. Right after this,
commenting form will be opened:
3. Click the plus sign at the lower left corner of the form.
Click it as many times as many comments you want to
add:
Click the plus sign at the lower left corner of the form.
Click it as many times as many comments you want to
add:
4. Add new text to each new comment form. The
comments will be posted in random order by the
application:
Add new text to each new comment form
5. Click the bookmark symbol to save the comments as
templates for future use:
Click the bookmark symbol to save the comments as
templates for future use:

35. 6. Click filters sign to leave out posts you already
commented and specify commenting only one post per
Instagram user:
Click filters sign to leave out posts you already
commented and specify commenting only one post per
Instagram user:
7. Push ‘Add Comments’ button and the task for
commenting will be automatically scheduled accordingly
to Instagram hourly activity limits. You can always track
the progress of the task in History tab of the application:
Tasks are conveniently separated by categories. If you
want to see all commenting tasks, just click ‘Comments’
at the top of the History tab window.

36. How to find and engage
Instagram competitors’
audience
Search
In order to initiate search, launch Combin and open the
Search tab. Switch from Posts to the Users search tab.
Move to the Search by section to specify the type of
audience you want to target. Click the field to open the
drop-down list of options. Select either Followers,
Followings, Commenters, Likers or Bio.
After selecting the audience type, enter your Instagram
competitor’s username or a URL to their post.
Specify the number of search results in the Search limit
field.
Below the default search settings, there are Fast search
and Advanced Filters and Analysis features.

37. Enable the Fast search mode to load search results
quicker but without information about accounts (e.g
following and followers count, gender, etc.)
Enable the Advanced Filters and Analysis feature to
activate machine learning user analysis and set
preferable language, gender, last activity,
following/followers range filters.
Click Find after setting search parameters.
Engagement
Before you start to interact with your competitor’s
audience, it’s recommended to sort and filter search
results to hide inapt profiles and prioritize engagement
with the most or least followed accounts.
If Advanced Filters and Analysis was enabled for a
search, its results can be filtered with a wider variety of
filters.
To attract the attention of your competitor’s audience,
follow them, like their last posts and/or leave comments.
Click Select All or pick profiles from the search results
manually by clicking the profiles. At the bottom of the
page, there are interaction buttons for following, liking
and commenting. Click them after selecting the
accounts you’d like to engage with.

38. Combin then will automatically schedule an action task
and safely process it in accordance with your individual
hourly and daily activity limits.