When I first joined SWAPD, I was simply looking for the best way to build my personal Instagram account and honestly, I still haven’t completely figured it out.
For some reason, that task still eludes me.
While I still have a mediocre personal Instagram, this site has opened my eyes and the door to so many possibilities that a little more than a year ago, I didn’t even know was possible — Let along possible for me.
Because of SWAPD, some of the following are possible for me:
1. Verification on every social media platform
2. PR on major publications
3. Access to acquire and connect with large audiences within my niche
4. Personal Google Knowledge Panels, Wikipedia pages and more
As far as I know, this is the only site in the world that can take a normal guy and turn them into an authority figure within their field overnight.
Granted, most of these things are not cheap and one of the biggest holdups for most of us is the money. But remember, even if you can’t afford it, you have access.
I’ll say it again, you have access.
We have access to things that normal people don’t even know are distinct possibilities. It’s easy to take this access for granted because many of us are around it each and every day, but we should try to be mindful of how lucky we actually are.
This site is a marketplace, but it’s also a community.
When we can, we should do our best to help those around us because that’s one of the things that makes this site great. Personally, I can’t count how many times people like @Boogeyman and @Goofy have taken time out of their days to answer questions, give me guidance and send me down the right path.
Again, I’m a novice, but I’m guessing that I’m not the only one here. Over the past year I have learned so much and today I thought I’d take some time to do my part and give back a little.
Amateur Tips for Buying an Instagram Account
SWAPD does a great job with ensuring most of the relevant information is given to us up front within the listing.
This includes account insights such as audience locations, age ranges, genders, etc.
Most of this is decision making information that the importance and requirements will change based on each person’s individual needs, goals and target audience.
So, this isn’t what I want to focus on.
Remember earlier when I said I had learned a lot?
One of the things I learned was how not to waste money on pages that only appear to be good for me.
This is my process
1. Verify that the insights of the page meet my own personal needs.
2. Go to the Instagram page and check to see how many posts there are.
Personally, I don’t even consider pages that have no or very few posts. I want to buy accounts in a specific niche because that niche falls in line with mine. When there are no or very few posts, I just assume people are trying to hide something.
3. Calculate the engagement rate (Number of Like on each post / Total followers)
With all of the methods of fake engagement, this one can be hard. The one thing to remember here is that people typically don’t fake the engagement until they are getting a page ready to sell.
With that in mind, I calculate the engagement rate on the ten most recent posts. Then I scroll down 100 or so posts and calculate the engagement rate again.
Then I’ll scroll down another 100 and calculate it again.
During this process I ’m looking for some resemblance of consistency while taking into consideration that two years ago the page may have had less followers.
4. Always look at the comments. Do they seem genuine? This is a judgement call, but tons of emojis or one-word generic comments scream fake or engagement groups to me.
It’s not over!
I have gotten to this point several times and have been 100% sold and excited about a page. I was ready to buy, but the next steps saved me a fortune.
5. Verify the date the account was created, the location the account is based in and previous usernames.
On public profiles, you will see three white dots in the top right corner of the profile. If you press those three dots, you’ll see the menu shown in the left image pop up.
Click about this account and it’ll take you to the screen shown in right image above.
Date Joined — This one may or may not be super important for you personally, but if someone tells me a 100K account was organically grown, but has only been in existence for 90 days, it raises questions.
Account Based in — Again, this may not be super important to you as long as the audience is from the right location, but it’s not a bad thing to take a look at.
Former Usernames — I put a lot of focus on this one. Simply because sometimes it can tell you if an account has been rebranded and when. Not long ago, I was looking at a luxury account with over 100K and found that less than three months ago, it had been a babes account.
Babes does not fall into my niche whatsoever. The audience seemed to be engaged with the new content, but honestly if a babes account would have worked for my goals, then I’d just buy a babes account as I could get it much cheaper than a luxury account.
Sometimes a rebranding my not matter to you personally, but if the account has been rebranded, you should know.
6. Always take a look at the tagged photos!
Tagged photos can also tell you if the page had been rebranded . I always take a look at these and scroll all the way through them as it’s something that sellers don’t remember or don’t take the time to delete.
I’ve come across accounts that rebranded without a page name change and this was the ONLY way I was able to identify the rebrand.
The End
If everything checks out up to this point, I usually feel comfortable purchasing the page.
Again, I’m not an expert and this is simply just my process. So, if you have more experience than me, please feel free to add to or dispute any of these steps.
Thank you for being part of this great community!
