I recently read an article about getting traffic and making money from Instagram. The premise sounded good and the article started off well. But then the advice got bad. Bad in ways I would never recommend.

While I did post a comment on the author's Google+ post, I also wanted to share my thoughts with all of you because I know this content (and others like it) is out there for you to find. I'm not going to name the article, author, or website because I'm not here to shame anyone. I'm here to educate you on things to do well and things to avoid that may hurt you.

So, in the article, the author starts talking about how you could send 300 highly targeted visitors to your website every day. The author says you can get these 300 people in "an honest way so you can get their bank". Not my personal perspective on "getting over" on my customers, but, hey, we are looking for sales, so I kept reading (although this immediately sent up red flags).

The author then explains that Instagram offers tons of niche followers and users and that it's such a good way to get leads that he even debated sharing this information publicly. Really? That's all I ever tell people! Get out there and take advantage of this platform. This isn't some "secret" trick that only a few smarmy sales people know about.

Ok, but on to the recommended Instagram advice to get 300 targeted visitors a day:

• Get an Instagram account
• Set up your profile
• Follow people from the US, UK, CA, and AU
• Buy followers
• Follow more people in the niche you want to sell to
• Post 6-7 photos per day

In general, not the worst advice. Obviously, the first two steps are mandatory.

The third option isn't so bad. But you want to follow people relevant to you, your business, your goals, your niche, your industry, and your strategy. If my product or service is not relevant to anyone outside a certain geographic area, why would I follow other geographically based users? Unless, of course, they were worth following for other reasons. You shouldn't follow anyone based solely on their geographic location. This is BAD advice. Follow people who support your purpose for using Instagram to grow your business.

If you've read anything I've ever written, you know how I feel about the fourth point. HELL NO!!! You do NOT buy followers on Instagram. To be fair to the author, he recommends keeping purchased followers under 30% of your total followers count. But I don't care. Buying followers doesn't serve you well at all. Not to mention, in the previous point, he just pointed out specific geographic locations. If you buy followers, the chances are very high you are going to get followers from a variety of Middle Eastern countries. And unless that's your key demographic, why would you want those followers? Oh yeah, and buying followers is a HORRIBLE idea. It's a bad idea on every other social media site and it's a bad idea here too. Buying followers will hurt you, not help you. DON'T DO IT.

The idea of following people in the niche you want to sell to isn't "bad" advice but it's too general. If I want to sell a targeted product (pet supplies, for example) this might be a valid strategy. But if I am a restaurant, it's going to be much harder to find people in my targeted niche. And just because I want them to eat at my restaurant doesn't necessarily mean that their accounts (or mine) have anything in common. If you want to focus on growing your audience, yes, follow people in the niche you are targeting. But be selective, and engage with them, not just follow them. Create relationships.

Posting 6-7 posts a day is asking too much. I can barely post that much to any site daily, let alone Instagram where you have to create high quality images and content. No, posting 3-4 times a day is more than enough - and even that might be too much for you. If you can only do one post a day, that's fine. Whatever you do, just stay consistent and stay active. No one wants to see a dormant account.

Ok. So aside from the buying followers, this wasn't the worst advice, right? But the author goes on...

He says you need at least 50,000 followers to get those 300 visitors a day. Yeah, ok. Just get to 50k followers and you'll be doing great. Yes, if you have that many followers, you should be getting hundreds of targeted visitors. But are you, as a small business, going to generate 50k followers on Instagram in the near future? I doubt it. But if you do, that's amazing and kudos to you!

Yes, you can get highly targeted visitors from Instagram. I say that all the time. In fact, the visitors that come to your site from Instagram are usually a higher quality lead than what you'll get from any other social media site. But set realistic goals. If you have 1000 followers, you should be able to send some leads to your site, but it won't be 300 a day.

The author then continues with another money-making idea. He suggests you sell shout-outs. If you have 50k followers and a highly targeted audience, you are selling out yourself and your audience by selling shout-outs. And if you don't have that many followers, you are still selling out to attempt this method. Instagram is about organic relationships. "Selling" shout-outs to make money on the side is far from organic, it's far from authentic, and I, personally, unfollow anyone who sells shout-outs.

If you don't know, a shout-out is where someone pays you (usually small dollar denominations) to "shout" them out (mention them) in your posts. Their goal is to reach more audiences and grow their fan base by piggy-backing off the other's audience. Just like on any other site, you should only ever promote (or shout-out) other companies which you respect and can vouch for - not ones paying you to do so.

And that final point pretty much wraps up the advice in this post I read.

But I wanted to take it a little further. I mean, let's just say I didn't know what I know about Instagram and I actually thought this advice was good. So I looked into the website and the author.

The post itself has been tweeted 10 times, liked on G+ 9 times, and received 2 likes on Facebook. These are the shares 3 days after posting. So, he obviously doesn't have a very big readership or else they all disagree with him. But, maybe there's another explanation. So I checked out the website's social media accounts.

Their Facebook page has almost 30,000 fans. A pretty good number. But their average post receives less than 10 likes and very few comments. They have very little engagement. Their other social media sites have moderate fan levels and show little interest or engagement.

But then I also noticed they don't have an Instagram account listed on their website. The author is writing about Instagram but they don't promote Instagram for their business... So I took a couple more seconds to search them on Instagram and found their business account. They have 56 followers, follow 93 people, and have 60 posts. Their first post was 47 weeks ago. That means they're posting an average of about 1.5 times a week - far from the recommended 6-7 posts a day.

Ok, but maybe the author was a guest post and so I looked him up. I couldn't find him. I found a few people who matched his name on Instagram, but none of them looked right, and none of them had more than 100 followers.

Like I said, I'm not trying to attack this person, specifically. I'm trying to educate you. This is a lesson.

Please be careful about who you take advice from. This author has this post out there telling people how to do something that, as far as I can tell, has no idea what he's talking about. He's never followed his own advice. He's never really driven those high numbers of targeted visitors to his site.

Take the time to learn what strategies actually work and what works for you. Don't try to get around hard work and authenticity by cheating the system. Instagram is a great platform and it will help you grow your business. But don't give in and buy followers and try to game the system.

If you are looking for advice on how to use Instagram efficiently, I invite you to check out the recommended posts below or go to the Instagram tab at the top of the page. I write about what I do, what I know, and what actually works. And you can feel free to look me up and verify that.