Instagram growth for Atlanta businessesInstagram growth in AtlantaGrowth in Atlanta

Instagram growth in Atlanta starts with a fact about how the city tags itself. #atlanta holds 46 million posts². The next largest tag we measured with the city's name in it is not a place at all. It is #atlantahairstylist, at 7.1M posts⁶. The biggest hair tags are larger than every neighbourhood tag we measured, and the trade follows the place name out to the suburbs⁶. So when an Atlanta business asks us for local followers, the list starts from what the business does and then narrows to where it is.

Trade first, place second

Put the two kinds of tag side by side. Leaving out #midtown and #westend, which other cities share, the largest Atlanta neighbourhood tag we measured is #buckhead, with 1.4M posts³. These five hair and beauty tags are all larger than that: #atlantahairstylist at 7.1M, #atlhairstylist at 4.5M, #atlhair at 3.5M, #atlantahair at 3M and #atlmua at 2.2M⁶.

The trade also attaches itself to the place. #decaturhairstylist has 618K posts, more than twice the 255K on #decaturga¹¹. #buckheadlashes has 260K posts and #mariettahairstylist 234K¹¹.

For a salon or a studio this is useful. A tag that names your trade and your part of town together may exist already, and we can put it on your list.

Atlanta or ATL

The city is written two ways, and both are in use. In hair and nails the short form leads: #atlhair has 3.5M posts against 3M on #atlantahair, and #atlnails has 1.4M against 1M on #atlantanails⁶. Nightlife is the same, with 1.3M posts on #atlnightlife and 756K on #atlantanightlife⁸.

Elsewhere the full name leads. #atlantarealtor has 788K posts and #atlrealtor 258K⁷. #atlantabarber has 786K and #atlbarber 444K⁶.

So for every trade tag we ask for both spellings and read the count on each one before it goes on a list.

What your manager does with the list

The service is outreach from your own account. You name the targets, and your manager follows and likes the most active people on them¹⁵. Those people see a real account from their own trade or city paying attention, visit your profile, and some choose to follow¹⁵. Anyone who does not follow back is unfollowed later, which is why your following count moves up and down while we work¹⁵.

There is no switch that limits the work to one zip code¹⁶. The area comes from the targets you give us: local hashtags, local pages and the local accounts your customers already follow¹⁶.

For example, picture a lash studio in Buckhead. Its list could hold #buckheadlashes at 260K posts, #buckheadhairstylist at 142K and #buckheadnails at 124K, plus the salons and boutiques nearby¹¹. Every tag on it names Buckhead.

To start we need your login and 10 to 30 competitor accounts in your niche, each between 10K and 90K followers¹⁷. For Atlanta we suggest picking them by trade first and by side of town second. Each step is laid out on the how it works page.

The Atlanta trades in our numbers

Hair, braids, lashes and makeup. Nothing else we measured in Atlanta comes close. Besides the five tags above, #atlantabraids has 1.4M posts, #atlantamua 1.2M, #atlantanails 1M and #atlantalashes 962K⁶. Those are crowded. #atlantasalon at 285K and #atlantalocs at 243K are smaller, and a neighbourhood form is smaller still⁶.

Real estate. #atlantarealestate has 1.3M posts, #atlantarealtor 788K and #atlantahomes 551K⁷. In our real estate case study an agency opened its account with seven followers and gained 737 more, counted from 2 July¹². Its posts came from us too, which means that result mixes content with growth¹².

Music and nightlife. #atlnightlife has 1.3M posts, #atlantaevents 960K and #atlantamusic 505K⁸. Two of our case studies are musicians. A singer and dancer gained 1,694 followers in the 365 days on her dashboard, with daily work from March to September¹³. A DJ whose account held 19 posts gained 178 followers from 29 August, in about three weeks, and posted nothing new in that time¹⁴.

Food and drink. #atlantaeats has 767K posts and #atlfoodie 748K⁵. The tags that name what is on the plate are much smaller: #atlantabrunch has 79K and #atlantacoffee 36K⁵.

Gyms and trainers. #atlantafitness has 300K posts, #atlantatrainer 123K and #atlantapersonaltrainer 80K⁹.

Shops and boutiques. #atlantaboutique has 557K posts, about four times the 135K on #atlantasmallbusiness¹⁰. #shoplocalatlanta has 28K¹⁰.

The accounts in those case studies are real, and each one can be watched on its own dashboard. None of them is offered here as an Atlanta business. They show the method at work in real estate and in music.

Neighbourhood tags, measured

In town, the tags we would start from are #buckhead at 1.4M posts, #downtownatlanta at 461K, #eastatlanta at 302K, #poncecitymarket at 252K, #grantpark at 228K, #atlantabeltline at 190K, #inmanpark at 141K, #littlefivepoints at 100K and #oldfourthward at 89K³.

Two in-town names need care. #midtown has 3.1M posts, and the related tags Instagram suggested for it included #midtownmanhattan, #midtownsac, #midtownmiami and #midtownhouston³. The Atlanta forms are #midtownatlanta at 439K posts and #midtownatl at 381K³. #westend has 2.4M posts and its suggestions included #westendtheatre and #westendbrisbane, while #westendatlanta has 34K³.

Inside the Perimeter and outside it

Fulton County's own economic development office speaks of the county's 15 distinct cities⁴. The suburb tags are as large as most tags in town: #alpharetta has 828K posts, #roswell 748K and #sandysprings 473K¹¹.

Some of those names belong to other states as well. Among the tags Instagram suggested for #roswell was #roswellnm at 90K posts, and for #decatur it suggested #decaturalabama at 100K and #decaturil at 68K¹¹. The Georgia form settles it: #roswellga has 485K posts, #mariettaga 416K, #alpharettaga 362K and #decaturga 255K¹¹. For the whole region the wide tag is #metroatlanta, at 279K posts².

What to expect

Three things set the pace: your industry, your content and how consistently you post, so keep the account active while the work runs¹⁹. If Instagram flags the account, we stop that same day, wait 48 to 72 hours and start again at a lower pace, and the paused days go back onto your month at no extra charge¹⁸.

Plans start at US$147 a month, and the plans page lists the follower ranges past clients saw on each one. The case studies show real accounts on their own dashboards.

Want the tags first? Our Atlanta hashtag list is drawn from the 3,375 tags we measured and sorts them by neighbourhood, suburb and trade¹.