Dispite being a millennial, I just made my first IG account earlier today (@ pkmnflyingmaster hit me up ) and so far… it’s pretty cancerous. I just want to look at other people’s cards, maybe make some friends or strike up a deal occasionally. But it seems there are a lot of people that like to show off their fat stacks of full art cards or just consistently repost their prized card over and over again in an attempt to get online validation because their parents didn’t hug them enough or something. And every comment is just people begging for these cards or people reposting these giveaways they will probably never win.
Anyway, I didn’t mean for this to be a rant. I would like advice on how to navigate the Instagrams. What are things to avoid? How do you find cool people? How do you make friends? How do you look for a particular item if you’re interested in buying? Give me all the juicy details senpais!
I made my account a few months back, and it’s mostly trial and error. I started following about 200 users, then slowly weeded out the annoying ones. You’ll find chronic selfie posters, bong smokers, scammers, 11-year olds trying desperately to get your gold stars for $5, etc. I have about two dozen or so users with whom I regularly do sales/trades, and others whom I follow just for the content.
To get started, just post pics of your cards and spam hashtags in the captions like there’s no tomorrow. The larger your audience, the more opportunities you’ll have to sell/trade - this is the main reason people post giveaways. As for making friends, eh, the “community” is about as tightly knit as a raw ball of yarn. I’ve had the misfortune of witnessing more than a fair share of vomit-inducing drama, people calling each other scammers legitimately or not and rallying their followers to attack others, etc. The veterans mostly keep in a circle.
TLDR; Post pics with popular hashtags, follow people, learn as you go, and be nice. You’ll make a few, uh, “friends,” but keep low expectations.
I use Instagram daily and I am fairly active with engaging in it.
First and foremost I see instagram as a way for myself to document and appreciate my collection and the progress I make in collecting.
A good way to start is just to share pictures of the collection you have and to post when you aquire something new. Something that is very appreciated is if you take some time to share the stories behind the cards too, but if you just want to gain quick followers and likes you just post your most valuable stuff
This is in my opinion the most important part of enjoying IG:
You choose yourself how you want your feed and experience to be like!
Make sure to just follow accounts that you actually enjoy, try not to get caught up in the “follow for follow” mentality, because then your feed will end up with spam and stuff that you do not care about which will take out the enjoyment of the platform. Do not feel bad about not following someone back
I try to mainly just follow accounts that I think takes either nice photos to look at, post informative content or just stuff that I find inspiring as a collector.
If someone posts pictures more than once a day I usually unfollow them to avoid spam.
Also I agree with that you should just try to be nice with people and you will eventually find a few friends on there!
If you get harassed by kids that want to buy your cards for a dollar each just simply say no and move on, just like with the following don’t feel obliged to deal with everyone.
All the IG hate lately is kinda sad but I get it. It is all about who you follow and the people you allow to be active in your comments. I’ve probably blocked north of 100 users in my two years just because of their annoying behavior. As for reposting, I do not spam a card however I post my favorites every couple months. I only do this with cards that are of that higher quality such as Master’s Scroll, PSA 10 1ed Blaines Zard, Shining Zard, etc… Anyone can say what they want but Instagram is for showing off at least a little haha
Some very solid advice so far, I’m very appreciative. I’m glad places like this forum exist because if it was just IG, I probably wouldn’t even bother with collecting.
I joined Instagram cause the people that collect what I aim to collect (blisters) were on there and I wanted to see if they could help me. Other than that, if the ebay seller has instagram most of the time you can save like 10% by going through paypal,avoiding those cryptic subliminal ebay messages of doing offsite transactions. Also me posting pictures of my collection, documents what I have, so I dont need to trawl through my storage methods to see what I have and instead just have to scroll down my posts.
Maybe I’m desensitised, but pictures of commonly displayed items like ultra rares, psa 10 wotc holos or booster boxes(except maybe a 1st ed base box) doesn’t ‘arouse’ me, overall my favourite posts are ones of unique items, whether it be oc,mc,st cards, low pop cards or my favourite of all, old sealed product that isnt widely displayed.
That kid is such a jackass. He tried to trade me some fake yeezys (high dollar shoes) for a card I had, he sent the sheos first and everything. I took them to a local sneaker shop and the owner told me they were fake as I suspected. On top of that I know he owes people a lot of money on IG, like over a thousand… I have him blocked on his four different accounts and I would encourage everyone to do the same.
Unsure how that happens. He (his parents) are pretty wealthy. Not hard to verify when you use your real name as your IG username. Unfortunately you’re interacting with a 13 year old. Some teenagers are different, but the majority of them haven’t had enough life experiences yet. This person in question however grew up in money, and his ego is thoroughly unchecked. I’d also recommend steering clear from him and his “giveaway”. I don’t think the person will deliver.
Edit: if I remember correctly, he was the winner of the PSA 10 4th print Charizard another forumer put up (@gottaketchumall ?) he got cold feet after posting that he won the auction on IG, and never paid up.
Sure there are some negatives to IG but I think they are highly overstated. It’s just like a continuous collection thread. Easy to update and visually pleasing. It’s a great tool and it’s good for the hobby.
As others have said, just follow accounts you truly enjoy. Don’t enter giveaways. Acknowledge people that trade, buy, or do favors for you. Don’t follow someone just to appease them. Be generous with likes.
Finally, and most important to enjoying your IG experience…
A claim sale is where a user posts everything they have for sale one by one. Whoever comments “claim” first gets to buy the item. Essentially they’ll spam your feed and you won’t be able to see any other posts. It’s super obnoxious.
I can’t confirm or deny any IG username as I am not on IG, but the eBay username of the non payer was “affordablecardss” for the non paying 1999-2000 zard. First name of the shipping address was Christine with a 90210 zip code. I don’t want to put a full name on here. Thankfully for this forum, I was able to complete a deal on that Charizard through here for a nice price essentially around the second highest bid less eBay fees.
I have never been on IG but I feel safe in saying: this forum >>>>>>>>> IG.
I’ve been on Instagram for about 2.5 years. It’s been a wild ride that’s for sure. One of my favorite quotes is “just when you think you’ve seen it all, something else happens” and this is especially true for Instagram. How to find cool people, you could start by following anyone that I follow. It’s a good 300 or so trustworthy people in the community that like to post cool pictures of cardboard and make some trades and sales. I follow people that post cool pictures of cards, and sometimes people that sell cards as well. Hashtags are key in your posts, as they are how people can search for and find your posts. They should be relevant to your post, so stuff like #pokemoncards or #pokemonpsa may fit well. You generally want to be kind of generic with your hashtags though, as the more specific you get, the less likely you are to have someone search for it. However, if you use pokemon, like 100 billion other people also use it, so there’s a small chance you’ll be found with it too. You can only use a max of 30 hashtags though, so make them count! Making friends is super easy. You just need to be engaged with the community. The more people you follow, the more photos you like and leaving comments and interacting with other users will get you noticed in the community and striking up conversations with other users about cards and such will ultimately result in friendships. Making trades and sales is another great way to get noticed. If you want a specific card, then make a post and say you’re looking for it. I always tag people that I know would be looking for specific cards if I see something they are looking for in a sales post. Word spreads fast if you trade with someone and they post what they got from you and their experience in regards to it. I’ve made countless friends from trades and random conversations about cards. As far as things to avoid, there used to be a few pages that were dedicated to posting about scammers and their accounts/paypals/addresses but they are mostly deactive or gone now. They often got reported by others for “false accusations” and such. I’ve met overseas accounts and they are cool, but shipping can be tricky sometimes.
The longer you’re there for, the more you’ll learn. Hope that helped a bit though. I could probably write an article about interacting on Instagram though. If you’ve got any specific questions, feel free to shoot me a message. I get a ton of DMs on Instagram about everything. I’m more than happy to help.
I know nothing about ig but may have an idea for you.
Someone above said over time, and many blocks, they’ve accumulated 100 good friends. Is there a way to share all those good users with you so you start off with a proper group of like minded collectors?
) and so far… it’s pretty cancerous. I just want to look at other people’s cards, maybe make some friends or strike up a deal occasionally. But it seems there are a lot of people that like to show off their fat stacks of full art cards or just consistently repost their prized card over and over again in an attempt to get online validation because their parents didn’t hug them enough or something. And every comment is just people begging for these cards or people reposting these giveaways they will probably never win.
