Are you thinking of using an Instagram bot?
I know you are.
After all, bots are an innovative way to enhance your social media presence.
Whether you're looking for new clients or simply want to expand your follower base,
they can make this process more efficient and faster.
However, botting has some serious risks not everyone is aware of.
We'll discuss them in this video, so keep watching.
First things first, what is a bot?
To put it simply, a bot is automation software.
With the help of some intricate coding, a bot uses Instagram's API to perform many different
tasks quickly and all at once.
Basically, it's a robot that does what you tell it to, and, unlike any human social media
manager, a bot can run 24/7.
Just imagine how tedious it would be to comment under random users' pictures in hopes that
they will follow your account.
Well, a bot can do it quickly and with no bathroom breaks.
That's why they are so commonly used.
By the way, commenting is not all of its powers.
Depending on the bot you've got, you'll be able to automatically like photos, answer
polls, send direct messages, follow and unfollow profiles.
Also, bots use algorithms to target relevant hashtags and accounts to create engagement
in your particular niche.
Now that you know what bots are and how they work, let's look at why it's good to use one.
One of the most significant benefits is that a bot can save you a lot of time.
At the end of the day, whether you decide to use a bot or not, you will still be trying
to complete the same tasks.
The difference is that without a bot, you'll spend dozens of hours engaging with your audience
yourself.
Believe me, it takes a lot less time to learn how to use a bot and set it up than to gain
100 followers by following random accounts on your own.
Speaking of followers, we both know how crucial they are on Instagram.
It doesn't matter whether you're an influencer or if you use Instagram for business, you
need followers to be visible, and you need lots of them.
Bots can help you become noticeable by auto-following users who fit your criteria.
They can also follow back and unfollow those who unfollowed you.
Basically, you don't need to scroll endlessly looking for potential leads or customers yourself.
A bot will do the job for you.
To keep these followers interested in your content, you're going to need to engage with
them.
The best part of engaging with your followers is that you'll also get new ones this way.
But you already know how time-consuming and tedious it is to keep up with these matters.
That's why you can set up a bot to comment, like photos, and even send messages to your
followers.
If you're curious to find out more about how Instagram bots work, check out this video
about a popular social media bot Jarvee.
Here, we break down everything you need to know about its functions, pricing, and interface.
Ok, enough with the flattery.
Bots may sound like a perfect solution, but they do come with a catch.
A few of them, actually.
First of all, bots can hurt your brand's reputation.
The most common way of using bots is setting up generic comments, which will be automatically
placed once someone posts a photo with specific hashtags.
I'm sure you've received plenty of comments such as "lovely pic" or "keep up with the
great content" from accounts you're not familiar with.
While I'm sure your photos are great, chances are that they were written by bots.
But how can it harm the brand's reputation?
Sometimes, it's very easy to recognize that these are not genuine comments and it can
make some people distrust your brand and stay clear of it.
But there's a much bigger risk here, and it comes from the fact that bots can't consider
the context of any post they comment on.
Let's say that you program a bot to send seemingly harmless generic comments such as "more of
this" or "that looks amazing" for photos that are tagged with #friendship.
Your bot then accidentally stumbles on a post that contains a heart-wrenching tribute to
a friend who passed away and leaves a tone-deaf comment saying "more of this".
Ouch.
Hopefully, users will understand that a bot wrote this, and your brand doesn't want more
of their friends to die.
However, many people don't know how bots work, so incidents like that may cause a backlash
against your brand.
To avoid this, you really need to evaluate what comments your bot is leaving.
And that leads to another issue - lack of genuine engagement.
If your comments are irrelevant, you'll end up chatting with other tone and context-deaf
bots, as no human will want to interact with your account.
Though, making a bot sound genuine is a big issue to solve.
Many people suggest leaving emojis instead of words, but it can lead to the very same
problem we mentioned before, if you opt-out to use laughing emojis everywhere.
Oh, and let's not forget your news feed.
When using bots, you will practically lose control over what you see in it.
Here's the truth.
To gain at least 100 followers, your bot will have to follow at least 1000 other users,
if you're lucky.
Ultimately, the bot will fill your feed with random accounts you may not want to see.
But this may seem like a tiny discomfort compared to the worst consequence of using Instagram
bots.
As you may already know, Instagram hates bots.
Several years ago, the platform cracked down bot activity, making it much weaker but still
alive on the platform.
These days you have to be very knowledgeable and possess the right tools when automating
Instagram.
Otherwise, you'll get banned from the platform.
That's right, Instagram is stringent when it comes to banning.
Why?
The platform aims to make sure that all of its content comes from real people.
It strives to enforce authentic engagement and protect users from potentially misleading
or unsafe activity that may be performed by bots.
Imagine what it would be like if influencers who are paid to promote products would only
have bots as followers.
It would fool marketers into believing that advertised items would be visible to real
people.
However they would not receive any return for their investment.
One of the ways Instagram recognizes botting activity is by tracking the number of times
someone uses commenting, liking, following, and even posting actions.
When you overuse these, the algorithm can automatically place an action lock on your
account.
Usually, it is temporary, but if you learn nothing from it, you can get an IP ban.
This ban will forbid access to the platform altogether.
In these cases, Instagram can also try to authenticate the suspicious account by demanding
an ID.
This way, it will make sure that a real person is behind the account.
However, if the user refuses to provide a valid ID, the account may be promptly disabled.
One of the best ways to stay safe from triggering Instagram's anti-spam algorithms is to use
proxies.
They will provide different IP addresses to all of the accounts you're using, thus preventing
Instagram from knowing that they belong to you.
If you need advice on what actionable steps you can take to continue automating your account
without getting an IP ban, we have a video explaining exactly that.
So check it out.
If you haven't tried Instagram botting, but you're eager to start, subscribe and click
the bell to stay tuned for our next video, where we introduce how to get started with
Instagram automation.
That's it for today.
See you in the next one!