So, I got this message from a friend the other day.
Lately my Stories, um,
have been watched by a number of people that don't follow me and they're all,
let's call it big. Meaning like,
outside all the normal people that are watching.
I'm having a lot of people who don't already follow me, who have 30, 50, 100,
200, 600,000 followers. Follow,
who are watching my Stories. So it's, you know,
an odd way to kind of, like, attract followers. But I guess the theory is
dropping in on people's Stories... I'm like, Wow, Oh my gosh,
I'm gonna follow them. But I don't know, just seems like,
I guess if you have a team doing it or bots or something...
Did you hear what he said at the end? A Bot doing it?
I did some sleuthing because to be honest, when I heard about this,
it wasn't the first time.
I've seen it with my own account and I've seen a couple of my students come to
me saying, Elise,
why is like so and so famous person looking at my stories but not actually
following me?
So I did some digging because this automatically felt fishy and this is what I
found out.
Instagram already knows that the people behind these Story viewers are growth
hackers,
so they might be like kind of Russian accounts or they might be really big
names,
but it's basically a growth tactic similar to follow/unfollow a couple of years
ago.
This is the 2019 version of it and this is how people are seeing their accounts
grow. The only thing is,
is that the real person is not actually viewing your Story.
It's a bot which is running their account through to see thousands of stories a
day.
And the whole hope and the whole strategy behind it is that if they can get your
account to view a hundred thousand stories a day,
a small percentage of people are going to notice that this big name viewed the
account and they're going to want to follow back.
And it seems like this growth tactic has been working for people because I've
noticed a whole surplus of it in the last few months. But,
guess what?
Instagram already knows this is a growth tactic and they're already working on
shutting it down.
So if you have met an agency that's offering this as a service,
if you've been curious about how you can get your account to do the same thing,
don't do it because Instagram is actively working to shut it down. Now,
I was really curious about who was behind all of this.
And back in July I got an email to my account from someone saying they've found
a really good growth method and you know, here's their contact for it.
So I reached out to Craig of dazzlingsocial.com and I said,
hey,
fill me in on the details of what this new growth tactic is and he says it's a
new service he's offering called bulk story viewing.
They view up to 100,000 potentially even millions of Stories a day to get
people's attention and to direct them back to your account.
The crazy part is even though your account is going to be viewing like 100,000
plus Stories a day,
Craig's saying that you can expect only between 50 and 300 followers from this
growth hack. Here's where it gets interesting.
Craig says there are some things you need to be aware of though.
Targeting is limited.
"While we can try to target a bit and you might get 70% of followers of what you
want and 30% of what you'd prefer not to have (thirsty boys,
for example), we are working daily at improving targeting. Second thing,
it's experimental. There will no doubt be hiccups and flaws. Third,
it requires access to your account. Fourth,
for your account safety, you can't use any other service while we're doing this.
This includes accounts that use follow/unfollow,
comment or like on your behalf", but Craig says, "Trust me though,
you won't need those services while using this." And then he says,
"While unlikely to happen,
there's always the possibility of Instagram plugging this method of growth at
some point. So while incredibly beneficial,
it may have a limited time use." Craig even says that this method will attract
some bot accounts, but good news,
he has a service to clean up and remove Bot accounts.
So cha-ching to Craig's business, if you know what I mean.
So I replied to Craig's email and I needed some clarity.
Was my account going to view 100,000 stories or were 100,000 accounts going to
view my Stories,
but the way he sets it up is that my account is run through this Bot program and
I'm going to be the one that viewing 100,000 Stories.
Then I asked for a client example.
He sent me a couple of links of client accounts from igblade.com then I replied
and said, well, what program or tool do you use to access all of these Stories?
And he didn't reply. So I haven't heard from Craig since mid-July.
Then I asked for the pricing of his services and he has ghosted me.
So I don't know if Craig is still offering this service,
but he's ignoring me and maybe Instagram has already shut him down.
So bottom line is Instagram's already said it's aware of this growth hacking
technique and it's truly not the way to build a community because I mean,
maybe if it works for you for like a couple of days,
who are these people really? Like,
are they actually going to engage with your posts?
Are they going to view your sStories in return?
Are they going to become leads and buyers in your business? Chances are,
not very likely.
That's why I really teach quality over quantity.
You really only need slow growth on Instagram and as far as numbers you can do
really well with a thousand followers.
You need a thousand people who care about your content.
So using these growth strategies that Instagram is going to shut down in any
minute just isn't a really good long-term plan.
I promise you that if you forget about the vanity metrics and you really care
about the people who are engaging, the people who are DME you,
that's where you're going to see growth back to your business.
If you're interested to learn more about this topic and how to grow your
business on Instagram in 2019 without any of these scammy techniques that
require bots, I have a free training for you.
The link is right below this video. Go ahead and check it out.