October 28, 2016
You’ve probably have seen Instagram accounts with thousands of followers, comments and likes. How do you get more followers? Here we are going to understand how automation works.
There are tools on the market to automate what a typical user would do, which is to double tap, comment and follow. However, it’s nearly impossible to to click through every relevant hashtag, and comment on every single picture. Reality is we only have a finite amount of time. These tools help accomplish those tasks, mindlessly. Don’t jump to conclusion just yet! We aren’t 100% onboard with this because growth is still not 100% organic. Let’s take a look at both sides.
Benefits of Using Automation
Saves Time
You can save a lot of time by automating your likes. Likes are safe because they are not necessarily content conscious and it’s more or less showing an agreement / support of some sort. You can automate your likes based on targeted hashtags or a combination of. This is the safest route in my opinion. However, liking without a comment doesn’t draw much attention to your account. Most likely, the audience can see through the interaction as automated. If you want some level of engagement with your existing followers but don’t have time for it, this is a good route to visit.
Creating a Base
The world on Instagram seems to be all about the number of followers you have. As strange as it seems, the higher the count, the more “credible” you appear to be. Automation works great for creating a base to gain credibility. The first 500 followers are the most challenging. Once you have that credibility built up, you’ll notice that followers start coming in more naturally. The sweet spot is at about 500 followers, that’s when you start to see the audience trickling in naturally. If you are starting out, then using an automation tool is worth exploring to speed the process up.
Drawbacks for using Automation
Awkward Comments
Automation tools out there can help you comment for maximum engagement. The process is to target several hashtags or combinations of and then assign a comment to those tags. It will automate the comment process for you. The down side is you are 100% relying the user to be accurate with their hashtag and its relevance to the image. There have been several occasions when comments have gone wrong. For example, calling me a #Dallas Friend (They didn’t mean the Mavs either) when I live in Vancouver. It’s hard to automate comments because you will inevitably come across those awkward moments. Hence, there have been suggestions to simply craft the comment to be more generic, like “Cool Post” , emojis or “Love your feed” but again, it comes off as not personable. If you can craft an intelligent comment that accommodates your target, then way to go!
Engagement is Low
While you are on Instagram, the key to having your post appear in the Explore page is through engagement. To get on that page, Instagram runs an algorithm based on a combination of comments and likes and interactions for each post. While automation can generate comments and likes, as an Instagram user, you’ll soon realize the volume of generic comments. The key to true engagement is to mean what you say for the photo. This has been the main struggle for a lot of people. Growth is slow, but if they are meaningful then it means a lot more. It’s about the quality of leads rather than the quantity of leads.
Depending on your campaign, automation might be a good strategy for a few moments however, the traditional way of scaling is definitely a lot more powerful than using automation tools.
If you have any comments or questions, please visit us across our channels! All posts are also shared on medium.
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram