"Increase engagement with our Instagram bot. Attract real likes, followers & comments by automating your activity. Try now for free!"
The use of Instragram-Bots or "botting" as we call it, has fast become a regular discussion point among friends,colleagues and like minded businesses. They guarantee instant return on investment, significant growth on your social platforms and increased exposure for your business. In theory, it all sounds great.
Organically growing your social media following and engagement is a slow burn and can be a frustrating process. We can quickly lose followers just as fast as we attained them. We compare our platforms to those more established and by doing so, can feel defeated. With these factors in mind, it is understandable why so many people have opted to use an automated engagement system like the Bot. Even our TSC platforms almost went under the influence of the Insta-Bot, almost. Today, we are going to shed some light on the cons of automating your digital engagement and buying followers. Let's stick to manual!
1. WHO ARE YOU ENGAGING WITH?
Sure, when you sign up to begin your automatic journey, you have the option of tailoring your target market. You can do this through hashtags they frequently use, their location and the nature of their business BUT it has been proven time and time again that there are unavoidable flaws in their system.
Real Story: A friend of ours trialed botting in an attempt to reach her next Instagram milestone. She set up her automatic comment to "This is gorgeous" and hoped to engage with wedding vendors and stylists. Her business page was inevitably sending out compliments to private profiles of men and women across South East Queensland. A lovely comment to receive, yet unintended and a little embarrassing.
As a business, we should be aware of who we are talking to. We should be building genuine relationships with those that we can learn from, collaborate with, potential clients or accounts that add value to our business rather than fishing for new followers.
2. IS WHAT YOU ARE SAYING MEANINGFUL
"Always Remember, a persons effort is a reflection of their interest in you"
This quote not only applies to personal relationships but is also appropriate in a business sense. In a nutshell, meaningless interaction with only the goal of growing your following is a reflection of you and your business. If you don't put in the effort, why should they.
Almost everyday, my Instagram content receives likes and comments and unfortunately a great deal of these are automated. How can I tell, well here's a silly example;
*Posts photo of my morning coffee*
Bot: "This is amazing"
*Sigh, well let's be real, morning coffee is amazing and it excites us too but this reaction isn't exactly fitting for the picture of my mug, I assume you are a bot and you actually haven't seen my photo of my morning cuppa - Ignore*
Let's try the manual approach
*Posts photo of my morning coffee*
Smart Person: "Coffee is life @Thesocialcue Hope you have an awesome day"
Us: "Coffee IS life @SmartPerson Thank you, virtual fist bump!
*Checks out their account, maybe will give them a follow, because well, they are nice and made an effort - Simple as that*
The trouble with Insta-Bots is that they suggest you pre-select comments that will collectively work with most content (Key word; "Most"). Your automated comments will not be appropriate for every piece of content it links with. Some users have already figured this one out so instead of selecting comments, they simply use emojis. How are we to respond to a Thumbs-Up? We don't.
For those that use Social Media for business and marketing, you will quickly learn that it is in fact time consuming especially with a busy schedule. Our tip is to spend 15 minutes a day scrolling through your feed, perhaps searching for accounts that lay within a similar field, possible clients or brands you'd like to align with and if their content resonates with you or if you would like to connect and begin to build a relationship, give more than an emoji. Make it personal, let them know if and why you enjoy their content and what they offer, congratulate them on their triumphs, give them something to respond to. The return on time spent will soon outshine the return on the automatic "That's cool" posts.
3. FAKE ACCOUNTS CAN'T INVEST IN YOUR BUSINESS, SO WHY INVEST IN THEM?
This is all too common in the social media world. The purchase of fake followers. There are several reasons why people and businesses alike opt to purchase followers.
1. To appear more established and thus more appealing for potential clients to engage them for business or collaborations. "Woah, they have 20K Followers, they must be good at what they do"
2. To have the desired amount of followers to be deemed an "influencer". "Woah, they have 20K followers, let's send them product to market on our behalf"
3. To simply cut corners, because let's face it, It's a slow process.
Before you purchase fake followers, ponder this: Why am I doing this, What am I trying to achieve?
Accounts with fake followers are easy to spot. If you have seen an account with 50K Followers yet they have only posted 30 photos and receive an average of 20 likes on each post, chances are this account has more fake followers than genuine. Save yourself the embarrassment.
Fake followers do not add value to your business; Quality over quantity
Stop comparing your 500 followers to your competitors 50K; Trust in your journey, it will be more rewarding when you hit that milestone by building your audience organically
Don't judge a business by the number of those that follow it; Success is not measured by the amount of people that like their photos
TheEND