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.
What is an Instagram 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, and follow and unfollow profiles.
Also, bots use algorithms to target relevant hashtags and accounts to create engagement in your particular niche.
Why Use Instagram Bots?
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 time. Ultimately, 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 much 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. You don't need to scroll endlessly looking for potential leads or customers. A bot will do the job for you.
To keep these followers interested in your content, you will 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. You can set up a bot to comment, like photos, and even send messages to your followers.
Why You Shouldn't Use an Instagram Bot To Grow Your Account Fast
Bots may sound like a perfect solution, but they come with a catch. A few of them, actually.
1. 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 unfamiliar 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, which can make some people distrust your brand and stay clear.
But there's a much bigger risk here, and it comes from bots can't consider the context of any post they comment on. Let's say you program a bot to send seemingly harmless generic comments such as “more of this” or “that looks amazing” for photos 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”.
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.
2. That leads to another issue – lack of genuine engagement
If your comments are irrelevant, you'll chat 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. Still, it can lead to the same problem we mentioned before if you opt out of using laughing emojis everywhere. 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.
3. Instagram Banned
Several years ago, the platform cracked down on 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 ensure that all 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 only had bots as followers. It would fool marketers into believing advertised items would be visible to real people.
However, they would not receive any return on 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. The algorithm can automatically place an activation lock on your account when you overuse these.
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.
How to Use Instagram Bots Safely?
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 accounts you're using, thus preventing Instagram from knowing that they belong to you.
Proxies allow you to post different content on different accounts, as well. For example, if you're posting clean content from your personal account with matches from your business account, then a proxy will be necessary.
If you haven't tried Instagram botting but are eager to start, give it a try!
