The day the bots died

Instagram is where the party is at and if you’re a causal user you may have never heard of Instagress, Influxsocial, or evenMassplanner. But this is just to name a few of the companies that have felt the raft of cease-and-desist orders from the mighty Instagram.

You may wonder why IG has laid the smack down on these companies. Well, the fact is that they were impersonating users’ actions, as they were working as software bots, essential completing your daily tasks on Instagram. They were a great tool for marketers and growth hackers, as these tools could increase the account’s following and engagement quickly - just get your settings right and off you go. You could like, follow, post, and repost target audiences at a push of a button.

However, if you were in the loop and knew of these companies, we all knew the day would come that IG would take action, as soon as there was a sniff of a new algorithm change being rolled out.

When the algorithm kicked in you may have noticed a massive drop in engagement, likes, and even followers.

It’s now much harder to get a following on Instagram. Don’t get me wrong, I was a fan of the bots as they did make life easier, and you may have experienced their generic comments and so on yourself – a few examples include the usual, “Amazing posts’, “check out my page”, and so on.

Like all good things (especially within marketing), it comes to an end when it’s too prominent. It’s obvious that these companies were making revenue by deceiving a platform: it’s like sending someone to do your job and to do your work while you’re at home. Who wouldn’t take that opportunity?

So how did the algorithm make its impact? It responds to user’s actual behavior.

If you like and engage with a post or an account, or even directly message somebody regularly, then Instagram would assume that personal content is important for you to see. You have probably experienced this whilst scrolling through your feed – everything is all mixed up, as the algorithm thinks it’s important to you based on your previous interactions.

Instagram’s CEO stated that 70% of content goes unseen in any given feed, and the point of the algorithm is to make sure that the 30% you see is the 30% you shouldn’t miss. So basically if you’re continuously putting out good content, you should have an advantage… right? Well, that’s what they say.

With the coming of the new algorithm there are some things you can do to help your engagement. If you don’t know already, here are two hacks that can come to your engagement rescue.

The first one is a pod, as they are known, or simply a direct message group with the Instagram app where members of the group will post their latest posts and everyone in that group likes, comments, or asks questions with 5 letter words including emoticons. Some pods are invitation only and some are niche specific. However you can always make your own group, just browse Instagram and reach out to accounts.

The second option is engagement groups, which are created and run on other messaging platforms such as KIK and telegram. They consist of more members than pods – we are usually talking of

between 500 - 3000 members.

But they are broken into different types for accounts for those with 100k followers upwards; some have no follower’s preference to join. Most groups are free although there are some that have a joining fee. However, if you violate the group rules you can be banned and charged a fee, which is usually between $5- $20.

These groups are known to increase engagement a lot, especially if you have a niche specific account, as in these communities you will find liked minded ‘gramers you can share tactics with and network among the members who share IG tips and tricks, ultimately increasing your knowledge of how to grow your account.

Both these methods should increase your engagement and followers on your accounts. However, these methods take time, effort, and most of all consistency to see some results.

Below is a step-by-step guide to help you along the way.

Hack 1 - Creating a Direct Message Group

1.Name your group chats, if you have more than one group, to keep them organized
2.You add must post regularly, at least once a day or every few days
3.Make a rule of always commenting on your 3 most recent posts
4.Try to select accounts with larger followings if you can
5.The more posts a group is willing to do the better, as this equals more engagement
6.The longer the comment, the higher the post ranks with the Instagram algorithm

Hack 2 – Engagement Groups

1.Post just before group times
2.People with larger followings have more clout but it’s not a must
3.Join more than one group
4.Be niche specific in selecting the groups to join
5.Research hash-tags prior to posting

This isn’t all bad. It just means you really have to put the work in now to be successful on Instagram. In time there will always be a new way to grow and it is always fun trying to work it all out. I hope this helps. To the bots we had some good times! :) The bots maybe over but there’s still hope.