November 28th, 2019 | Updated on December 6th, 2019
There are two opposing opinions when it comes to automation on Instagram. On one hand, some say it’s a good strategy that saves time to focus more on creating good content.
On the other hand, some believe that automation hurts your brand when you create a not-so-personalized form of engagement.
If search engines are targeting user content, social media networks are focusing more on interaction. Through social media, you should be able to offer a unique experience to your customers while also reflecting the values of your brand.
In this article, we are weighing the pros and cons of using Instagram automation. We will also look at whether automation can get you more Instagram followers.
Benefits Of Automation
Automation bots are used for many functions. This includes following and unfollowing accounts, as well as liking and commenting on posts.
Many use this tool to be able to target a high engagement rate which will then get engagement in return as people like or comment back.
Instagram automation is a powerful way to manage accounts by batch uploading your post, creating generic comments, and automating likes.
A well thought out automation that generates profile visits, followers, and website clicks, Instagram accounts are automatically pushed high up the feed.
Automation tools let a business or profile focus more on creating quality content as legwork is taken out of the way. This saves time in managing the account.
You don’t need to be online all the time to comment or respond to follower comments. By scheduling your post, you are also able to plan out the look of your Instagram feed.
How To Get More Followers Through Automation?
It takes a lot of work to post consistently on Instagram. The same is true for working on your engagement.
As it is impossible to stay online on Instagram to get more followers, a lot of automation apps are being used to lessen the hard work.
There are five ways of automation to get more followers. This includes leaving comments, scheduling and liking posts, following and unfollowing accounts.
1. Leaving Comments
When you participate in massively popular conversations, as well as using a mix of popular hashtags, it puts you in front of more people in general.
When you also reply to your follower comments, it lets them know that you are involved in the conversation. Some are even commenting with hopes that you will reply in their comments, too.
It is a social place, after all. Making yourself reachable by personalized comments lets your followers see you as a person and not a brand, and therefore trust you more.
2. Schedule Posting
It’s necessary to have a regular posting schedule but you don’t have to manually post everyday. Automating your posting schedule lets you easily batch upload so that it becomes public at regular times of the day.
You are more likely to get followers if you have a consistent posting schedule than say Instagram profiles who post one or two times a week or when they feel like it.
This also makes your followers expect your post and even wait for your post on the same day of the week. When scheduling your post, makes sure it goes public at peak times, in other words, around the same or earlier time when the majority of users are online.
3. Follow/Unfollow
If you’ve ever wondered why or how when you followed a page, some pages of the same niche follow you back? The answer is automation.
You can do the same by creating automation where you follow the same people who like or follows your competitor’s page. This will ensure that you’re following people who are interested in your niche or your business.
A lot of Instagram users follow a good number of accounts, wait for a week or so before unfollowing those who didn’t follow back.
This way, they know that everyone that they follow as well as those who follow back has a high chance of having the same interest as the business.
4. Automated Likes
Followers, and probably fans as well, love it when their comments are ‘liked.’ However, recent updates on Instagram have removed the number of likes by indicating it vaguely as ‘others’ or ‘million others’ to indicate more likes.
This affected most influencers as businesses no longer can base on the number of likes when choosing a face that will represent them, or find an influencer with a wide reach to extend their reach as well.
On the brighter side, many view it as a positive update in the platform as there is now a focus on good content rather than likes based on the popularity.
5. Direct Messages
When you’re directly messaging your followers, it means your engaging with them on a more personal level. This also means that you’re trying to enhance their user experience. With direct messages, it enables you to enlarge your network.
When you DM a lot of accounts, it lets Instagram see that you have higher engagement with your followers. You can do this by creating automation that engages in their stories and making an almost personal comment.
The Instagram algorithm favors engagement above everything. Liking comments and liking other people’s posts, commenting on other’s photos, replying to comments on your photos, the number of story views, as well as the number of people who you DM’ed, all play a huge part in being favored by the algorithm.
By doing all of these strategies, it also means appearing first in most people’s feed and gaining more followers.
There are other ways to get more Instagram followers by having a branded Instagram profile, using stories highlights religiously, and using topical hashtags and location tags, etc.
You can also get creative to get more followers by doing live collaborations, running contests, and promoting on other social media sites. The list is endless.
The Dangers Of Automation That You Need To Avoid
When you use automation, you might end up ruining your brand or destroying your engagement value. The last thing you want is for the algorithm to see your posts as having no value to users.
This will put your page and your other post at the bottom where no one can see. Automation can easily damage your online presence.
When your activity tends to be unnatural and more aggressive, such as liking and commenting to hundreds of posts or following hundreds of accounts in an hour, Instagram sees this as spam.
There’s also the terms of condition released by Instagram that you need to account for. It is specific to gathering user information.
For automation to properly work, it needs to gather information from the site which includes user interests, age, gender, etc. Violating these terms and conditions might result in your account being restricted, or even deleted.
Automation is not bad per se but overusing it can hurt your brand in the process. For example, you can schedule your post but you need to ensure that your replies are tailored for each follower’s comment.
Automation can work for you when used the right way. So if there’s one takeaway from this article, that is to use automation sparingly.
