Why Instagram’s Bot-Ban Will Impact Everybody
Do you receive comments like “cool!”, “great post!”, “awesome!” or even the dreaded one-emoji-character? Yeah, me too. Well, in case you didn’t know, these comments have most likely been posted by bots. Bots are essentially robots, paid for by other users in the hope that they will gain traction throughout the app by liking and commenting on as many people’s content as possible.
Similar to how since the start of social networks there have always been influencers and those most popular online, there have always been bots abusing the algorithm too. What Instagram is aiming to do, however, is flip the entire dynamic of how their users interact with the app - ridding the network of affiliation with bots or the promotion of using them.
What many on social media are dubbing the #BotBan, Instagram has been shutting down bot service sites starting with Instagress, the popular bot provider which allowed users to purchase interactions for Instagram, creating fake engagement and ultimately making themselves and their accounts receive much higher numbers than they would organically. Released by The Huffington Post, a group of security researchers found that the network has at least 24 million fake accounts actively liking commenting and even messaging users on a daily basis.
The presence of bots skews all sorts of statistics of followers, engagement and popularity for Instagram user accounts, as you now can’t really tell how many people are actually following your account and how many are simply bots. The issue becomes even more problematic, when certain social influencers start paying for their engagement - as they use these figures to determine how much they’ll quote for a paid promotional post on their accounts.
But, by ridding the network of bots altogether it isn’t just the influencers who will be affected, everybody can expect a pretty big hit to their personal engagement. Whether that’s a drop in likes, comments or both, you can expect over time that your numbers will reflect differently to how they were one or two months ago.
In a positive light, however, you’ll only be losing the fake engagement. Meaning, interactions on Instagram will hopefully become a lot more authentic - with real users commenting, liking and engaging with one another instead.
How do you feel about the bot ban? Are you for the bots or against the use of them to further your success? We believe our #knowhow should be based on fact and authenticity. There’s tremendous pressure to stand out from the crowd in terms of engagement and followers but faking it is never a good option.