The Truth About Instagram Bots: Risks, Benefits & Best Practices

Instagram bots could be one of the most powerful tools in your social media arsenal – provided you know how to use them correctly. Though they haven’t always had the best reputation, being labeled “spammy” or “unethical”, the reality is that Instagram bots are extremely helpful.

The best Instagram bots can help to boost your brand’s visibility, extend the reach of your marketing campaigns, and attract new followers to your account. What’s more, they do all of this while saving you crucial time and money on your social media strategy.

As Instagram continues to thrive as one of the most powerful platforms for audience engagement, advertising, and reach (with more than 2.35 billion monthly users), demand for bots is growing.

After all, maintaining an active Instagram account, connecting with your followers every day, and facilitating constant growth isn’t easy without a little help.

Here’s everything you need to know about the reality of using Instagram automation, bots, and intelligent tools to enhance your social media strategy.

Understanding Instagram Bots: What are IG Bots?

The first thing you should know is that the Instagram bots businesses use to strengthen growth and increase engagement aren’t the same as “Instagram bot followers”. IG Bot followers are fake accounts that you can purchase from shady companies to make it seem like your business is more popular than it is. These bots definitely aren’t good for your business.

Instagram bot followers, or “fake followers” don’t generate any real engagement, lead to new sales for your brand, or expand your reach. They can even harm your brand reputation.

Alternatively, the best Instagram bots, used by businesses and influencers all over the world today, take a different approach. They’re essentially automation tools that can complete tasks on social media platforms for you, saving you time and money.

Instagram automation bots can manage everything from liking posts, to following Instagram users on your behalf, and even commenting on posts or sending DMs. These are the tasks business leaders need to invest in every day, to maintain an active Instagram account, and facilitate growth.

They might sound simple enough, but finding the time to follow/unfollow, like posts, and engage with your audience everyday can be extremely complex – particularly when you’re running a business or managing other marketing campaigns.  Just automating basic tasks with bots can save you 6+ hours a week that you can dedicate to other things.  

How Do Instagram Bots Increase Followers?

So, if Instagram bots aren’t the same as paying for IG bot followers, how do they help you expand your reach and connect with new audiences? Simply put, the key to attracting followers on Instagram is engagement. The more active your account is, interacting with real people, sending direct messages, or following other profiles, the more reach you’ll gain.

Instagram bots can work continuously on your engagement strategy, while you focus on other things. You can even set up preferred parameters for your bots to follow, like giving them hashtags or specific influencers in your industry to focus on.

Using Instagram bots to connect with potential customers and Instagram followers boosts your chances of people choosing to follow and interact with your account in return. It puts your interactions with your audience on autopilot, increasing your engagement rates, and boosting visibility.

The Benefits of Instagram Bots: Followers and Growth

The negative reputation Instagram bots have earned in the past is mostly linked to the wrong sorts of bots, such as IG bot followers, or an Instagram followers generator bot that creates fake accounts. However, effective Instagram bots, used for automation, offer incredible benefits.

For both influencers and brands, Instagram automation tools can save you time, and money, while increasing your revenue potential. In fact, 80% of companies using automation tools see improvements in their lead generation strategy, and 77% earn more conversions.

Some of the biggest benefits Instagram bots offer include:

Instant Results

The right Instagram bots can generate amazing results quickly. As soon as these bots start following other accounts or liking content on your behalf, you’ll start to see returned engagement. You’ll rapidly access new followers and communities you couldn’t reach before.

Plus, since Instagram bots take repetitive tasks off your to-do list, they can increase your productivity by 20%, meaning you can devote more of your time to other tasks like creating content.

Increased Exposure

To stand out on Instagram, you need to be active. Around 95 million new photos and videos are posted on the channel every day. If you’re not actively engaging with followers while producing new content, your exposure will diminish.

An Instagram bot can help boost your brand awareness, and increase your chances of capturing new leads and followers. What’s more, if you choose a tool that allows you to target the right audience, you can focus on capturing the attention of the customers that matter most to you.

Improved Relationships

Social media channels like Instagram aren’t just excellent for capturing the attention of new customers. They’re also great for nurturing and engaging followers. With Instagram bots, you’ll be able to connect with real, genuine followers in your niche on a regular basis.

Your bots can automatically follow, like, and comment on posts on your behalf, giving you the opportunity to preserve and strengthen valuable relationships. These relationships can contribute to higher revenue and increased brand advocacy over time.

Rapid Follower Growth

The more real followers you have on Instagram, the more your business will grow. Although Instagram’s algorithm considers many factors when determining how to share content with users, it often looks at the “credibility” of a brand, based on its number of followers.

Unlike an Instagram followers generator, that creates fake accounts to follow your business, an effective IG bot uses automation to increase your chances of attracting real followers. By following other accounts, it encourages those users to follow you in return.

Time Savings

As mentioned above, managing an Instagram marketing strategy is a time-consuming process. Dealing with everyday tasks like commenting on posts and liking content can take up a lot of your time, which could be used on other tasks, like creating amazing posts.

Instagram bots can put repetitive tasks on autopilot for you, giving you more freedom to focus on other parts of your business or marketing strategy.

The Possible Risks of Instagram Bots

Although Instagram bots and automation services are far more beneficial than most companies realize, they do have their risks to consider. It’s important to ensure you’re following the right strategy to protect yourself from damage to your brand reputation, and the risk of being shadowbanned.

Potential threats to consider include:

1.  Damage to your Brand Reputation

Unlike real people, bots can’t consider the context of a post when responding with a comment or direct message. They generally leave comments based on the information you’ve given them, which could mean that they end up saying the wrong things at times.

If your bot starts leaving the wrong messages on Instagram posts, this will make it obvious that you’re using automation software, and it could harm the relationship customers have with your brand. Make sure you monitor the comments your bots post carefully.

2.  Problems with Long-term Engagement

Although the right bots can help to enhance your Instagram engagement rate, there’s also a risk they could damage your engagement in the long-term. For instance, if you’re using a bot to answer customer support questions on Instagram, and they don’t deliver helpful responses, your followers might stop interacting with you, or feel less positive about your brand.

Additionally, if its obvious your business is heavily reliant on Instagram bots, this could cause customers to question how authentic and human your company is. That’s why it’s so important for any small business or social media manager to balance automation and human interaction carefully.

3.  Damage to your Instagram Account

While many social media experts agree that Instagram bots are excellent for automating repetitive tasks and saving time, Instagram itself discourages companies to use these tools. Instagram wants all of its users to focus on genuine, human engagement.

While Instagram usually won’t penalize a company for automatically liking posts or following other accounts, it does require you to follow its rules. If your bots aren’t following Instagram’s terms of use correctly, you risk being shadowbanned.

8 Best Practices for Using Instagram Bots

The idea that the risks of Instagram bots outweigh the benefits is outdated. The reality is that companies and social media marketing teams are more reliant on automation today than ever before. They need intuitive tools to help them accelerate organic growth, and boost productivity.

All you really need to do to unlock the benefits of Instagram bots (while avoiding the risks), is the right strategy. Here are our top best-practice tips:

1.  Choose an Organic Instagram Growth Tool

The first step in ensuring your Instagram bot strategy is a success, is choosing the right solution for your needs. Instagram growth services like Kicksta don’t sell fake accounts to help boost your follower count, they offer access to intuitive automation tools that can empower your business.

With the right growth service, you can automate everything from story viewing, to liking and commenting on posts from your target audience, without risking your brand’s reputation. You can even target specific people you want to reach, to boost your chances of positive growth.

2.  Set Realistic Goals

Although Instagram bots can help to accelerate your follower growth and boost your business visibility, they can only do so much. Even if your bots comment on and like countless posts every day, not everyone they interact with will want to follow you in return.

It’s important to be realistic about the amount of growth you can expect to see on your Instagram profile. Be patient, and remember that quality matters just as much as quantity. 10 new followers with an interest in your product is better than 100 new followers who don’t care about your brand.

3.  Create High-Quality Content

All forms of successful social media marketing rely on your ability to create and distribute high-quality content regularly. Your Instagram bot can handle the engagement side of things for you (to an extent) and boost your visibility, but you still need to create content people want to see.

This means learning as much as you can about your target audience, and their interests, and producing content that’s valuable, interesting, and entertaining. Make sure you experiment with various forms of Instagram content, from Stories and Reels, to regular posts and carousels.

4.  Use Instagram Bots in Moderation

Automation is a powerful tool in the social media and marketing landscapes. However, it’s important to use it with care. While certain parts of your Instagram strategy are easy to automate, like viewing Instagram stories, or liking posts, others require a human touch.

It’s worth thinking about how often you should write the comments you share on other account posts yourself, and how you should handle things like direct messages. Be careful not to automate the entire social media experience, or you risk making your business look robotic and inhuman.

5.  Stick to Your Niche

The best way to use Instagram bots is to boost your engagement rates and visibility with the people who are most beneficial to your business. Instagram only allows users to “follow” a certain number of profiles each day, so make sure you’re being cautious with your follow/unfollow strategies.

Target specific accounts relevant to your niche and industry. This will help to ensure the organic growth you generate for your business leads to real opportunities and revenue.

6.  Maintain Authenticity in your Account

Today’s customers, particularly those in younger generations, want to connect with authentic brands. 71% of US customers say authentic brands are more relatable, and more likely to attract their attention. With that in mind, make sure your bot strategy doesn’t harm your authenticity.

Infuse the comments you leave on other accounts with your unique brand voice. Balance your outreach and engagement strategy with insights into your business, and the people who run your company. This will make your company more engaging, and human.

7.  Interact and Engage with Genuine Followers

When your Instagram bots draw real, genuine followers to your account, it’s your responsibility to nurture and engage them. Although your bots can “like” posts and send the occasional comment on your behalf, you’ll build much deeper relationships if you invest in other forms of engagement.

For instance, consider running competitions and contests on your Instagram page to connect with your followers. Run polls and ask questions in your Instagram stories to generate insights into your target audience. Respond to the comments customers leave on your posts in unique, personalized ways.

8.  Ensure Data Privacy While Using Instagram Bots

Finally, it’s important to make sure you’re cautious about how you manage data security when working with bots and automation tools. Don’t use bots to collect personal information from potential customers without their permission. If a bot interacts with your audience in a customer service capacity, make sure the data it collects is protected.

Failing to protect your data, and the data of your customers doesn’t just lead to a negative user experience for a lot of people, it can also open the door to legal repercussions and fines.

Mastering the Art of Instagram Bots

Instagram bots are a powerful tool, capable of improving your social media marketing strategy in various ways. These intelligent solutions can automate numerous tasks for your marketing team, from liking and following new Instagram accounts, to engaging with existing followers.

They can help to boost your visibility, and increase your chances of connecting with real people. What’s more, they can give your Instagram account manager or marketing expert more time to focus on Insta content creation, or interacting with customers.

Using Instagram bots can be a great way to elevate your social media strategy. All you need to do is make sure you’re approaching the process correctly. Choose the right bot or Instagram growth service, balance automation with human engagement, and avoid any spammy behaviors.