What Are Instagram Bots And How Negatively Affect Your Instagram Account?

The thing with Instagram marketing is that even if you regularly post top-notch content on your account, it could be a waste of your precious time if the posts fail to get real followers and user engagement. 

While Instagram might not have the most significant community compared to other social media platforms like Facebook, which currently has over 2.8 billion users, Instagram has the highest rate of engagement, which is the main reason why digital marketers are so keen on using the platform for their marketing campaigns 

Nevertheless, managing your Instagram account to keep it active and engaging each day takes tremendous effort and time, not to mention the time you need to spend on your other social media accounts too. Even the most proficient social media managers can have trouble managing multiple social media accounts and keeping them all active and engaging at all times. 

If you ever find yourself in such a situation, you might think that Instagram bots could prove to be very beneficial and free you up precious time to work on other significant tasks. But what if we tell you that there are many better ways to grow your Instagram following, one of which is to work with a professional Instagram growth service that can help you build your audience in a natural, organic way. In this brief article, we’ll talk about Instagram bots, how they can negatively affect your Instagram work, and why you should turn to other options other than bots.

What Is Instagram Bot And How Do It Work?

In short, Instagram bots are like services that permit a company to acquire more fans onto their Instagram profile. As there are many different ways for an Instagram profile to gain followers, such as creating highly engaging content, liking other people’s posts, viewing other companies’ reels and stories, and so on, one of the fastest ways to gain an audience is via utilizing Instagram bots. 

These bots can like other peoples’ posts, follow other accounts, and leave comments on targeted Instagram accounts to help increase the reach, followers, and engagement on a given company’s account. However, while it may appear that using Instagram bots is an easy way to increase your company’s following base, many negative aspects come along with using this service.

How IG Bots Can Negatively Affect Your Account

Bots Violate Instagram’s Terms Of Use

First of all, Instagram bots violate the platform’s terms of use, as all bots access Instagram’s API without the platform’s permission. That infringes Instagram’s terms of use, particularly: 

•     One must not access Instagram’s private API by means other than those allowed by the platform.
•     One can’t store or steal your Instagram login credentials.
• Without Instagram’s prior permission one can’t use your Instagram API for displaying the content, import or take the backup of the content, or manage Instagram relationships.
•     A single business can’t perform more than one work action on Instagram at a time.
•     One shouldn’t use an unreasonable amount of bandwidth or impact the stability of the social media platform’s servers. 

Or, in other words, Instagram bots can get your business’s account banned. In fact, anyone who uses a bot and violates Instagram’s API terms of use can get banned. You don’t want to get banned. Be smart and avoid using bots.

They Can Negatively Affect Your Engagement Efforts In The Long Run

As people are more aware of IG bots, once they figure that a company account is using bots to gain more traction, they tend to lessen their engagement with the brand or even stop the engagement. In addition, as much as bots seem worthwhile regarding building a more significant following base, it’s practically impossible to automate meaningful engagement. 

Bots Can Permanently Damage Your Instagram Account

While bots can help you in some ways, Instagram is undoubtedly discouraging its users from relying on them. Moreover, Instagram bots can violate Instagram’s terms of use in many ways and put your account at risk of getting shadow-banned. 

If your account gets shadow-banned, it means that Instagram will make all your posts invisible to people who are non-followers of your account. And while you can still create content and engage with your current followers, you’ll no longer have the possibility to reach and attract new people. This way, you won’t be able to grow your account in the future as people won’t be able to find you regardless of the hashtags you’ll use in your posts.

Conclusion

As you can tell, using IG bots comes with several disadvantages that can have a huge impact on your account. However, there are smart alternatives to using bots to grow your Instagram following like hiring an Instagram growth service, using Instagram ads, and doing it yourself by focusing on quality and not quantity.

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