Being as I teach social media, it’s important for me to always have a pulse on how my posts are performing. So, when I go ahead and publish a new Reel, for example, I’ll check back within minutes to gauge the engagement, if you will. But oftentimes I’m tricked. When I think things are really taking off, I discover that spam bots have infiltrated the comments! And they’re getting more pervasive and better at looking legit, too.
Why You Keep Getting Bots on Instagram
Usually, you’ll see these bots happening to anyone with a larger account — over 10,000 followers. The bigger the account, the more bots are going to be attracted to that account.
Picture it: Suddenly you’ve got tons of new followers. You look at their accounts and they’re seemingly fake profiles:
- no posts
- private account
- no (or obscure) profile pic
And you’re thinking,
“Why are these accounts following me and leaving comments?”
The number one reason they’re doing this is to garner attention.
If you make a post and 14 “people” suddenly show up and all 14 of them are writing really long (yet different) comments about some Bitcoin Wealth Manager or whatever, you’ll notice every single one of those bots references the very same account (to hopefully lure you over).
It’s actually a decent tactic. Why?
Because when we look at someone’s post, find it interesting, and consider leaving a comment… we tend to look at other people’s comments before we make our own.
And the marketing geniuses behind these bots are tapping into this very strange social media phenomenon where we’re afraid to have our own opinion; where we develop an opinion after reading everyone else’s opinion.
It’s an effective tool for them because they know that if they post 10 comments or even 5 comments on a popular account, people are going to inevitably read through them.
It’s giving them eye balls and free advertising.
Now, who knows the percentage of clicks they get vs how often they drop comments. But even if it’s .5%, that isn’t nothing.
The question is, what do you need to do about these bots, if anything, and do they harm your account?
For that and much more related to this topic, check out this Build Your Tribe episode now:
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