When it comes to successfully marketing your business on Instagram, everyone seems to have an opinion. You’ve probably heard multiple things about using automation to get more Instagram followers fast. Some marketers feel very strongly that it’s the antithesis of a productive Instagram campaign. Others say it’s a lifesaver when you’re strapped for time. Who’s right?
There’s never a black and white answer when it comes to adopting new Instagram marketing strategies. It’s best to look at the pros and cons, and then you can decide if you should or shouldn’t use it for your company.
The 5 Pros of Instagram Marketing Automation
First up, let’s look at some of the benefits of using Instagram automation software such as SocialCaptain.
1. Saves You Time
The most obvious and possibly most coveted benefit of Instagram automation is the time savings. You can always make more money, but you can never make more time.
The problem with a good Instagram strategy is that it takes time to perfect. You have to engage with your followers and acknowledge their interactions. Of course, some of that engagement should be human, but it doesn’t all have to be. Instagram automation software helps you connect with followers 24/7, even though you’re only on the platform for an hour or so each day.
2. Consistent Content
Posting enough content to maintain a consistent voice and strong brand is not easy when you’re trying to do everything yourself.
“Consistency in content delivery helps you to keep your followers updated and loyal to your channels,” says Melanie Tamblé, CEO of Adenion GmbH. “Automation also allows you to deliver more content more often. It also allows you to easily repeat your posts and re-share your evergreen content regularly.”
3. Optimize Posting Time
Your Instagram accounts will struggle if you can’t get your content in front of the right people when they’re online to see it. Research your target audience and determine the times they’re most frequently online. Then, your automation software will post your content for you during the preset timeframe, so you don’t have to be present to get the best engagement.
4. Lets You Focus on Other Tasks
Maintaining a strong brand on Instagram can easily distract you from other important tasks. Let the automation software handle a lot of the heavy lifting.
“Considering that consistency is key to becoming successful on Instagram, you still have other tasks to complete making it hard to manage your account 24/7,” says an article from MedicineWords. “Bots come in handy to interact with other users on your behalf by auto-liking or following users in the same niche as yours. This way you can focus on other aspects of your business while the bots grow your brand on Instagram.”
5. Increase Leads
According to research, you can generate up to twice as many leads compared with email software and 47 more leads than using no software at all. This is largely thanks to the more-present nature of automation software. Since you can’t be everywhere at once, the software will do some of the heavy lifting for you so that you can follow up on the leads once you have them rather than worrying about getting more.
The 5 Cons of Instagram Marketing Automation
Of course, with every decision, there are negatives to consider. Weigh the following cons against the advantages we’ve already discussed.
1. Lack of Context
Perhaps one of the strongest disadvantages of automation software is that it can’t recognize the context of someone’s post before it comments. Because of this, you could face some potentially awkward situations.
For example, one Instagrammer shared her experience of a bot that posted smiley faces. It commented the emoji on a post of a follower that was mourning a friend. This isn’t the kind of interaction you want to have with your customers!
Thankfully, automation software is constantly improving, and the context is getting better and better. For the time being, just be careful about what you set your bots to post when you’re not around.
2. Poor Engagement
Because of the awkward situations like the one mentioned above, automation can lead to poor engagement. The lack of human interaction is forgettable to consumers sometimes, so you could potentially comment on 400 posts and receive no real engagement as a result.
If you couple automation tools with human engagement, however, the results can be incredible for driving traffic and improving your brand’s reach.
3. Potential for Getting Banned
According to Instagram’s Terms of Service agreement, “We prohibit crawling, scraping, caching or otherwise accessing any content on the Service via automated means, including but not limited to, user profiles and photos (except as may be the result of standard search engine protocols or technologies used by a search engine with Instagram’s express consent).”
However, it’s not illegal to use bots to do your Instagram automation, and you can avoid getting banned by providing a decent amount of human engagement and using high quality automation services to avoid violating their terms of service.
4. It’s Not Easy to Master Automation
Automation is one of the simplest tools to learn how to use, but it’s not easy to master. That’s where the horror stories emerge. If you want to get the maximum results from your automation tool, spend ample time learning the software before employing it. You might do a trial and error run on a dummy account to learn from mistakes without catastrophic consequences.
This investment of time might seem counter-productive if you’re using automation for the sake of saving time but have faith; it’ll pay off. Once you’ve mastered the tool, you’ll never want to give it up!
5. It’s Not a Cure-All Tool
When discussing the pros and cons of automation, Simon Cocking of Irish Tech News warns,
It can’t fix everything. Despite the major benefits marketing automation offers…ultimately, it is just an additional marketing tool.
Irish Tech News
For that reason, it should be treated as an additional tool and not the answer to your marketing prayers. It’s only then that you’ll see the benefits that this beloved tool really has to offer.
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