#instagress

New Post has been published on https://popularchips.com/dailies/pods-vs-bots/

Pods vs Bots

Just as many Instagrammers were celebrating the closure of Instagress, a new ‘fad’ was quietly taking its place. It was a transition from ‘Bots’ to ‘Pods’. You would have definitely heard of the term ‘pods’, right? And nope, we are not referring to an adorable ‘school of dolphins’ on Instagram.

‘Pods’ are a group of Instagrammers who follow each other and constantly like or comment on members’ post to boost engagement. Instagram pods essentially consist of members who manually do what bots did; boost engagement. The key difference being these are real comments from real profiles who have real followers.

So currently in the world of Instagram, on one hand, there are Bots and on another there are Pods. Both seem to promise higher engagement through likes and comments. One is a simple AI while the other is a group of Instagrammers. So which is THE better way to building a credible profile? Let’s find out!

Round 1: Bots are fake vs Pods are ‘real’

Bots crawl Instagram accounts based on hashtags or profile names and leave automated comments and likes that have been pre-set. The hope is by engaging with a larger number of people, these profiles would eventually ‘follow-back’. The obvious problem is that these bots give rise to inorganic engagement. There is little value in the resulting engagement of a bot. The comments were preset and it is an automated response to a prescribed set of conditions. I would most certainly cherish one real comment from one real person as compared to 10 preset comments from 10 different bots. How about you?

Image credit: http://mashable.com/2017/04/19/instagram-pods-bloggers/#WSaukdGaviqS

Instagram pods, on the other hand, have strict guidelines when it comes to membership and engagement. Some pods are invite-only, for others you might need to have a certain number of followers or be posting about a similar genre e.g. fashion or sports. These pods usually consist of 15 to 20 members and there is an understanding that once a member post, he/she will inform the group via the chat and rest of the group would either like, or leave a relevant comment by the end of the day. This system of ‘support’ seeks to increase the reach and engagement of the post.

Round 1: Draw!

Sure, you might think that pods are better than bots as they are real users leaving genuine comments. I would claim it to be the lesser of two evils. It is hard to avoid the fact that like bots, the members of such pods are ‘required’ to ‘like’ or comment on posts. There is the lack of free will. These accounts are essentially engaging with posts for the sake of engaging and not because they might truly appreciate them. Hence in the long run (similar to using bots), these profiles might jeopardize their reputation amongst their followers.

While some pods might combat this issue by curating content or setting specific requirements for posts, it still raises the issue that the engagement is not entirely 100% organic. It is an artificial support system set to work around Instagram’s algorithm that favors posts with higher engagement against chronology. While Pods are not Bots, they certainly aren’t 100% organic either. In terms of authenticity, I personally believe it’s a draw.

Round 2: Bot’s comments vs Pod’s comments

What if we just look at the quality of engagement. Bots today can be sophisticated. Some of them are farmed and nurtured daily to include genuine followers. They actively engage with posts on Instagram and even ‘posts’ images daily. As great as the advancement of bots are, I believe it is still hard to fake relevant comments. That is why most bot comments are “Awww!”, “Cute!” or a parade of emoticons “😀 😃 😄 😁 😆 😅 “. Bots are unable to sense context.  To work around this problem, most users of automated services would pre-set generic comments. After all, it’s hard to go wrong with one worded comments. P.s (If you find your posts are getting a lot of one worded comments, chances are they are mostly bots!)

As mentioned, Pods do come with some community rules. Some of them are strict guidelines on how to engage with posts. For example, it is usually recommended that comments be more than 4 words and relevant to the post. They should not be copy-paste and Pods even encourage members to tag followers or the author for a more personal touch. These guidelines serve as a reminder that Pods are striving to promote quality engagement. They certainly deserve an ‘A’ for that effort.

Round 2: Pods!

Sure, I will admit that community guidelines of Pods will result in more relevant engagement. Your posts might even gain greater exposure but it does still raise the issue that the engagement is ‘forced’ or ‘expected’. There is the slight benefit that the comments are from real accounts with real followers who might be interested in your posts. In this case, I guess Pods does have the advantage over Bots. Pods win,

Round 3: Beating the Algorithm

This one is obvious. The closure of Instagress does point out that bots are losing the battle against Instagram’s algorithm. It is not their fault though. With current limitations, bots can only work a certain way and Instagram’s algorithm is set to highlight these behaviors and eventually block these accounts.

Pods on the other hand, leave relevant comments and likes that increase the engagement for the post and that post eventually receives greater exposure. Not to mention these are genuine profiles! It seems for now; Instagram Pods are beating the algorithm. If Instagram’s algorithm wants to give priority to more popular posts, Instagrammers will follow suit and support each other to boost their posts’ engagement. Can’t really blame them for trying!

Round 3: Pods!

Pods are winning again. As of today, Pods does seem to make some difference. Compared to the fake engagement of bots or automated services, Pods is definitely a better alternative.

    Final verdict

If it is a battle between Bots and Pods, Pods are clearly winning. The key reason being Pods are formed through the cooperation of like-minded individuals who are equally active on Instagram and they leave relevant comments and likes for each other. This mutual support increases engagement and provides increased exposure that would otherwise be difficult to attain by oneself. In the simplest of terms, Pods exemplify the notion: “You scratch my back. I scratch yours.”

However, it does not mean that Pods are the answer to building a credible account. Pods are at best a temporary measure. It is a quick fix and nothing more. Comments and likes are required of members. This means the resulting engagement are not really genuine either.

The best way to build a strong profile is to go “old-school”. Create quality content, study the resulting engagement (perhaps consider the use of analytics for better insight) and continue tweaking your content till you find what works for you.

1) I ШіЅН you could get serious results off one account through automation.

This is not the case.

IF you rack up hundreds of accounts like me, Justin Wu or Dan Stephenson have done, you can do amazing things.

One account hardly makes a dent in anything (Sorry everyone)

Caveat: Maybe you, as a one-off, found a client or a sale through these methods.

One-off's don't build empires

2) Too much focus on vanity metrics.

I'm in a private Facebook group where creatives spend the whole day fretting that their likes have gone down, rather than doing any of the real work to get their product/brand out there.

Even when I could get hundreds of Twitter followers per day, I still focused on public speaking to bring leads in, as it brought in the $$$$$'s.

3) Like my friend and fellow growth hacker Josh Fechter said a little while back, you're going to need real engagement and relationships at some point.

I LOVE shortcuts and hacks, but if you can't be bothered to show up every day and write content, you're just another randomer.

There are many people trying to do what me, Josh Fechter, Dan Meredith do, but almost all are copycats and it shows. We're trying to do three very different things with our audiences, but it shows that we care about our audiences

Like I say, so many of the "six-figure gurus" spend almost all of their margin on Facebook ads as thats the only way people will listen to them. Sad!

4) For everyone who used them to run social media agencies on autopilot: Sucks for you, but legit if you want to make big money you should be building a personality brand around yourself, teaching others, and selling info products/books/webinars, having occasional masterminds, etc.

This scales up into crazy money much easier.

It's very hard to make comfortable six-figures off clients, especially in a crowded space like social media.

So it could be a case that "the medicine was sick, but the patient needed it" Which brings me to my next point

5) For almost all small businesses, building a Facebook group should be your main priority to get daily access to your tribe, test out product ideas, find out what people are into BEFORE you launch it, send ACTUAL LINKS THEY CAN CLICK ON in posts, etc.

6) Regarding links, Twitter can still send 'em. Has 316 million active users per month.

3 billion visits per month.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey said on a recent earnings call that bots are allowed on the platform !

Twitter is not in fashion is the main reason most people ignore it.

My philosopher said recently, Twitter is the "girl you call up when you're drunk and horny as it's a guaranteed thing, but it doesn't feel all that good using it".

As a marketer, it's not my job to say whether anything is right or wrong, cool or uncool, just whether it works. (Anyone who needs guidance on Twitter DM me)

7) Instagram are brilliantly shutting down virtually every avenue of organic growth right now (I say brilliantly as a business person, they must have anti-growth hackers in there as they have been brutal this past six months) with declining power of comment pods, like pods, power likes, shoutouts, ghost banning and all sorts of nice stuff.

Good luck to you if this is your main channel of growth.

8) Anyone who let/lets a bot touch their main Facebook account is mad- this is your single most important asset on the internet, ever

9) IN B4 people say "So what are you gonna use? You do this stuff!" Well, I'm gonna use the one that's based in China, far out of the reach of anything else.

Always have, always will.

10) Finally, I've said so many times that growth hacks don't last forever.

Despite all of the above, I'm sure Massplanner has changed some people's lives.

Many of you heard about this/similar services and chose not to put the effort in.

Now the chance is gone forever.

Next time there's a chance to learn/do something, consider going for it, maybe?

--

Like I always say, you should only ever be focusing on:

> Building product/service, and

> Selling that product/service

Everything else is peripheral. But if you can growth hack, you should.

Instagress is shuting down