How To Get Instagram Followers Without Using Bots
Based on what’s currently happening in the Instagram bots scene, it might be time to rethink your strategy and try to get Instagram followers without bots.
Many popular Instagram bots tools had to shut down in response to a ‘request’ from Instagram, leaving those who relied on the bot without an immediate alternative.
And it’s safe to say that with the way Instagram views bots and the fact they are the direct threat to Instagram ad revenue, they won’t last long.
Given the history of inauthentic activity on Instagram and various Instagram bots, you should seriously consider stop using them, and instead learn how to get Instagram followers without bots, especially when considering the risk to your account and the small gains involved.
Besides, you’re much more likely to see the results of your labor if you are in fact the one doing the work.
That’s why we wanted to show you some of the best alternatives to Instagram bots in this article.
What Instagram Bots Do
Instagram bots allow you to automate your Instagram account.
Using complex programming techniques and APIs, there are bots that can automate just about anything when it comes to your Instagram account.
For example, you can automate how you tag your posts, which you reach out to with comments and messages, and even if you follow people back or not.
Using variety of metrics bots allow you to automate a myriad of different activities on Instagram. And because bots leverage the Instagram API, almost any activity on the platform can be automated.
There is also a lot of data that can be extracted for you from your account using these bots, that can give you more insights about your posts and your audience.
Instagram bots do a great job of automating the stuff that is hard to do without sitting down and spending hours upon hours on Instagram yourself.
In fact, they have become to some marketers and business owners because they do such a good job at these things.
And if you have an Instagram account, you’ve almost certainly encountered an account that uses these tools in the wild.
Things like liking, commenting, following, responding to DMs, and exchanging shoutouts for shoutouts from other Instagram users.
Bots are also just better at these repetitive types of tasks that have seemingly become essential to growing an Instagram account in this day and age.
Some of these tasks, if not done consistently, are less effective.
And they can be hard to do on a consistent basis, in a timely manner without assistance from something like an Instagram bot.
If you’re reading this article, you might be wondering whether or not you should use Instagram bots to help automate some things with regards to your Instagram account.
People are asking themselves more and more, how they can automate things on Instagram, as it becomes harder to grow your account due to competition, and distraction.
But if you’re unsure of exactly what the benefits are, and what exactly the risks might be, you also have likely not looked into alternatives along the way.
Which is something we’ll be looking at closer in this article?
Specifically, we’ll be going over why you should maybe take a closer look at exactly what you want to gain from using bots and make the tough decision to skip some of the awesome automation maybe that they provide, and look into some alternatives.
Although the alternatives may lack in some of the cool features offered by bot platforms, they are a lot safer for your account.
Why You Should Stop Using Bots
Despite the fact that these bots can be extremely helpful, you should rethink using bots with your Instagram account.
For a variety of reasons.
This might be difficult if you’ve come to rely on bots to help your account growth, or if you’ve just found a convenient workflow that helps you be more productive with other work.
But the truth is, there are still great ways to be productive, that isn’t as risky as using Instagram bots.
Using Instagram bots puts your account at risk.
By using a bot platform on Instagram, you open your account up to the possibility that you can be banned at any time for violating the Instagram ToS.
There are countless stories out there, of people who have had their Instagram account shadowbanned and in some cases - suspended.
It cheapens the engagement that your account puts out, and will most likely attract cheap engagement from other Instagram users. Using bots will give your account more ability to respond to things instantly, and follow for following with ease, but when it comes down to the audience that this inevitably creates for your account, this is a poor substitute when compared with quality and compelling content.
Using Instagram bots also leaves you vulnerable if the bot closes down (Instagress).
If you’ve established a workflow centered around using Instagram bots with your account, and the bot decides to shut down its services, you might be left struggling to make up the work and replicate the workflow later.
This might be just a small inconvenience, but it could also mean big problems depending on what you were automating using the bot.
Is Possible To Get Instagram Followers Without Bots?
You might be thinking that there is no way to replace Instagram bots in your workflow. And you might be correct depending on what functionality you want to replace.
Auto-replies and commenting might be a tough ask, but getting more info about hashtags, or helping to automate posting are still possibilities.
We’ll go over some popular ways and methods, and what you might be able to automate with them as well.
When it comes to growing your Instagram account without bots, one of the hardest things to come to terms with is that there is just some functionality that can’t be replicated.
The auto-linking and auto-following that tools like Instagress allowed are just not things that Instagram as a platform wants to encourage.
These methods might seem like they are saving you time, but they are also hurting your engagement. Instead of relying on bots and automation to auto-generate engagement for you, you should really focus some of your time into generating some meaningful engagement yourself.
How To Get Instagram Followers Without Bots
We’ve compiled few great alternatives to Instagram bots that will still help automate the work of growing your following and gaining followers on Instagram.
#1 Use a specialized growth service
If you don’t have large budget or time, specialized Instagram growth service might be your best shot.
An all-done-for-you package is perfect for those who lack of time or marketing knowledge.
Hypegrowth is growing in popularity in no small part because we are extremely effective in helping to drive growth within Instagram accounts.
Once you subscribe to a service, a team of marketers will run an account audit, research your niche, develop an audience and help to encourage engagement with your account.
This is a great option for small businesses who want some hands-on assistance in the management and growth of their Instagram account.
The best part of this alternative is that it does not require you any additional time spent on your side or require you to learn complex tools or marketing techniques.
Pros:
- organic, steady growth
- does not require time
- does not require prior marketing knowledge or learning new tools as everhything is handled by an expert
Cons:
- not a best option for those who require a lot of control
#2 Do It Yourself
Okay, perhaps you have a lot of time at your disposal or can afford a team of people who can handle Instagram growth.
This option requires a lot of hard and time consuming work but it’s possible. We have compiled a list of tools that can help you with daily grind of growing Instagram profile.
Combined with some solid strategy and tools, it can help you become more productive and give you some really meaningful insight into how to post better, what to post, when to post, who to post to, and other insights.
All of which in the hands of a capable business or brand owner, are the exact tools needed to build a large and fully engaged Instagram following. The kind you can be proud of.
Iconosquare
Iconosquare is a great tool built for Instagram that allows you to perform detailed hashtag searches, and find influencers in particular niches.
At the low cost of less than $10 a month per account, you can do detailed research on the hashtags that matter to you, your content, and your audience.
The kind of research that Iconosquare enables you to do has the potential to be much more powerful than just automatically liking posts or commenting on posts from particular hashtags and if yielded correctly can be a very powerful tool for growth.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media monitoring service that allows various kinds of searches for Instagram including locations, people, and hashtags.
And while the service is a little more expensive than others of this kind, at $99 a month, they do allow other social media platforms inside of their plan.
This is another great platform to do research in, but with the added benefit of being able to manage the actual content in your account as well.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is an extremely popular social media management platform that allows you to manage when and what you post on Instagram.
Similar to Sprout Social they also support other social media sites but have a great offering centered around Instagram.
This is a great way to get started doing more to post your own content but in a way that better suits your schedule, and without a bot.
Managing your own content may still seem like a lot of work, but platforms like Hootsuite do a lot to take some of that pain away by allowing you to do all of the work in a desktop web browser and access multiple social portals from one account.
Pros:
- full control over what’s happening
Cons:
- requires A LOT of time
- rather difficult without marketing knowledge
#3 Run Instagram Ads
On the other hand, if you don’t have much time but have larger budget to spend, Instagram Ads can be a great alternative.
However, without prior marketing knowledge, research and setting up Instagram ad campaign is rather difficult and time consuming time so you might want to hire an expert.
Sociello offers Instagram ad management service and proved to be successful in many niches, including beauty, fitness and technology.
Pros:
- does not require a lot of time once the campaign is running
Cons:
- cost of hiring an expert to manage ad campaigns for you
- the most expensive from all the options
Get Instagram Followers Without Bots: Conclusion
If you’ve been looking for an easy answer to the question of how to automate your Instagram account, you may have felt a bit relieved when you first learned about Instagram bots.
After all, who doesn’t want an awesome way to automate the small stuff out of their daily lives and free up time for more meaningful endeavours.
Bots are not the answer.
But as you can see, there are still a wide variety of tools available to marketers and Instagram account owners that allow for some pretty powerful automation.
The kind that only a few years ago would not have been thought possible.
This expanded feature set is also permitted by Instagram, unlike bots, which makes these options safe to use, and more affordable in the long run than bot platforms (which can often result in your account being banned, and all of your hard work being lost).
More automation is not the only answer though, and it can only be made truly effective when combined with a smart content strategy and deep knowledge of your niche and audience.
Some of which can also be gleaned from the tools we’ve mentioned as well.
By understanding your audience and what they desire, you can leverage increased automation to deliver real value to your followers and unlock the power of the fastest growing and most popular social media platform.
Based on what’s currently happening in the Instagram Bots scene, it is definitely time to rethink using bots for your account.
Instagram is most likely not going to change its mind when it comes to its stance on automation, so if you’ve made bots a part of your toolbelt on Instagram, you might want to take the time to be an early defector, and find an alternatives to bots on Instagram that will not only be here for the long haul, but that also won’t put your account in jeopardy.
If you continue to find and try Instagram bot platforms and tools that do all of the heavy liftings of managing an account with automation, you might just find yourself without an account, or without your tools in the coming months and years.
Karen is a senior technical writer and copywriter here at GrowFollowing. Her area of expertize are social media apps and new media.