Hollow engagement

Im creating a series of articles for Digital Clinic, covering “The Single Biggest Problem on each Social Media Platform” because as we keep moving forward into the digital age, people are creating ways to hack social media and take shortcuts in hopes of becoming an “Influencer” or being able to monetize their social media, NOT KNOWING that these sort of hacks and shortcuts are actually hurting them and ironically probably the only reason their not getting the results they want or expect.

This sort of behavior has no doubt altered the landscape of social media in a negative way. Ranging from Automation Bots, all they way to straight up faking content for likes.

It has made these social medias a shell of what they once were, totally organic, totally authentic, real people engaging with real content. Sadly I don’t think these social media platforms can return to their former glory in regards to these issues. Not as along as its all about vanity metrics. Do Not Worry, all the big ones, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, and so on and so on. First one up is Instagram.

The Biggest Problem on Instagram

The simple answer to “Whats the biggest problem on Instagram?” Is: Hollow Engagement.

But let me just break this down so everyones clear on what I mean by that. And you have no doubt seen this hollow engagement, and most likely have fallen victim to this fake/hollow engagement.

What I am exactly talking about is Instagram Bots such as Auto Likers, Auto Commenters, Auto Follows, and those things. Again, Im sure you’ve seen the Auto Comments. Some Popular ones are:

1. “You have some great shots in your Gallery! I mean I liked them :)”

2. “I just saw your recent photos. It looks like your photos are getting better with time imo :)”

3. “That shot is amazing” or something along the lines of how awesome your photography is, these can be hard to spot if your a photographer, but say your a graphic designer like me and post a design and someone says. “This shot is so amazing, how did you get so good at photography” its a little easier to notice.

4. “Amazing post” or something along the lines of a very generic compliment on your “post” without mentioning anything specific.

There are of course many other examples we could be posting all day, but you get the idea. This is a major problem on the platform and in my opinion the biggest, its taking away from what Instagram is supposed to be, authentic. This is just making instagram one big circle jerk of hollow engagement and it’s not good for anyone.

At the beginning when these bots were new you could get away with it, but now it is so rampant and obvious that almost everyone and their grandmother can tell if a comment or even other engagement is authentic or bot-like.

So that being said it should come at no surprise that this will hurt your brand more than help. People are recognizing these behaviors and reacting in a negative manner, most of the time the people will delete your bot comment because they don’t want their comment sections cluttered with spam. Sometimes they may go as far as reporting you for spam, and then you can be in trouble of being suspended, perhaps even getting your account dis-activated.

What Instagram is and/or could be doing about it?

This sort of behavior has always been against Instagram TOS, but it seems like they never really did anything about it. Until a few years ago, in mid 2017 when they made a big push and forced closed the doors of many Automation Services, but obviously this behavior has continued, not only because people/companys/app developers find loop holes, or ways around things, but also because it seems as if Instagram only battles this type of Behavior in waves, at least thats my analysis. It seems like they always make a big deal about how they’re gonna fix it, Some of the biggest Automation tools lose dam near all their previous features causing them to shut down, but then the noise dies down and business continues as usual.

My only sure solution I would suppose would be to deploy an A.I (as long as its not called skynet) that searches and analyzes this sort of thing, I’m sure their would or could be issues as first but I think once kinks are worked out it could be beneficial.

What do you guys think about all these bots that flood social media, really just takes away from what its supposed to be. Maybe when instagram hides likes maybe things will change for the better, who knows only time will tell. Let me know what you think about bots below? Are you as tired o fhem as I am?