Dear Instagram...Bite Me

I will admit, I have become terribly bored with Instagram. The quick clips and glimpses into a bottomless pit of never-ending selfies, self-promotion and self-fulfillment quotes has me feeling BLAH. I crave lengthy conversations, long walks in the park and the calm that only comes from unplugging. I know, I know…so old-fashioned 😂

What’s worse though is that because of my obsession with marketing and public relations, I know way too much about how all those seemingly Insta-Famous accounts may have gotten their large following and SHOCKER 😲 it probably was not organically…unless you’re a Kardashian or otherwise genuinely have garnered admiration IRL. Even the truly Insta-Famous accounts who have raised their profile online-only have probably at some point used some shady tactics to grow their following.

Let us count the ways, shall we?

One Million Kooky Books

Silly books that tout how to gain One Million Followers. Can we all lose our cookies now? 🙄

I mean honestly, the fact that this nonsense has invaded our literary world offends me on some level. What offends me more is that people are actually buying this book and making this guy probably millions of 💲💲💲 meanwhile they continue to search for the “secret sauce.”

Here is an interesting review of Kane’s book on Goodreads:

“Jason Braatz rated did not like it

There's really nothing new here, skip this one. This should have been a blog article, not a book. I was really looking forward to it too since it had a great build up, so I was quite let down. Mr. Kane's basic premise in this book & it's summary: pay for ads through a platform's advertising (his favorite is Facebook) and seek the highest share rate when doing an A/B test. For Facebook, he demonstrates why Facebook shares are his metric to ad strength, since it has a logarithmic growth pattern for followers. He goes on to point out the obvious technique in marketing, which is the better your ad campaign is tested and managed, the better your ROI (using multi-variate testing, etc). With money = followers and attention. Growing exponentially requires a word-of-mouth component to the product or the content in the advertisement. This is in Marketing books from the 1800s and onward to the 1950s and 2000s, too - the only thing that's changed is that internet-based social mediums have changed the play-date chats between Moms of the 1950s and the lunch chats of steelworkers of the 1800s on what word-of-mouth now means. Quixotic to Facebook, this book skips Twitter entirely, mentioned in one simple sentence to : "I don't use it." The only other content is punditry on how Instagram is hard to share on, LinkedIn is expensive, and Snapchat is supposedly going away. There are a few good paragraphs (and finally, something a bit new) on why it's important to perhaps seek out emerging markets, and he makes a good case (if it's true) that certain emerging markets actually have higher involvement times on social media platforms than western markets do. Those few paragraphs are good food for thought, but the author provides scant research for that premise. It's a short read, and at least in the abstract, everything within it has been Marketing 101 for a couple of centuries now.”

Hmmm…makes you wonder, is there really any “there” there?

Let’s move on, Influencers!

If you haven’t seen Marina De Giovanni’s ads on Facebook and Instagram promoting, “How to Become an Influencer” using super chic imagery of her having a cocktail at a bistro or just simply looking fabulous, then you have likely been living under a rock. Marina sells you “the good life” dream. Get paid to BE AN INFLUENCER. Ooh la la. The jet setters, the free products, the chai teas and a pug? Oh yes, yes that life is for me!

I actually have some respect for Marina. Trial and error + Hustle, hustle + Trial and error + Hustle, hustle + Facebook ads + Landing page + A giveaway + An email list + Distribute knowledge in small bites = Passive income.

Each bite earning her more and more the more they chew. She’s actually a great marketer. One could learn more simply by looking at the method she uses than buying her light nibbles 😉👌

The Follow-Unfollow Game

This one makes me want to run out in my yard shaking my fist like Mr. Wilson from Dennis the Menace. We have all witnessed this.

“A new follower? Oh, how lovely,” you think.

So you hit the follow back button (I mean it’s only polite, right?….right???). WRONG. In a matter of days, said new follower has unfollowed you for no reason at all.

But why?

Because this is how they are “growing their following.” I have had the same local event planner follow me and unfollow me at least three times in the past 6 months. And not because she/he is playing head games. Nope, the follow-unfollow game. How does it work you may ask?

Well, unless you have an app installed that you check occasionally like Follower Insight, you’ll likely not even notice when said new follower unfollows you. Now THEY have a new follower and you don’t thereby keeping their followers/following ratio at a level that makes their followers look way higher than how many they follow.

Are you following all this?

Which brings me to my next tactic…

Apps to Help you Suck, I Mean Succeed 🤣

It’s a necessary evil for most businesses. This app will tell you who you follow that doesn’t follow you back. This helps you combat that nasty Follow-Unfollow game. It will also tell you who your Ghost Followers are.

What is Ghost Follower?

These are inactive Instagram accounts whose sole purpose is to follow as many accounts as possible. They are used to bulk up someone’s Instagram following number, but do actually more damage than good to the purchaser. If an account has a high number of followers with very low engagement, you can bet they have at some point bought followers (from an app, likely). As more people have caught onto this, it makes your account seem untrustworthy to the public when you have 9k followers, but only 120 likes per post and no comments.

Here is an example of a Ghost Follower account - BOO 👻

I Pod, You Pod, Everybody Pod-Pods!

Instagram pods. I got added to one of these via a website I am a member of. I was fascinated by this little algorithm beater and it seems to work, but also…WORK. So, the premise: You are in a group DM with say ten other accounts who also want to beat the algorithm. The rules are, when you make a new post you share it to the group DM or “pod.” Everyone in the pod will go like and comment on your post thereby circumventing the algorithm, so your post will show up more in your followers’ feeds. BUT you have to reciprocate to be polite. This is a give and take pod relationship and everyone wins, but also…WORK when I have actual work to do.

Your Personal Instagram Guru 🐰

This little Instagram Energizer bunny is on Instagram ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. This is their job. They are masters at the follow-unfollow game and spend their time working the “real followers” angle. This is a real person you can hire to garner you more followers PLUS engagement and bonus points - they are real followers, not ghost followers. You do have to hand over your login credentials, so be careful with this one and be sure to get a reference and video chat with them to make sure they are legit.

Now with this method you may get flagged if you try to grow too fast, which could result in your account being suspended by Instagram if they notice your unusual, new behavior and rapidly-growing following. But it is effective and hey, you can go back to ya’ know, actually running your business.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto (it’s an 80s song by Styx - Google it for a laugh)

You may occasionally see an account that starts spamming you with one-word or one-liner comments like, “amazing” or “so pretty.” This feels random and vague and weird. That’s because you have a new friend, Mr. Roboto 🤖. Legitimate business accounts often buy a bot because they want to increase their following and engagement without having to do the work or pay a high-premium consultant to do it for them. It’s a cheap way to garner attention. You may also see the occasional, “Hey, check out how to gain more followers by clicking the link in my bio.” This one is funny because it is actually a bot trying to sell you a bot - welcome to the baby world of AI.

Courses and Coaches and Webinars, Oh My!

Everyone is a business coach these days. It’s the new snake oil salesman #sorrynotsorry The ads that pop up in your feed with smooth-talking verbiage, offering you “this one thing” they did to change their approach to Instagram. You will learn it in their FREE webinar/course/e-book. No, really! Just read all the reviews on their website. It MUST be true. Now join their Facebook group, interact with them as they garner your trust and sell you things you don’t need. It’s the American way, after all.

Here’s the number of e-course platforms Google recommends in a quick search. Each of these platforms contain thousands and thousands of courses on pretty much anything you can imagine, including…you guessed it - ding, ding, ding! Instagram 😎👍

NEWS FLASH 💥

A high social media following number does not mean anything. Following numbers do not guarantee you Insta-Fame, but more importantly they do not guarantee you clients. Womp womp. They do make you look super cool to people who haven’t read this article though 🤷

What’s Your Point, Lady?

I promise I am not anti-Instagram or anti-Instagrammer. I use Instagram! I have even encouraged my marketing clients in the past to hire one of those gurus to grow their following, if that is what they really want - yep, I know a great one! My point of this article is simply to point out the flaws in looking at numbers and basing opinions about people or businesses because of those numbers. It’s silly. And it’s making a whole generation of folks lose sight of things that actually DO matter. I remember when Facebook was the social media leader and businesses invested lots of money into growing their Facebook fans. Now, the platform has changed. Users don’t interact with business pages the same way they used to. The algorithm has changed and your posts don’t show up half the time (here’s looking at you, too, Instagram 👀). What a waste. Invest in your CLIENTS. Invest in being the best little whatever it is that you do because in the end YOU ARE the egg in the basket.

This is your brain on Instagram. Any questions?