The magic words every Instagram Influencer and social media manager long to hear are “save time AND grow your audience.” Fortunately, that phrase doesn’t just exist in a fantasy novel for influencers and SMMs (that would be weird). Instagram automation — done right — makes it possible.
We break down the benefits of Instagram automation for influencers — or anyone managing a brand presence on Instagram. We’ll cover the tools that help make a good automation strategy possible, the best practices that will set you up for success, and strategies for effectively using automation to enhance your Instagram presence and engagement.
Let’s get into it.
Understanding Instagram Automation
Some types of Instagram automation — like tools and platforms for scheduling posts — have been around long enough that no one thinks of them as an “automation tool.” They’re just an established need for anyone running a major Instagram presence, from Influencers to social teams behind brands.
Here’s a quick breakdown of the different types of Instagram automation tools, for the unfamiliar:
- Scheduling: Tools like HootSuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, and others allow account owners and teams to plan a social content calendar across platforms, including Instagram.
- Analytics: The above tools also include performance metrics; how advanced they are depends on your account type.
- Engagement: Tools like Manychat help automate engagement on Instagram, from DMs to comments and even IG Story replies.
- Content creation: Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can help create copy for social captions you can refine, while DALL-E and Midjourney can create images; brands like Canva also incorporate AI capabilities to help users bring design ideas to life.
What Instagram automation is
Instagram automation is a way to support busy human creators and curators who need to outsource simple research and more tedious, repetitive tasks (like finding out which hashtags are trending). Third-party software and tools like those listed above help do this work.
Fully automating an Instagram presence would backfire. Fans and followers like authenticity and connection with the influencers and brands they admire. They might not mind a chatbot response to an FAQ, but they don’t want every comment and reply to be a basic, robotic response. The savviest automaters strike the balance between efficiency and authenticity.
What Instagram automation isn’t
Automation isn’t a replacement for all human interaction. It’s not a “set-it-and-forget-it” strategy that will run in the background of your Instagram account and propel you to Influencer or Brand Glory.
It needs to be thoughtfully and strategically implemented for your brand, with adjustments to your strategy based on feedback from analytics and directly from your audience.
Instagram’s stance on automation
Overreliance on automation can also put you in bad standing with Instagram itself — ultimately getting you banned from the platform if you use it in a way that goes against their terms of use and policies.
The Instagram API allows the following to be automated:
- Scheduling and publishing posts
- Retrieving analytics and insights
- Managing comments (retrieving, responding, hiding, and deleting)
- Searching public content by hashtag (with limitations)
- Managing business profiles and catalogs
And it does NOT allow automation of:
- Following or unfollowing
- Liking or commenting
- Direct messaging (except for approved business use cases)
You’ve likely experienced what it’s like on Instagram when these features are abused by automation: a deluge of comments that don’t add anything to the conversation at best or are inflammatory and harmful at worst. It’s exhausting to keep up with negative comments and customer complaints, but over-automating in the other direction isn’t the solution.
Reputable tools are the best way to tap into automation without worrying. Look for Meta Business Partners (like Manychat).
Benefits of Instagram Automation
Automation at its best frees up your time and energy to focus on more of the deep, creative work that makes your fans and followers look forward to your content on their feeds. Here’s just a little of what properly implemented Instagram automation can do.
Increased efficiency and scalability
Many influencers and social media managers are teams of one doing the work of many. Smart automation strategies can reduce tedious, repetitive tasks that drain you emotionally and creatively.
Automation that includes account moderation means you don’t have to spend hours blocking and reporting spam bots, trolls, or malicious posters. This is especially valuable for managing multiple accounts or launching a new brand partnership. Letting the brands you want to partner with know you have a brand safety strategy gives them another excellent reason to work with you.
Automation can also help influencers and social media managers find brand partnerships for themselves or other influencers they may be working with, streamlining the research process.
Consistency
Planning and scheduling tools ensure that your content is consistent in posting cadence and in overall appearance. If you’re working with a team or regular collaborators on a single account, everyone must contribute to a cohesive aesthetic and brand voice. A single source of truth that holds your content calendar with all past and planned posts allows you to see at a glance if everything feels consistent.
Increased engagement
Automation is always there, ready to go. It doesn’t get tired. It can handle frequently asked questions or common complaints. Features like Manychat’s conversation starters are customizable, so you can get fans and followers started down the right path when you aren’t available to respond. That opens things up for deeper interactions, strengthening your relationship with your audience.
Let the robots handle the tedious FAQs so you have more time to focus on the work that interests you most.
Data-driven decision making
Automating reporting means you don’t have to spend hours manually pulling available metrics out of the platforms you’re active on, analyzing them, and using that information to inform your content strategy. Automatically generated reports highlighting the key information you need to drive your decision-making means you can spend more time on that last step instead of on spreadsheets.
Combating burnout
All of this put together means you’re way less likely to burn out. Managing a social presence is a ton of work: content strategy, creation, curation, audience interaction, community building, moderation, marketing and design, and so much more.
Each is a full-time job, and it’s easy for rising creators and brand-new social media managers to hit a wall and lose their spark for the work. A smart automation strategy lightens the load and helps keep it fun.
Best Practices for Instagram Automation
We’ve already touched on most of the best practices for automation: You want to stay authentic, strike a good balance between automation and human authenticity, stay compliant, and adjust your strategy regularly.
Stay authentic by using automation with intention, not to chase every trending hashtag and quickly slap together some content that loosely works with it. You don’t set your account up so every interaction comes from a canned response. You set up customized messages in your brand voice to handle FAQs, then step in with a human touch for deeper interactions.
Strike a balance by figuring out where automation can take the tedious, repetitive tasks off of your plate so you can focus on creativity, strategy, and community-building. Automate Story replies to start conversations, for example, creating a flow to drive customers down the right path. Then take the time to step in when issues get more complicated than the chatbot can handle.
Stay compliant with Instagram’s terms of use, and don’t automate anything they explicitly forbid.
Adjust your strategy based on what the metrics tell you — plus any direct feedback you’re getting from your audience — about what you’ve automated and change your approach. If you automate comment replies, for example, and get responses from fans and followers saying you don’t sound like yourself, it’s time to reevaluate.
If you get an increase in customer satisfaction because response times are faster from automating responses to FAQs in your DMs, you know that was the right approach and you can strategize around enhancing the experience.
Automating Instagram Engagement
Here’s what one approach to automating Instagram engagement could look like. Design yours based on your specific brand presence and goals.
- Comment moderation/filtering: Choosing specific keywords to automatically filter out of your comments helps with moderation.
- DMs/chatbots: Every DM is an opportunity to build or deepen a connection, but you can’t always answer them all. Create customized responses that don’t sound canned and help meet the needs of your audience to improve their experience.
- Like/follow automation: These activities are explicitly banned by Instagram’s terms of use, and we do not recommend pursuing them. You risk getting your account suspended or banned and starting over from scratch. It’s not worth it!
- Story interactions: From quick thank you messages to building out a customized flow that encourages further engagement, this is a great way to automate your presence on Instagram.
These are just a few of the options available for automation on Instagram. Brands who want to go deeper can build chatbot flows that guide users to download specific offerings or move through a sales funnel. You can also set up automation that captures and stores user-provided information you can use in future marketing campaigns across channels.
Creating a Data-Driven Automation Strategy
The metrics you track around your automation strategy should match your goals. Regardless of what those goals are, you should concentrate on engagement metrics like:
- Shares: If fans and followers like something enough to share it with their networks, it’s a sign to experiment with similar content.
- Saves: Saving content means your audience finds it valuable enough they want to refer back to it in the future.
- Post engagement rate: Divide engagement (likes, comments, saves, shares) by your follower count to see how engaging your content is relative to the size of your audience.
Metrics like impressions give you an idea of your account’s overall visibility, but they’re not as valuable as knowing how much of your audience is taking the time to interact with your content when they see it. Remember that impressions are just the number of times something was delivered to a timeline; reach is a more accurate representation of how many eyeballs actually saw it. Engagement is how many of those eyeballs then took action on that content.
Content with a high engagement rate should inform your content strategy going forward. A/B test different ideas for replicating and improving it, refining as you go. Automated reporting tools help simplify the process.
Potential Risks + How to Mitigate Them
It’s too important not to repeat: automate everything at the risk of losing your authenticity and your audience. Overreliance on automation also means you won’t know how to adapt to changes in the algorithm and you could end up violating any changes in the terms of use you aren’t aware of.
Use reputable automation tools or risk your privacy, security, and account. Shady tools can mean you get suspended or banned from the platform at best (if you’re using one that violates the terms of use) or lose all of your data and get your account stolen at worst.
You also risk compromising the security and privacy of your fans and followers by using tools that aren’t compliant with the terms of use.
Final Thoughts
Influencers and brand accounts have loyal fans and followers because of their unique voice, creativity, and presence. Overreliance on automation can dilute that, turning opportunities for connection into audiences that look elsewhere for it.
Smart automation strategies balance offloading the tedious tasks to the robots while leaving room for a creative human touch everywhere else. Use these tools and best practices to build a better Instagram presence through automation without the risks.
