With over a billion active users, Instagram has globally become one of the biggest social media platforms. And this digital platform only keeps growing and growing. Over a billion users means a lot of competition. With so many competitors trying to beat your account, you really need to be active and up to date at all times.
It means constantly replying, commenting, liking, posting, etc. etc.
But how is it even possible to do that? How can you instantly reply and engage with customers at all times?
I say IT'S POSSIBLE!
With Instagram Automation, all of that and so much more is possible
What is Instagram Automation?
Instagram automation is a third party software that is connected to your instagram account. This software helps automate tasks like liking, following, posting and so much more without any human presence.
Such automation tools have become progressively popular in modern-day e-commerce marketing. Our quest for efficiency has led to life-changing developments in technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. These technologies were developed to optimise processes across channels. Instagram automation is just one aspect of it.
There are 2 types of Instagram automation tools that can be used:
- Automation tools that actively take charge of engaging in front-line interactions of likes and comments with users:
These bots are famously known as spam bots that appear as phantom story views, likes, comments, follows and even DMs. These bot accounts look as fake as they are and may disappear just as fast as they appear.
- Automation software that is used for more backend tasks such as taking care of various tasks, timed publishing, reporting and analytics:
These are legitimate social media automation tools that adhere to Instagrams regulations and help in increasing user engagement, boosting brand awareness and propelling in-app and website purchases
This article talks about the latter option. It is the one that every business on social media needs. The automation tool that you need.
What tasks can be automated with Instagram automation?
Using third-party automation software, you can:
- Set up complex conversational flows to engage potential customers.
- Schedule posts (including the first comment to add necessary hashtags).
- Interact with followers 24/7.
- Reply to comments based on pre-defined keywords/phrases.
- Schedule detailed Instagram analytics reports automatically generated for both- your accounts and your competitor profiles.
This way you get to optimise your Instagram marketing strategies and focus more on aspects like Instagram ad campaigns and Instagram influencer marketing, instead of worrying about the more basic aspects of engagement on the platform.
The best Instagram automation tools to automate all your tasks
You can use Instagram Automation tools in these ways to produce the best results:
1. Instagram Chatbot
Automate your conversations by building your own Instagram chatbot. A well-built chatbot can reply to all of your customer DMs while handling repetitive questions and user inquiries with a personalised touch.
The best advice while using a chatbot would be to keep it real. Do not hide the fact that your users are talking to a chatbot, keeping such secrets will only make you look sketchy and spammy. Embrace the fact and give your customers the surety of service and authenticity.
Here are some use cases of using Instagram chatbots:
- Customer service- help users solve their problems by providing them with all necessary answers by using FAQ automation and connecting them with a real agent if and when required.
- Share gated content- share eBooks or other freebies with users in exchange for their email addresses and other data.
- Follow-up- ask users for their order number and immediately provide updates regarding their purchase status.
- Gamification- run quizzes and tests to collect targeted data and give users a personal recommendation.
- Brand persona- make your bot an extension of your brand by giving it a voice(tone) and adding a personalised, unique touch to your replies.
2. Qualify leads
Automate your Instagram with a chatbot to help your business get quality leads. By asking the right questions, your bot can determine the user's requirements and interests. This way it can easily categorise leads on the basis of how far they are in their user journey and quickly provide them with the necessary information or direct them to an available live agent if required. The bot also stores the acquired information for you in a space allocated by you for better assistance and reference.
This helps a business in two ways-
- Provides the business with better-segregated information on leads.
- Provides customers with appropriate and exact solutions for their queries.
3. Unify Conversations
Certain third party instagram automation software like Engati, record conversations on a one view inbox. This allows your agents to always have the latest information of any conversation, even if the previous conversations are held via another device or a mobile application, while managing multiple accounts.
4. Promote Instagram Shopping
Instagram shopping is a feature that lets e-commerce brands create an Instagram shop, a digital storefront available with a shareable catalogue of their products, directly on Instagram. Using Instagram automation tools, one can directly integrate their Shopify or stores with Instagram and easily enable their products for their customers on the platform itself by using a shopping tag.
This can be done via two methods:
- Using posts and stories.
- Using Instagram live broadcast.
For countries that do no support Instagram shopping, businesses can:
- Automate their chatbots to DM customers with product links when they comment on certain posts.
- Add product tags with attached links to stories that automatically direct the customers to that product on their website.
5. Maintain your brand online
Using Instagram automation tools, one can track their branded hashtags, tags and mentions in the captions and stories of other users. This helps discover the latest user-generated content and customer feedback which can then be used and reposted(only after taking permission). This really helps in maintaining a brand's reputation on social media and controlling how it is portrayed.
6. Schedule your Instagram Posts and Stories
Pre-plan your content for the day, week or month and schedule when it goes up on Instagram. Find the best time to post when your users are most active and schedule your content accordingly, using a drag-and-drop calendar. Use the saved time to check insights and improve the content for your brand accordingly. You can also schedule your first comment with all the needed hashtags pre-saved for better results.
7. Get analytics and suggestion
Instagram automation provides tools that convert your Instagram-provided statistics into personalised insights along with instinctive graphs and personalised recommendations.
Understand what works and does not work for your account and how your followers interact with your content to make the necessary improvements and improve the overall quality of your brand.
What are the benefits of using Instagram automation?
If you own or run a growing Instagram business then you already know the answer.
Instagram isn’t exactly feature-rich, You can set up saved replies and FAQs within the app but that is all. It is manual and slow and very limiting for growing businesses that need to:
The biggest benefit of instagram automation tools is that you can do all of this while also handling every other aspect of your business, on every other channel.
In such cases, a third-party automation tool can act as a real game changer (and life saver).
Is an Instagram Chatbot the same as a regular Instagram bot?
This is a very good question as there are 2 important distinctions between the two.
- A regular Instagram bot also famously recognised as a spam bot is created by accessing Instagram's private API, which is not legal and hence can be removed once found by Instagram. An Instagram chatbot is created by integrating with a third-party business provider much like Engati and hence adheres to Instagram's rules, making it perfectly safe to use.
- Instagram automation bots are majorly used for liking, following, unfollowing and commenting on random posts, on the basis of certain hashtags. This is not fruitful at all as it does not help increase organic engagement or followers. An Instagram chatbot can be programmed to be more self-aware, only reply to comments and DMs, determine the flow of the conversations and interact with customers in real-time. This helps build better engagement and to grow your brand organically.
How do I get to know more about Instagram chatbots?
This one is easy. Want to know more about how to use Instagram chatbots?
You're just one click away from finding out more about chatbots and how they can transform how you do your business.
Now that you know everything about Instagram automation, we hope it clears your doubts about all the taboos around it.
Automation is a tool and no tool is ever good or bad. The true power of a tool resides in its wielder.
We hope we helped you find the true powers of Instagram Automation as well.
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