Social media can reach millions of people in just a second, making it the best platform to promote products or services around the world. Therefore, more and more small business owners are using social media to gain customers. They use various social media networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even Youtube to make their products or services known.

Nevertheless, it is not easy to manage different accounts and cater to orders simultaneously. This is where the robots come in. On Instagram, you can like and comment on pictures without lifting a finger with the help of bots. They can auto-follow those accounts that follow you and keep your Instagram account active and engage with other people 24/7. They can also increase the exposure of your business.

These are all fine qualities of bots. They do the job in your place and you can use your time for other much more important matters. Even so, bots can still ruin your Instagram goals.

Here are four ways why bots are bad for your business:

Bots Are Not Humans

It’s as simple as that. They are robots, and they can make mistakes. Sure, it is easier to input parameters to a system to engage and interact with other people, but sometimes they just won’t work.

Bots lower your Instagram engagement with other people. They cannot automate real-life and meaningful involvement. We’ve all seen poorly placed comments from robots that we immediately block. And once your followers figured you were using bots, you may not receive a response anymore.

Moreover, it can ruin your brand and reputation. This is because bots were designed to automatically leave comments based on the hashtag they have been given. They do not consider the context behind the posts or the captions. Therefore, bots can leave comments like ‘that is gorgeous’ to a girl that laments over her broken makeup.

Bots Increase the Chances of Being Banned or Shadow Banned

Being shadow-banned by Instagram means that all of your content is only visible to your followers. Even if you use a hundred hashtags, your posts won’t show up. It limits your reach and therefore cannot attract customers beyond your following.

With bots, they elevate the risk of getting shadowbanned. Instagram filters out accounts that do not follow the terms and conditions. Meanwhile, bots use numerous hashtags unrelated to the posts which Instagram can see.

Bots Limit Your Reach

Why bots are bad is because of the effect on the quality of your reach. Sure, they can increase your exposure and number of followers. However, once Instagram figured you are using bots, the accounts that Instagram will suggest to follow you will all be similarly valueless accounts to straight-up bots.

Bots Clog Your Feed

Since your followers will also be bots, it will not do anything to your business’ growth. These accounts cannot share with other people about your product and brand. They cannot talk their mouths off about your business. Also, bot activities prevent real users from seeing your content. You may have thousands of followers, but if only a hundred of them are real, then it is useless.

Final Thoughts

There is no harm in using bots to increase Instagram engagement. As mentioned before, they can certainly do social media marketing for us. What makes bots bad, however, is excessive usage. Regulate the activity of bots in your account. Set the number of posts, comments, likes, or following the bot can only do in a day. Prevent bots from using hashtags that are irrelevant to your products and also the banned ones.

Most importantly, do not let bots do all the work. Let them take a day off or two. Actually, if you can, do not use bots at all. There are numerous ways you can naturally grow your social media reach. Use hashtags, identify your target audience, post consistently, and lastly, authentically engage with your followers. Customers also need to know that they are being appreciated. Whether it is because they are supporting small local businesses or just because you want to thank them, let them know.

What are bots? Read ”What Are Bots on Social Media?” to learn more.