By Bárbara Christan
We are living the peak of Instagram. The app has been gaining form in recent years, increasing its base and reaching other age groups – parents, uncles, aunts and grandparents are migrating to the network. Suddenly, everyone plays the role of photographers, seeking the best click, and influencers, sharing consumer habits, books they liked, movies they watched. In this channel, each person is a creator of unique content, also disclosing opinions on political and governmental topics.
As a result, communication and digital marketing take advantage on this growth and develop ways to obtain and measure results. And that’s where automation tools come in, helping influencers and salespeople get their way across the network.
Currently, there are several tools that automate practices that people do organically in their networks, such as following profiles and hashtags, liking and commenting on publications, scheduling Instagram Stories and sending direct messages. With this automated flow, the growth of profiles is accelerated, and the tool performs all these actions. With the increase in the base of followers, the other metrics consequently rise. But caution is needed in this automatic process.
The end of automation is decreed by Facebook
In 2016, Facebook announced the depreciation of the Instagram API. API – Application Programming Interface – is a set of features that allow integration between systems and applications; they standardize and facilitate the data integration process. It allows the development of app that use the Instagram framework and provide better forms to use the platform.
With it, there are no more resources, such as: following and stop following, automatic commenting, automatic likes and dislikes, following the list of someone who follows a specific person, among others.
This change has been active for three years. The automation tools continue to function normally, however, they are considered irregular according to Instagram policy. And so, several accounts have been discovered and canceled by the network eversince.
What now?
Even with multiple accounts being deleted, some people and even brands continue to use automated features – either because they believe they will not be “caught” by the network or even by lack of knowledge. But for those who want to build solid work on social medias, careful and detailed planning is needed.
Get to know your audience, understand their sorrows and needs, create relevant content with their own style, and look for a visual identity that matches to their positioning and goals. And when planning and putting everything into practice, having the service of a specialized communication agency is essential to reach the desired numbers.
