The Holy Grail of Instagram growth exists — and it doesn’t require a budget
With constant tweaks in it’s algorithm, Instagram is slowly but surely following in its big brother’s footsteps. Lowering the organic reach by default and changing the way posts show up in the feed, the platform is forcing the brands to invest more in advertising, especially with the new ad features. But, although all the changes impact brands, they went through all this once before with Facebook and are accepting their faith. But, one particular group is not taking it so well — Instagram influencers.
You may have noticed a while back that right after Instagram introduced its new algorithm, influencers started announcing that they have a new post through Instastories. It’s quick, it’s fun and can include clickable links. And, it reaches up to 30% more audience than published posts. However, that’s not the only thing influencers turned to in order to ‘trick’ the algorithm.
Hello, #instapods!
Instagram comment pods are growing in popularity among Instagram influencers, both upcoming and already established ones. It’s a relatively new thing and so far — it’s working.
Okay, so what’s a pod?
Instagram pods are essentially groups of up to 30 Instagrammers (maximum no. of accounts in a group chat) that engage with each other on a daily basis by liking and commenting each others posts. Pods usually consist of users/accounts with similar content and interests so you have food pods, health pods, fashion pods…
Why does it work?
Because of the way Instagram’s algorithm works at present point, it’s favoring pods due to a peek in engagement on a post so it’s more likely they’ll come up within the Explore page that generally leads to more visibility. Showing up in the Explore tab can get you both short and long term results in terms of visibility and engagement as you appear not only to the people who follow you, but show up to new audiences, too. With decent quality content, new Instagrammers grow up to few thousand followers daily, what seemed pretty unattainable only a few weeks ago.
There’s more to it than just “Love it! ❤”
Pods go way beyond just getting a bunch of people sharing similar content leaving comments on each others posts. In order to get the maximum results, the engagement needs to be, or at least seem to be, genuine. The pod users swear that a comment must consist of a minimum of 5 words, nothing generic/bot-like and without emojis. Otherwise, Instagram just shows “1 comment” below the post.
Brands, beware?
Working with influencers already is both costly and time-consuming and with Instagrammers pumping up their stats through pods, it will mean that even working with smaller ones would still mean you’d have to increase your influencer campaign budgets.
At first, you may think that working with an influencer that’s part of a pod is not a bad thing, as there’s a higher probability the post you’ve paid for is going to get a bigger reach and engagement. That’s a good thing for sure, but the one thing you can’t control here is the audience the post is going to reach.
Say you’re selling organic skincare products and have busted your a** trying to define influencers with the right audience in your market. If they’re a part of a pod that’s not specifically defined as an organic skincare, or even skincare or beauty pod, while your promo post may have a big reach, what’s the quality of that reach? You’ve picked a certain influencer because of his audience and now you may not even reach them.
Back to basics
Come to think of it, Instagram pods are really just an adaptation of an old school tactic used by bloggers for years. “Great post! Visit my blog!” and joining an online forum to engage with other bloggers and increase your audience is a proven way to get more traffic. Actually, it’s strange Instagram pods became a thing just now, but it just shows that so far, Instagram was a pretty grey area where anyone could do what they wanted to and, with a little effort, get a pretty big following and become an ‘influencer’.
Where does this all lead us? With changes and tweaks that Instagram introduces almost on a weekly basis, you never really know. But, one thing is for sure, and that is that marketers need to adapt and adjust their efforts hand in hand with all the novelties the app’s introducing. Fun times ahead!
