Looking to build a personal brand? You should be on Instagram! (And learn about Instagram Automation):

• The social media giant has 800 million monthly users.
• Higher engagement rates than Facebook and Twitter.
• 71% of US businesses use it and the monthly users just keep growing.
• Instagram Automation is the best way to get far and beyond.

Blogs of every type find their homes on Instagram Automation. We’re talking fashion blogs, lifestyle blogs, food blogs, book blogs, pet blogs to blogs for travel, fitness, photography, and more. Even blogs that teach you how to blog! You name it, Instagram has got it.

Related: find out more about Instagram Growth Automation

We know… Building a brand on Instagram isn’t easy. There is a lot of competition out there, and making a name for yourself can be a time-consuming task. But, that’s why you have Instagram automation to help you out!

What is Instagram Automation?

Instagram automation can be thought of as marketing assistance. When you use an Instagram bot, it likes, comments and follows people for you.

With access to your account, automation tools and bots can massively increase your following. The best part is they’re able to do this with little effort from your side. This means you get more time to focus on your actual content.

This is the activity screen of MegaFollow, a popular automation tool. Notice that it lets you choose the activities you want to automate along with the time. Here are 6 expert tips and tricks to take your automation game to the next level.

1. Follow an Instagram Automation Strategy

Give your account a lot of thought before bringing in the bot.

Sit down and ask yourself what is your blog about, and what is your engagement target? Once you have some good content on your blog, start working out where you want to go.

First, what is your niche? Narrow it down. Then, start looking for the most popular hashtags in your niche. This will help you find an audience. Generic hashtags might seem cool but specific ones will benefit you more.

Related: you can build the best Instagram Feed ever

Let’s say, you’re a food blogger from London. It might be tempting to pepper your posts with #foodblogger. But remember, that hashtag has a lot of posts.

With so many posts, it will be super hard for your post to trend for that hashtag. That means most followers might not see it. Why? Because you have massive competition – there are probably tons of established bloggers using that hashtag.

Related: why you should switch to Instagram Business Profile.

On the other hand, if you use a hashtag like #londoneats, with a more focused audience and less posts, you’ll have more chances of gaining new, loyal followers. These people are searching for posts in the same niche! They will likely stick with you for a long time, and you’ll be able to reach more of them!

Why is this important? Because most automation tools will ask you which hashtags your posts contain and which ones you want to follow! Information like this is crucial to getting the most out of your bot.

More stuff to focus on includes: planning-out cool comments for the bot to use, finding blogs likely to follow you and the tags they follow, and deciding what age, location and gender (etc) your target audience is. Whew! This should keep you pretty busy for a while.

2. Create Good Content

Remember: your bot can only build on your brand. Even if it succeeds in getting you a lot of followers, your account will need to offer them something substantial for them to stick around.

There are millions of accounts on Instagram – why would anyone follow yours if it doesn’t interest them?

When you start blogging, make sure you take time to establish a consistent theme and publish posts with good, visually-striking content. Make sure your content and captions aren’t generic, since people are tired of seeing the same stuff.

Once you decide on a niche and theme, feel free to experiment. Think differentiated content, background colors, and filters, but keep to your established style. It’s tough! So invest at least a few months into creating good content before you decide to try Instagram automation.

This popular food blogger has amassed a huge following on her account by making sure she has awesome content:

Notice how she switches things up with videos and keeps her pictures personal

Pro Tips: Invest in a good camera. Posts with faces get more engagement. Be witty in the captions. Put hashtags in the first comment and not the caption.

3. Do Your Research

Before you start with any kind of Instagram Automation, make sure you know who your audience is and what it is they want from you. And, of course, what you want from them!

Locate your audience and see which hashtags they use the most, and which ones they are likely to follow. Go for the ones with fewer posts to allow your post to trend – and then also take a leap of faith and go for the ones with a greater number of posts.

The engagement you get from trending in a small hashtag will help your post stand out in the bigger tag!

Find out who the other bloggers in your niche are. Follow them and see what they are doing right and where they seem to be messing up. If they like your blog, they might even follow you back – win-win!

Locate your competition too. For instance, if you’re a fashion blogger from the Middle East, see who else is blogging about fashion in your region. Browse through the comments and tags of these blogs to see what topics your audience cares about.

Also, see what your competition is doing well and do it better! With your own innovative twist, of course.

Curate comments according to what your audience wants. For example, different groups of people have different slang. Also, some niche-specific blogs get more engagement using local languages as opposed to English because their followers are more comfortable with that.

Plan-out those important decisions, as they will impact what you tell your bot.

4. Get Creative with Comments

Everyone who has used Instagram Automation bots working incorrectly has a horror story to tell. Imagine commenting “great!” on someone’s post about a deceased relative, or “that’s an amazing picture” on a video.

Super embarrassing, right? It can also make people unfollow you real fast.

When deciding on comments, the first rule is to try to humanize it as much as possible.

Your comments should ooze sincerity. Make your comments heartfelt, like: “Woah, that’s one great meal” and get your hashtags put in right to make sure the comment goes under a picture/video of someone’s food.

While some comments may be neutral, others should be witty and personal. Mix it up!

MegaFollow allows you to set comments for specific hashtags. The tool is super safe and easily lets you feed in a range of comments for different tags.

5. Don’t Forget to Unfollow

Your account can get blocked if you don’t comply with Instagram’s rules. Instagram doesn’t allow anyone to follow more than 7500 people. Seriously, no human would need so many followers – your feed would be a mess!

Anyway, the point is, if your bot doesn’t play by the rules, you can lose your account. So, keep an eye on the Instagram automation tool to make sure you don’t get to that number. Better yet, chose a tool that knows this and won’t get you in trouble.

MegaFollow to the rescue again! This service is totally Instagram-policy-friendly and makes sure you always maintain an amazing ratio by allowing you to turn on the ‘unfollow’ option. I’ll let them explain what a ‘ratio’ is.

6. Remember to Be Human

On a daily basis, even if you don’t turn off the automation, remember to take some time out to surf, like, comment and experience Instagram on your own*.

*Note: this can be a tiny bit dangerous since you don’t want to tip off Instagram’s algorithm by exceeding the comments and likes allowed daily. It’s safer to turn off the tool when you scroll on your own. Most bots make this easy by giving you a handy off switch.

If you’re a fitness blog, browse through the tags and find folks you like. Check out that routine and diet everyone’s been raving about. Turn on your location and look for gyms nearby, so you know what they’re up to.

This can be important as a blogger since you will make decisions about your followers and personal brand that no bot ever can. Your audience will also appreciate you engaging with them and replying to their comments. Some may have left advice you definitely want to see, or opportunities you’ll want to follow-up on.

Automate Your Way To The Top!

Instagram is important and so is automation. This article can go a long way in helping you start an amazing blog. But, it’s not all there is to it. There are a ton of other things you can do to boost engagement, but these 7 points should get you started – whether you’re a business, blogger, or even a model looking to promote your personal brand.

If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them below. We would love to hear from you!