Engaging with your customers on social media platforms is a must for any business that wants to stay relevant and competitive. However, with so many different platforms to run and users often demanding an instant response, staying on top of your social media accounts and maintaining a solid and effective social presence can become overwhelming.

However, by automating aspects of your digital communication, you can free up time and resources to implement other parts of your social media strategy more effectively. Using AI-powered chatbots to automate responses on your social media accounts can benefit both customers and your business. Chatbots provide customers with the answers or information they want and free up agent time to be used elsewhere.

This article will look at automation tools for Instagram specifically, exploring what they are, how they work, and why using them could benefit your business.

Instagram automation Instagram automation

What is Instagram automation?

Instagram automation is when you use bots to, for example, schedule posts, automate engagement to comments your brand is mentioned in, or answer messages on your Instagram account without you having to lift a finger.

There are many different bots and automation solutions for different purposes, and businesses should consider their audience, use case, industry, and unique goals before choosing the right one for their requirements.

The bots used for Instagram automation boast advanced programming techniques. This means they can follow other profiles, like content, answer polls, create event comments, or send direct messages to other account holders. Users can also take advantage of a wealth of behind-the-scenes tools that can help with publishing, reporting, and analytics tasks. This frees up employee time to focus on delivering a superior customer experience elsewhere.

In a 2021 report from Ascend2, when businesses were asked where they most often use marketing automation, social media management came in second at 47%.  This means that if you want to stay competitive, using automation tools to manage menial social media tasks is a necessity to remain competitive.

Instagram bots can take on many of the routine tasks required to operate and maintain social business accounts successfully. Maintaining social accounts, such as Instagram, through Instagram automation tools can help businesses to build their online appearance effectively.

Using bots to manage Instagram business accounts is becoming more and more mainstream. As AI technology advances, the programming and technology behind the bots will advance, making them even more engaging, helpful, and precise.

What are the benefits of Instagram automation?

The benefits of Instagram automation for businesses are numerous and include:

Instagram automation: Best practices

To create memorable experiences for your customers, you need to consider these 4 elements:

1. Relevance
2. Consistency
3. Creativity 
4. Speed

If you are going to engage with Instagram automation, you first need to consider how to set up the technology in a meaningful way, so your customers still benefit from the above.

Advances in conversational AI mean you can engage with your potential customers in a chatty, human-like way. You can help them by answering questions, solving simple problems, and directing them to useful links or product pages using chatbot automation. 

While Instagram automation tools are perfectly legal to use, it’s important to fully understand Instagram's terms of service to ensure you use them in a way that complies. It is permitted to automate tasks such as scheduling posts, deleting or hiding comments, responding to comments, or using bots to generate reports. 

However, Instagram has some pretty strict anti-automation rules, and if they suspect you of inauthentic activity, you could be penalized by the platform.

Instagram automation tools are there to enable businesses to improve and streamline Instagram marketing efforts and implement a robust social media strategy, but you need to be careful. Using automation wisely is important for your reputation and your business; you are looking to gain real followers, after all. Fortunately, Instagram automation tools, such as Freshchat, can help you streamline your Instagram marketing without breaking Instagram’s rules.

4 tips to set you up for success with Instagram automation 

 

Use the right tools

Plenty of great growth tools are embedded in the Instagram app. Using chatbots to answer FAQs and direct users to helpful information or product recommendations frees up your social media manager's time, enabling them to focus on higher-priority strategic tasks and growth campaigns instead. Doing so will make your business more successful on the platform and reduce mundane, repetitive tasks that employees find unenjoyable.

Embrace the bot

You don’t need to try and hide the fact that you are using a bot. If your Instagram bot means people can find their answers or information faster, they won’t mind. Plus, even with developments around AI and the use of natural language processing to make bots more human-like, most people can still tell when they are interacting with a bot and not a human. 

Be honest and trust that proactive communication can improve customer loyalty and sales figures. Make sure your bot is programmed to meet your brand’s tone of voice so that the customer experience feels seamless.

Don't spam people with automated messages

Only 55 percent of Instagram followers are actually real human beings. This translates to the remaining 45 percent being a mix of bots, inactive accounts, and fake followers. if you use yours to spam your customers, you’ll not only lose them but you could be penalized under Instagram’s terms of service.[6] 

In short, don’t take the social out of social media. Too many lackluster, lazy, automated comments will earn you a bad rep. Personalized communication will always get more attention — and it doesn’t have to be overly complex either. A friendly greeting using the recipient’s name might be all it takes to capture their attention and get them listening to what you have to say.

Build now, save later

Developing your Instagram automation strategy can be labor-intensive at first. However, if you invest in it now, you’ll save hours later. Considering the content, creating a theme, developing a robust strategy, and creating the automation itself is undoubtedly time-consuming. However, if done well, the results pay off.

You’ll save time and money by not having to manually reply to every one of those new leads and providing customers with the information and answers they need with no human contact necessary.

Why choose Freshchat bots to automate customer engagement on Instagram?

Using Instagram automation is stepping up another rung on the ladder when it comes to delivering excellent customer focus within your business strategy. By using the Freshchat <> Instagram integration, you can deliver superior customer experiences to your target audience, create connections, and foster loyalty through meaningful, real-time conversations.

 With Freshchat, you can automate the following actions on Instagram:

If you want to increase your Instagram growth using automation tools, there are a number of opportunities to do so. Using Instagram automation features correctly can increase your following, widen your reach, and help customers engage with your brand. By connecting your Instagram account with Freshchat, you can manage all your Instagram business accounts in one place, respond to customers more quickly, and deliver a unique and personalized experience.