Should you engage in bots to help boost your online presence?
Do you want the answer now so you can go about your day? No, you should not engage in bots to help with your Instagram or wherever else you can use them!
Yes, they make life easier and give you more time in your business, BUT, there are better ways to get more time in your business AND to attract the aligned audience you want.
Hiring a bot to engage for you won’t have the same impact as you showing up authentically would.
So how do we get the level of engagement we want AND at the same time, be consistent and not spend hours on social media?
It is all about being authentic and I have the tips to help you be authentic without feeling like content creation consumes your day.
Here is how you do it AND how you can be authentic!
Get a content strategy
You know I will harp on this as long as I am in business! Have a content marketing strategy! Once you have the strategy in place, you know when you can engage and what type of content your audience needs!
You have the strategy, and this strategy helps you show up authentically because you will feel prepared. A content strategy also SAVES YOU TIME!! So you don’t need to hire the bots to create the engagement, you will do it on your own!
Identify your brand
Have you identified your brand? Do you have it all laid out! Have a think about your brand as a whole and really establish what your brand represents!
When you do this you want to look at the following:
Voice: How do you speak to your audience, I have a free guide to help you
Style: What is your style? From written style to design
Mission: What is your purpose for your business and do you tell your audience this?
Vision: Where do you see your business going? I did an IG post on this for myself!
Buckets: What are the types of things you talk about? Some obvious but others make you unique! Some might include hobbies and interests
Themes: Your weekly theme/topics, this helps with content planning and consistency
Pillars: We all know how much I love these, but they help you SAVE TIME!! See more on it here!
What has this got to do with bots?? If you put these into place for your business, you will NO longer need bots, you will have time in your business to show up authentically as YOU and you will have more time to connect with people as yourself!
Once you establish all of these and your values, SHARE THEM!! Your values will resonate with the people who are aligned to you and that is how you will build the audience authentic to you!
Build the connection
You don’t need the bots if you build the connections on your own!! Here are some simple ways to do this:
Voice message new followers
Listen to my podcast on this (it will give you SO much insight and inspo)
Build the connections yourself!!! Don’t leave it up to chance. If you get a message from someone you have connected with through a bot, you will look pretty silly when you don’t know who they are!
Get educated
To show up authentically, educate yourself! Listen to podcasts, hire a coach (whether that is business, content or life coach) or do a course!
Personal branding is KEY, whether you have established one or not, you always can be learning. Plus we know, the more energy we put in, the more we get out of it. If you do the work to establish your personal brand, you won’t need the bots and you will be spending less time working on it in the future!!
There is SO much content out there on how to show up authentically online! Of course, it is like am muscle, it will continue to grow and expand! Don’t expect to have it all worked out!
Do the market research
Instead of hiring a bot. Do your own market research!! Look at your audience, find out the content they want and provide it to them!!
Once you create the content they need, you will get the level of engagement you need without spending money on fake engagement, and trust me, you might be getting the views or the followers, but are you getting the alignment??
Market research is SO important, I can’t stress this enough!
Want to start? Here is some good content:
Remember NO ONE LIKES A BOT
Please remember this, no one likes them! They are painful and impact market research SO much! If you are doing a poll or a quiz and bots answer, they aren’t authentically answering. They are just choosing an option!
These are the pieces of advice I want to give you:
Be unapologetic and be real
Be confident and SHOW UP (see more here)
Don’t be afraid to show you and your brand
Remember you won’t attract everyone and that’s okay - you will attract those aligned to you, not the people you have paid for or engaged with via a bot
The journey to authenticity
My journey to being authentic didn’t come straight away! It takes time and the more you do it, the easier it gets. I struggled to show who I was, to begin with. I thought I had to show a level of professionalism and I thought some things were best left offline, which is true.
But I found I left majority of my life offline, which made it harder for people to resonate with me. Now I show my true self and my true brand. I share my visions and my journey so people can see me for who I am.
I often get messages now saying how real I am and how much people love following my journey and that melts my heart!! It wasn’t like this when I started!
I owe it to these things:
Having a strategy and a plan
Identifying my brand voice, style and identify
NOT engaging in people who want me to pay them for $1k+ followers
NOT paying for a bot and actually engaging with content myself
See where I am going with this one?? You can do that same, TRUST ME!!
Risks of bots
In case you didn’t realise, Instagram and I’m sure other social platforms, discourage the use of bots! It isn’t what the platforms are about.
The platforms are about engaging with people, not robots. It is about creating and building connection!!
So some of the risks you run with bots include:
Shadowbanning: where you get a form of ban on your account and parts of your content isn’t shown organically. This happens if you add too many people or engage with too much content. It is aimed to stop the bots It isn’t authentic Of course, not in the policy of social media platforms.
Here are some other blog articles to really back me up on this!
Final thoughts
If you want to invest some money into your social media, hire a content coach, hire a strategist or pay for ads! There is SO much you can do other than the bots.
Also, here is my best tip, just be authentic! Put the plan in place, follow the plan and do the groundwork! Then you can hire a VA or social media freelancer to help you continue your social media journey!
Be you, set your personal/business brand and deliver for your audience! YOu will be respected and appreciated a lot more! Plus, your engagement will be a lot more sustainable!!