How to build your Instagram DJ following with bots

Instagram ‘bots’ for DJs

What is an Instagram ‘bot’?

Instagram for DJs can be a very powerful tool…. Instagram bots can make it even more powerful. The bots will automatically engage with other users by way of liking, following and commenting in the hope they will engage back with you.

You can control ‘filters’ in the settings of the Instagram bots to target people who drop certain hashtags in their photos (e.g. #dj, #housemusic, #yourdjname etc). Alternatively, you can filter by following people who follow specific accounts (e.g. follow people who follow a similar DJ to yourself).

If you’ve ever had a complete random comment on one of your photos saying something like “nice” or “cool photo”, chances are it was an Instagram bot. In 2015, The Huffington Post predicted that millions of users are Instagram bots.

Disclaimer: Use at your own risk

Instagram’s policy is completely against using automated services to help attract new followers. If they find you using bots, they can suspend or delete your account, so use these techniques at your own risk.

When is best to use an Instagram ‘bot’?

I want to stress that you should only use this if you’re already posting native, organic content that people are engaging with.

I also suggest you use this strategy once you’ve already built a buzz around your name in the music/DJ world. If you do it this way your follower conversions will be much higher, mainly because people will have already heard of you but just didn’t take the time to find you on Instagram.

What is the best Instagram bot?

The only Instagram bot I have used personally is Instagress. There are plenty on the market, but I have had friends use others and seen them run into problems. I wouldn’t want to risk my Instagram account being deleted after breaching their policy. Fortunately, Instagress auto-follows people slowly (e.g. only 100 per day), which mean Instagram don’t suspect any suspicious behaviour from your account.

How do I use Instagress?

Instagress offer a free 3-day trial so you can test how the platform works for you. Beyond 3 days you’ll have to pay to use the service – it costs around $10 for 30 days usage.

After signing up you’ll need to set up some filters in the settings. Scroll down to get there…

5 Instagress filter tips to get you results!

There are hundreds of different settings you can change, but these are the most important at building your following:

Tags: This setting allows you to engage with people based on what hashtags they’re including in their posts. This is a good opportunity to engage with people who may already be talking about you. So in the tags section enter any events or record labels you may be associated with and also add your own DJ name (e.g. #dannysavage).
Usernames: This setting allows you to engage with people based on who they follow. Write a list of 10-20 DJs that make similar music to you, find all these DJs on Instagram and follow them. Then insert all of their names into the ‘usernames’ box – this will start the process of engaging with all their followers.
Don’t Comment: Instagress gives you the option of leaving a comment on people’s photos. While this is more likely to get you results, it’s super spammy and you’re more likely to get noticed for using these growth hacking tools. So my advice is to stay away from auto-commenting. Just stick to ‘likes’ and ‘follows
Start slowly: You can set the ‘activity speed’ to tell Instagress how fast you want it to work. My advice here is to always start using the platform slowly. If Instagram suddenly see you following 100s of accounts each day after you followed none before they might think you’re up to something. As the months progress, Instagress say you can up the speed.
Unfollow who don’t follow me: check this box – it’s under the ‘unfollow’ section. This will auto unfollow the people who don’t follow you back after a certain period of time. I’d also recommend that you check the box “don’t follow same users” as they’ll definitely notice your activity as spammy.