I tried Instagram Engagement Pods and This is What I Learned | 2018

I think Instagram pods are ruining Instagram . I admit it, I’ve been a member of not just one Instagram pod, but several. Like most, I joined because I wanted my content to get infront of new audiences. Naively, I was also hoping to foster some real relationships with like-minded individuals: fellow food and travel bloggers living abroad. If my content could get a boost while building lasting, meaningful relationships, it felt like a win/win!

While I did make some lasting connections, 99% of the connections I made (after about two months) were purely conditional: follow for follow, like for like, comment for comment. The worst part? It started to feel really inauthentic . Confession: I was commenting on people’s photos that I didn’t even like. The cycle of inauthenticity was soul crushing .

I also didn’t expect there to be so much drama in these Instagram pods . Rules against link dropping. People unfollowing others. People getting kicked out of a pod for not contributing enough. Group owners who suddenly get a power trip because they’re finally “in charge” of something . In my opinion, this is breeding an awful Instagram culture: a culture of conditional relationships and people chasing cheap fame. For example, look at this absolute psychopath who got upset with me. This is what happened: Within 3 minutes, I posted and then caught up in the pod. But because I didn’t do it exactly in the order of the “rules”, she completely lost it and went on a rampage and called me out. People like this are ruining Instagram and give real bloggers a bad name! The irony? That same individual commented on my post not 3 seconds after delivering her rampage with a “Sounds like you’re living a fabulous life!!”

What’s also missing from using Instagram pods is authentic connection: building a real audience, a real community, and actually influencing and inspiring people. The lack of authentic connection and relationship building could be ruining Instagram – a channel originally meant for creative types to share their passions. I’m not the only one that feels this way. “True influence isn’t gaming a system, it’s being authentic and having people follow you because they trust and admire what makes you, you. Gaming Instagram only really creates suckers; Instagram, brands and the individual who’s gaming the very thing they are trying to achieve.” (Paul Armstrong, Forbes)

If you’re not sure what Instagram pods are, they’re private groups of Instagrammers that have similar audiences and the desire to increase their Instagram engagement. Instagram pods communicate with each other via Instagram DM’s, and every time someone in the pod publishes a new Instagram post, they share it in the group message thread. Instagram pod members will then click on the post, like it, and leave a comment (via Later).

Nick from Fstoppers said it best, “When you’re involved with an Instagram pod, it tends to not feel very genuine as time goes on. Let’s tell it how it is, the essence of an Instagram pod is as close as it gets to artificially pumping engagement without an Instagram bot.”

People use Instagram pods to hack Instagram’s algorithm so that your post shown more frequently on people’s feeds. Yes, this worked…but only to the people in my engagement pods. From my experience, engaging in Instagram pods didn’t expose my content to new audiences. Rather, it created an “echo-chamber” effect where I basically only saw my fellow Instagram pod members’ content in my feed and I’m sure they saw an influx of mine. However, that’s not the goal. Ideally, the goal of using an engagement pod is to hack Instagram’s algorithm into thinking your content is more popular. Instagram then boosts that content to brand new audiences. From my experience, this hasn’t been the case. I believe that using Instagram pods just makes your content more popular to the group that you’re trying to leverage to gain more exposure to the broader public. Basically, it’s not working the way people are hoping it is.

The other important thing to note is that brands are catching on to the Instagram comment pod trend. If brands are paying potential influencers based on their engagement, they’re hoping that the influencer will actually influence their audience to purchase their brand or service. This begs the question: Are bloggers who use Instagram pods engaging in fraudulent behavior since the engagement from these pods are potentially bot-like in nature? People who use Instagram pods negatively impact those bloggers and true influencers who work very hard to create authentic content that genuinely connect with the engaged audience they built over time. Paul Armstrong from Forbes comments suggests that Instagram pods could be considered fraudulent behavior. According to data from the anti-fraud company Sway Ops, in a single day’s worth of posts on Instagram, about 50% are fake engagements. The real test will be whether or not organizations, such as the Federal Trade Commission, will react to or prohibit fake engagements, and if so, how might those prohibitions trickle down into instagram pods. Truth be told, brands are already savvy to the growth of Instagram pods, and a push by the FTC might severely change the Instagram influencer landscape.

Personally, being part of an Instagram pod helped me come to  3 realizations:

1. Instagram wasn’t fun anymore. Being part of these comment pods did not spark joy. Ever since reading The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, I’ve been trying to follow the Marie Kondo way of living which is only doing things that spark joy. Ultimately, the negatives of being a member of an Instagram pod were outweighing the positives. The drama, the catty-ness, the inauthenticity – the negative feelings weren’t worth the few extra likes and comments on my posts.

2. I should be spending more time creating. The amount of time I spent keeping up with these pods was valuable time that I could be spending actually doing what I love: which is creating content. As a blogger and a YouTuber, I have endless to-do lists that include editing video, writing, editing photos, Pinterest, and the list goes on and on. I could be using that time in a much smarter way! I read a great quote recently that said as a creator, you should be creating 90% of the time and consuming what your niche is doing 10% of the time. I completely agree with that!

3. My goal is to produce a body of work that I’m proud of. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and asking yourself, “What is my goal with this?” It’s easy to get lost in the Instagram hustle for likes, comments and followers. When I took a step back and asked myself what my overall goal was with my blog, it didn’t align with what I was getting out of the Instagram pod. I want to build community and make real connections. That wasn’t happening using Instagram pods!

After coming to all of these realizations, I decided it was time to say goodbye to my comment groups  Quitting was the best feeling, like a huge weight off my shoulders. Suddenly, Instagram became fun again.

Not surprisingly, once I left the Instagram pods, many of the people in them very quickly unfollowed me.  Guess they weren’t real friends/fans/followers to begin with!

But again, this is all just my opinion. What are other bloggers and marketers saying?

“I wish it were easier to find people within less popular niches through engagement pods. I also wish people would take the time to read captions and respond thoughtfully with content rather than mass commenting on posts in ways that make it clear that they’re not genuinely interested.” – @dearcierra

“I like the idea of pods in theory because it is really hard to build engagement with posts. However, most of the pods I’ve been in have had people who took advantage of the group and either didn’t interact at all, or left really spammy generic comments. It’s frustrating!” –@moniquegoesplaces

“I’ve enjoyed being part of Instagram pods from the perspective of being connected to people who have been successful in growing their influence. I like seeing their posts and how they interact with their followers. This has helped me develop my strategy on Instagram, but I also feel like many pods are superficial. The ‘rules’ always say to write genuine comments that are more than four words, but this never happens. I’ve found people to be more on the receiving end – often posting only when they want comments and likes – but not engaging with others in the sae way. I’m also not convinced that having more likes and comments on my images actually expands my reach. I think it just promotes the post within that group of people. In fact, I’m going to start working harder to attract people who genuinely enjoy my content and engage with them. My following may not grow as quickly, but it will definitely be more authentic.” –@the.lavorato.lens

“Why on earth would anyone spend time and energy collecting ‘fake’ engagement instead of doing in-depth research on a target audience? Knowing exactly who you are trying to reach, what they like, what they buy, where they shop, and where they hang out is so much more essential than fake engagement or inflated numbers. Figure out where your audience is and go make friends with them. As Gary Vee says: ‘Become part of the landscape of your niche’, so when people think of your niche, they automatically think of you and know where they can buy the thing they need.” –@stationerynerd.blog

“I’ve never been part of a Instagram pod but did research and understand what they are. YouTube has sub4sub groups which are similar. At first, it can create a spike in reach and views, but it’s not real engagement. It’ll drop just as fast if you don’t produce quality content. It doesn’t matter how you try and cheat the system, if you produce content you enjoy and that other people find helpful, then you’ll win the system.” –@adventuresanddonuts

“I was in a lot of them on Facebook. I didn’t like comment pods on Instagram, it’s too time consuming to make sure you’re following everyone back and liking everyone’s posts. The group eventually moved to GroupMe so I left. There was a great Facebook group that was well organized with 4 or 5 moderators that would make sure that everyone was following the rules. Although I was getting an extra 100+ likes on photos, I recognized that they weren’t genuine. I ended up leavin that group because it was hard to find the time to like over 100 posts everyday.” –@theashacevedo  

What do you think? Are Instagram Pods ruining Instagram? Let me know in the comments section below!