This is a public request to ALL PEOPLE USING BOTS TO COMMENT ON INSTRAGRAM: Please stop. Just stop. Right now. Not only is it annoying but it can be incredibly insensitive, hurtful and properly out of line.
Please for the love of all things good, stop paying to use bots to comment on Instagram. I know I know you don't have time to comment and interact. Seriously I'm here to tell you that you do. Block off an hour on your calendar to personally interact on posts. Using bots makes you and your brand look bad. It makes Instagram look bad. It makes HUMANS in general look bad. And it's just lazy, shady, shallow and sad.
A colleague in one of my Facebook groups had this to say after she posted a photo with a link to her blog post about her miscarriage on Instagram:
"This week I published a blog post about my miscarriage. I posted on Instagram linking to the blog. Some of the comments I got were DEFINITELY from bots. This kind of post is not the kind to be commenting ‘More of this please!’ (more miscarriages?) or ‘Brilliant!’ (really?) or 'very nice!' (stopit) or 'please check out my feed!' (Thanks but no thanks). I’ve deleted most of them, but not before I politely messaged each commenter and told them what their bots were doing." Emma Whiley Flourish and Dwell
Seriously, let's make a conscious effort to keep social media actually social. Stop paying your bots and start scheduling your authentic interacting on Instagram time.