Everything Bloggers & Influencers Don’t Want You to Know About Instagram

Huge loop giveaways, “ghosts,” fake engagement and more, there’s so much fishy stuff going on behind the scenes on Instagram that it’s hard to tell whose follower count is genuine. Influencers are popping out of the woodwork and have taken the platform by storm, many of which are clogging it with inaccurate stats and bad practices. Keep reading for everything bloggers and influencers don’t want you to know about Instagram.

You guys know that I’m really transparent with you. I think of everyone that reads my blog as friends, because let’s be honest, if you’re reading my content and keeping up with me, I think it has to go beyond just general curiosity. Though I’ll be speaking a lot of truth in this post, the reality is that Instagram is a very “you do you” platform, which is both good and bad. Though there are so many things I wish other bloggers/influencers wouldn’t do to cheat their way to the top, I have no control over that. With that being said, here’s my side of things.

LOOP GIVEAWAYS

Hold on tight because this is the topic I feel most passionate about. Giveaways have become popular, mostly as a method to grow your following. If you’re unfamiliar with how they work, basically each participant “buys in” by providing a portion of money used to purchase the prize and they each post their photo/caption at the same time.

Personally, I like doing giveaways for a few reasons, listed below in order of importance:

• I get to give back to my readers/followers
• I get to give away a product or service that I love and recommend for you to try
• If I team up with a couple people, it helps expose our accounts to each other’s similar audiences in a fun, non-evasive way

I think giveaways are fun when kept genuine and small. About 8 or so people (preferably less than 5) is my personal limit and I only like to collaborate if:

1. I love what we’re giving away
2. I feel connected to the others involved
3. I trust the others involved

I think it’s important to not do them crazy often as well, but there are some concerns that arise when the giveaway and the prize itself becomes larger.

Unfortunately, there isn’t always confirmation that the prize is real at all. Think about it — if it’s a huge prize, have you actually seen the person who won (if you even know who that is — was the account announced?) receive it? Some of them are so outlandish (free vacation, Louis Vuitton bag, etc.) that it would be nice to see the winner with the prize to legitimize it, but that doesn’t always happen.

Let’s be real here, doing giveaways is a form of buying followers, and all these big ones are done solely for that purpose. That’s probably safe to assume at that point as they cram in the largest number of bloggers/influencers they can to grow their reach. They create an image that they all post on their accounts tagging everyone you have to follow to enter, then after the giveaway is over, often times they delete the image from all of their feeds (or remove the handles of everyone that’s tagged in the post) to make it harder for you to go back and unfollow them. Deceptive and kind of gross, right?

GHOSTS

Though it does not shock me that these exist, this is something I had seen confirmed with my own eyes this week. A “ghost” is where someone pays twice as much (usually) to be part of the giveaway so they can be unlisted and they themselves don’t have to post the giveaway photo on their own feed, but they’re tagged as a required follow by everyone else involved. I mean, does it get any shadier than that? Freaking YIKES. This means they could be part of multiple giveaways at once, but since there are no photos promoting them on their own feed, it’s all secret behind closed doors and makes it look like their follower growth is organic and not stemmed from incentives of giving away free products.

I’m so confused how we’ve gotten to the point where this seems like an okay thing to do. Like I said, this is considered buying your followers in a roundabout way, and it becomes a bigger issue when you’re doing everything in your power to hide from them afterward so they can’t unfollow you. To me, that obviously shows that the bloggers/influencers only care about the number that person adds next to their name on Instagram and they don’t actually care if they follow them because they like them or not.

FAKE ENGAGEMENT

Here’s another negative — to convince these people not to unfollow them, some of the girls hosting the giveaway will comment on people’s pages who have entered (as well as the other influencers/bloggers they’ve teamed up with) to boost engagement and essentially convince them that they have some sort of connection. I’m all about supporting others, but not when it’s fake and forced. Often times, these forced comments don’t even go with the caption. The picture could be a photo of themselves with a caption talking about how awful of a day they had, and there will be comments that say “pretty!” and “so cute!” That’s usually a big indicator of whether they’re just commenting to comment.

What scares me the most is that this has become common practice, and with all morals aside, people are doing these things simply because they see other people doing it and becoming successful numbers-wise from it. I want to shake them and tell them not to fall into the trap and to not stoop down to their level by participating. Whether you’re new to blogging/influencing or not, please don’t do this. You’re killing your engagement by doing so (a bunch of followers means nothing if they don’t actually interact with you and your content) and creating an online space that’s completely inauthentic.

EVERYONE WANTS TO BE AN INFLUENCER

Last but not least, I want to touch on the huge influx of influencers that are popping up on Instagram. I got started in the blogging space because I was in need of a creative outlet, and I’ve always had a huge passion for writing, designing and photography. I started blogging solely for myself with no attention of ever getting followers, traveling and making money because of it. That’s not why I’m here and that’s not why I continue to do what I do.

It’s a weird concept to me that people wake up one day and think “I want to be an influencer” and just start posting pictures on Instagram in hope of soon receive free products. You can’t just decide to influence people, it doesn’t make any sense. It’s hard to correlate that with a genuine passion for creating and sharing when it’s started with the sole intention of becoming an “influencer.” Are you starting due to genuine passion? What value do you bring to the table? What if Instagram goes away tomorrow, do you have a backup plan?

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I’ll stop this here because I could go on forever. If you take away anything from this post, I hope this encourages you to stick to your guns and not do what everyone else is doing simply because it appears to “work.” Be genuine and mindful of your actions on Instagram. I’d love to continue this conversation in the comments! I’ve linked some of my other blog posts that may be helpful as well. Also, check out the video below from a fellow Indy blogger — she messaged me this morning in agreeance saying she just posted a video on the same topic, so give it a watch for some more insight. Thanks so much for reading & check back for another new post on Wednesday!

• Why You Should Prioritize Your Blog Over Instagram
• Let’s Talk: Bloggers and Influencers Contributing to a “False Reality” on Instagram
• Unethical Rookie Blogger Mistakes to Avoid: Part 1