Engagement Groups & How They Can Ruin Your Account
That title was dramatic, wasn’t it? Well, engagement pods can be either a Hail Mary for you if you are looking to grow quickly, increase your engagement (although inorganically) but these groups can make Instagram rage with anger, and potentially block, remove or deactivate your account. If you’re new to Instagram, or my blog, this may be something to ponder later down the line, but for those rearing to go and grow their account — take some serious consideration to this potentially harmful hack and think about whether it’s a route you want to risk.
What are engagement groups?
Engagement groups are direct message groups on Instagram with a couple to 100+ users, some of which may know each other, but likely do not or are more online acquaintances. Also known as engagement pods, these groups share each other's posts or notify each other that they have posted so that the rest of the group will go like, comment, save, follow, and share or some combination of these mechanics. These groups are usually formed within a niché so say fashion, or food, or travel, so that the engagement can be seeming as “organic” as possible.
Do engagement groups comply with Instagram guidelines?
In short: no. According to Instagram’s guidelines:
“Don’t participate in any “like, “share:, “comment” or “follower” exchange programs.”
Now for my long-ish answer: no. The reason that these engagement groups do not comply is that they go against the entire algorithm which is the backbone of how Instagram works. If users are working against the algorithm in using false engagement from the same users, this is exactly against what is stated above and in the Instagram use guidelines. Will people still be in these groups and not care? Sadly, yes.
How engagement groups can ruin your account?
So let’s be real, the top reason why this could kill your account is that being in these groups is against the rules, don’t play by the rules, maybe you won’t be allowed to play at all. Yes, Instagram may never notice, totally, but I’m a goodie-two-shoes and it makes me super freaking nervous when people tell me they are in a pod or want to join one because it could be the start of their demise! Again, me being dramatic, but I think we’ve realised I’m a dramatic person by now anyway.
Other than Instagram as a company is against the activity, the actual technology that Instagram have employed behind the algorithm could detect this false ecosystem of likes, shares, comments, etc that has been created and realise something is going on that doesn’t seem right. Once the algorithm realises something isn’t right, it doesn’t want to support you. It may slowly and torturously ban you from things that you didn’t even know existed like how only a percentage of your audience is shown your content when you post and eventually this group gets bigger depending on people’s feedback to your post, and this audience outside of your group may get smaller and smaller without you noticing that the group was really the reason why. Or maybe it would be like “why is @janesmith always getting 75 likes and comments in the first 5 minutes from the same dang people!?” Either way, the all-seeing eye of Facebook’s algorithm will catch onto these things.
What should I do if I’m asked to join one and don’t want to?
OMG, I’m so flattered you’d ask me -- because this was actually a question I got from a lovely Insta-friend of mine when she was approached and had no idea what to do or what to say. Of course, you can totally be honoured that someone took the time to think and decided they wanted you to join, but you don’t have to say yes if it’s something you’d prefer not to participate in. Kindly say thank you, but no thank you. You don’t need to explain yourself and the people inviting you should not pressure you. If you’re a new account and you think this will help grow your account, it’s false engagement, so try some other tips and tricks to grow rather than joining these groups.
There are other ways to support each other through liking, commenting and engaging and the best solution is to turn on post notifications for the accounts you want to support. You’ll get a little ping each time they post and you can swipe to open, comment, like, etc, and not be a part of something that does exactly the same thing as post notifications yet is inorganic and against Instagram guidelines.
If after reading this, you want to join an engagement group, start your own, etc, then I wish you much luck, but that was not my intention with this blog post.
What’s the bottom line?
Ultimately, you will find that a ton of other people on Instagram are actually in these groups, whether they just call it a giant group chat or an engagement pod, either way, I hope everyone gets to the point that they do not feel they need to fall back on them -- and if you haven’t joined one yet, I urge you greatly not to. For your account health, and for your own sanity (imagine having to like and comment on 100 people’s photos AND then do your normal bit of engaging, etc) think twice before you dive into it.
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7 Questions Answered: What I Wish I Knew When I First Became An Influencer
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