Why I "Scrape" Inactive Instagram Followers (as a small influencer)
This blog is for “hobbyist influencers” or people striving to make a full on career as an independent artist/producer/content creator. My experience is here to help inform your future decisions.
Instagram, along with a few other social medias, is the most important tool for showcasing music/content. If you’re trying to develop a career as an independent artist/music producer/content creator, without putting unique effort into your social media accounts, you’re hindering your success in a major way. I’ve had a very, shall we say, colourful experience with Instagram- full of peaks and valleys. Unfortunately, i’m trying to climb out of a valley right now.
I’ll give you some context before getting into the actual “scraping” part. I didn’t really utilize my Instagram account until around 2014 when I was a career session drummer/educator. I realized the importance of social media early on and started posting drum related content pretty much every day. Unfortunately, I was also paying for bots at the time, which I thought was working great! I was consistently gaining ≈ 50 followers/day until I reached 8 000 only to learn later on that I had stepped into a trap.
I’ve covered this topic extensively in a Youtube video, linked below. If you don’t have time to watch, bottom line is NEVER PAY FOR BOTS OF ANY SORT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Algorithms are too smart now and Instagram will instantly detect bot activity. You will be penalized in a real way. Your engagement will descend into hell, you will be marked as a “spammy” account and Instagram will render you WORTHLESS. People have actually lost their careers over this. So be careful aka JUST DON’T DO IT!
Ok, now that that’s out of the way.
About a year ago, I switched my account’s content, shifting focus onto electronic music/gear/software and informative/educative videos on Youtube. Because the majority of my followers consisted of either inactive bots and drummers who were not interested in this new content, they just weren’t engaging. That’s when I commenced operation “scrapey scrapey”. Surely you can see where i’m going with this. I MANUALLY removed about 6 000 followers from my Instagram account, because once again if you find a bot to do something like that, you will be penalized, every single time.
I didn’t understand how bot infested Instagram was until I took the time to do this. It suddenly made sense why their algorithm is so incredibly strict and sensitive. I believe that there are WAY more bots/spammy/inactive accounts than active ones on Instagram. Can you imagine how much that throws off the algorithm and delegitimizes the platform? They’re constantly fighting against that.
Instagram is by far the strictest platform of them all and now I understand why. If you haven’t scraped your account, I guarantee you that it’s infested with bots and inactive followers, which is bringing your engagement down, especially as a smaller influencer. Let me ask you, would you rather have 8 000 followers, the vast majority of them inactive? Or 1000-2000 ACTUAL active followers. Quality over quantity I say (and so does Instagram). On the other hand, i’d imagine that at a certain point, scraping is just not sustainable if you’re starting to get major engagement, growing to tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of followers. That’s a world that I’m not really familiar with and so I can’t say much about it. I’ll spark up a blog once it gets to that point.
Fast forward a couple months: I get rid of all of these inactive followers and suddenly people are actually seeing my posts again. I have a fraction of the followers but my engagement is OODLES higher than it’s ever been. I’m even being showcased at the top of certain hashtags that i’m including in my posts’ captions. This helped my content and ultimately my career as an influencer. The continued rising quality of my videos/performances didn’t hurt either.
Now fast forward to today- i’ve had a steady, healthy increase of followers over the past year or so. From about 2000 to 4000. Suddenly about 6 weeks ago, my engagement was pretty much cut in half and has continued to drop since. I can’t say that I fully understand it. I run my account 100% botless and still attract plenty of spammy/bot accounts which bring my engagement down, it’s inevitable. But then again so do all other growing accounts in my niche and a lot of them don’t seem to be having the same issues that i’m having. It really is a mystery to me. Not gonna lie, it’s been very VERY frustrating.
What i’ve noticed is that a lot of the accounts that are consistently growing along with rising engagement are either getting major exposure/following from elsewhere or they’ve “painted themselves into a box” aesthetic/content wise. And I don’t mean this in any sort of negative way. People go to these accounts because their content is consistent, high quality, visually pleasing and they know exactly what they’re going to see. The algorithm recognizes this and continues to push these accounts’ posts which leads to consistent growth.
Much like these other influencers, i’m also in a box, but that box has grown a lot in recent months. My content is consistent within the electronic music niche, but ever since I’ve become more varied with my aesthetic/choice of instruments/cam angles ect; my engagement has dropped dramatically and i’m currently struggling to bring it back. What i’m gathering from this is that maybe people don’t expect this kind of content from me and therefor aren’t engaging. Instagrams algorithm sees this and cracks the whip- or I should say doesn’t do anything at all. It’s a vicious cycle.
That being said, i’m developing myself as a brand and not the products that i’m using, which i’m learning just takes longer. This is something to be prepared for if you’re going down the same path as me, it’s a struggle. It looks like I haven’t gotten to that point on Instagram, where the algorithm recognizes me as a quality influencer, no matter what I post (within my niche). In other words, I haven’t “blown up” yet. THIS is why I commenced operation “scrapey scrapey” numero 2. I scraped away about 40% of my account’s followers because they were either bots/spammy/completely inactive. Based on my past experience, I know that this will only improve my engagement again. We’re in a new age where the amount of followers that you have can actually hinder you, especially as a micro influencer. It’s all about engagement % and if scraping inactive followers from your account helps, then by Zeus do it! More people will be seeing your content anyway, which is what’s most important. In the end, it’s the connections you make that will bring opportunities and not the amount of followers that you have. Bottom line- People appreciate quality content!
This brings me to my final and most important point; my ultimate goal as an influencer/content creator.
I’ve noticed that there’s a consistency when it comes to influencers who “break the algorithm”, meaning that they can post something whenever and no matter what there’s enough people who immediately engage, which triggers the algorithm to PUSH! Viewers know that no matter what product this person is featuring/what concepts they’re talking about, it will be unique and valuable BECAUSE it’s coming from that particular influencer. I’m not saying that bigger influencers don’t use the algorithm/SEO to their advantage (although some of them really don’t), but it’s becoming more and more clear to me that having an actual dedicated audience of real humans who actively (in some cases religiously) watch your content is the most valuable thing you can have as an influencer. It frees you up to cover more ground. It takes consistency, time and lots of patience to build to that point.
I say stay patient- put in extra effort, be nice, engage directly (and consistently) with your followers and turn your focus onto being unique. Hopefully the algorithm won’t get in your way. This is still something i’m striving for every. single. day.
If you’ve made it this far, you may also be interested in the video below: