instagram pods, what is it really about?
Instagram pods? What the heck is that about? I guess that’s someone’s question somewhere right now. Well let’s start with the borrowed word pod.
Pods are herds of marine mammals swimming together, like whales, dolphins, walruses and seals and the likes, for instance: it’s okay to say a pod of whales.
Now you have the idea why the word pod came in, an Instagram pod is basically a group of instagram users, mostly brand/business owners, like vendors, entrepreneurs and freelancers.
These guys come together to form a social media group, mostly on telegram and whatsapp, but in recent times instagram telegram-engagement pods is the most popular of them all.
The major objective of the instagram pod is to increase the engagement on their various brand pages, the engagement we are talking about here is the likes and comments on their various posts.
Meanwhile to ensure everyone benefits from the pod, they do set up some rules for the engagement, like: time of posting, time of engagement and etc.
To learn more about instagram pods, make use of the google search engine.
do you really need to join instagram pods?
Actually most of these podders tends to join more than one pod at a time, in order to skyrocket post engagements.
But the question is, do you really need to join one? This instagram pods thing evolved a couple of years ago, when instagram algorithm was changed.
Some folks were complaining of low engagement on their posts due to the change.
So the idea behind the podding was to manipulate the algorithm and boost post engagements. It’s only fair that one should first of all, find out how these new algorithm works before trying to manipulate it.
Of course if you want to tame a beast you should first study the beast right? Good, now here are the basic factors behind instagram algorithm:
- Relationship
- Usage Frequency
- User Interest
- Timeliness
Relationship
Relationship: If you tend to engage more on a particular user’s page, for instance: you always leave comments and likes on this person’s posts.
instagram will tend to put up these person’s posts and may be a few other similar posts on your feed.
It’s programmed to happen, and it will happen, so imagine being in a pod where the group members feed are flooded with 90% of posts from the members, may be 10% from other users like sponsored ads and etc.
usage frequency
Basically the instagram algorithm aims to show users the best posts according to “since last they viewed” their feed. Moreover this depends on how often a user opens the instagram app.
user’s interest
Just like i mentioned in the aspect of relationship above, the algorithm has a way of detecting the kind of posts you seems to engage on more often, hence lines such/similar posts up on your feed.
Let’s say you are a tech guy and you always engage on posts like coding, digital design, app building and etc, the algorithm will detect that as part of or majorly your interest overtime.
Automatically such posts will be coming up on your feed.
timeliness
Initially, on the aspect of usage frequency, I mentioned that users feed comes up with the posts from the last time they were online, if you are an instagram user, you will know that it happens,
But when you refresh your feed or leave it alone for a short time, it will refresh with the most recent posts on top.
This is why some people take advantage of this factor to rank high on their followers feed, by timing and dropping posts when their followers/audience would be online.
conclusion
It’s right to say that an average instagram users uses instagram for some specific reasons, like selling or promoting one’s brand/business, entrepreneurship, networking, chit chatting and etc.
Sadly, podding almost ruins all these objectives, let’s look at it a bit critically, has the aim changed from reaching your target audience to selling to a group of people that might probably not buy your services nor products?
Most of the pod members are there to sell their products and services too, not to buy from you, I want to believe you are putting up those posts to reach your target audience and customers.
Now is only fair you ask yourself, “are all the rigorous engagement on some posts which I might not even TRULY like worth it?”
In essence you are limiting your brand visibility to the pod group members only, after spending so much time on podding. It somewhat hurts, doesn’t it?
Most people are just too obsessed with likes and comments to the extent they forget their major objectives.
With podding you’d have a very thin chance of reaching your true target audience, even if you do some of them might perceive trickery and dishonesty on your post engagement.
Reputation is everything in business.
Joining Instagram pods is not the real deal, it reduces your chance of growth, you can do more research on your own after reading this post.
recommendations
It’s cool to have multiple likes and comments on your posts but let it be genuine, you can dedicate the time you spend on podding on creating good contents.
By creating good contents that are related to your business/brand, you’ll attract and reach the right audience for your business.
Not everyone is your potential client/customer, not every social media platform is good for your kind of business, try other platforms other than instagram, research for platforms where your target audience are likely to be.
Try and get a website if you don’t have one yet, have your developer set up wordpress installation for you, it’s pretty easy to upload content if you can learn.
Learn the basic SEO skills or hire an SEO expert, get your brand rank high on google search engine.
Use paid ads, this is where you can benefit from instagram and facebook again, these two social media giants still remains the best for social media sponsored ads for now.
Ask bloggers or pay them to blog about your products, hire a content manager if you have the funds, for content marketing through multiple channels like, email marketing, website/online-marketing and etc.
Avoid shortcuts like instagram pods and the likes, there is no elevator to success, you have to work hard and smart for it.
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