Welcome to Instagram Spam

Bea Media Group on July 12, 2016

Instagram Spam or Insta-Spam, is the new unsolicited email. That notification on your phone has the potential to be your best friend asking you to make plans for Saturday night or it can be something much worse.

In June, Instagram was able to boast a user base of 500 million people with over 300 million using the platform every single day.

A video posted by Instagram (@instagram) on

The platform has continued to grow in popularity and has some of the best engagement rates for marketeers in the industry. Simply Measured believes Instagram has engagement rates that are 15 times higher than Facebook and 20 higher than Twitter. This means what ever you are selling has to be on point when it comes to design, otherwise you’ll be ignored and not get that all important ‘double tap’.

The downside, as there is always one, is that high engagement rates means lots of opportunity for spam – and Instagram has it by the bucketload.

spam
noun

  • irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent over the Internet, typically to large numbers of users, for the purposes of advertising, phishing, spreading malware, etc.

Welcome to Instagram Spam

A while back, Instagram instigated the great purge of 2014 which saw lots of users lose followers (essentially spam or fake accounts), for instance Justin Bieber lost 3.5 million followers, and Instagram themselves lost 18.8 million.

… lost 3.5 million followers!!

That should give you an idea of the levels of spam on Instagram, and that was back in 2014, which would mean that of JB’s followers 4.2% were fictitious. Those volumes have either maintained or grown alongside the popularity of the site as spammers always find the next way of staying relevant.

Let me explain this

Instead of telling you, let me show you an example of Instagram spam overkill.

I post regularly to Instagram (cheeky plug) and use hashtags to promote visibility of my photos and to help show off those photos to people who might be interested. However, hashtags make you very visible to Instagram spam. Unsurprisingly spammers take full advantage of this and respond in full force.

Here is a photo I posted to the platform and fell prey to a world of Instagram Spam:

Instagram-Spam-BeAdventurous

Instagram Spam

 

One post to Instagram, generated 73 comments – SEVENTY THREE!

And amazingly you’ll notice it only received 8 likes, which given the interest generated in the comments section, should have been higher. Of the eight likes, I actually know two of the accounts that liked my photo. On closer inspection of the other ‘likes’ on this photo, the remaining six likes are all from genuine accounts (aka not trying to sell anything).

Hashtags

Let’s look at how they got there in the first place. As I’ve mentioned, I use hashtags to help highlight my posts. Evidently hashtags have their uses to help other users discover my photos.

On this photo, I used the following hashtags:

#friend #friends #summer #fun #funny #love #instagood #igers #friendship #party #chill #happy #photooftheday #live #forever #smile #best #bestfriend #lovethem #bestfriends #goodfriends #besties #awesome #memories #goodtimes #goodtime

They are clearly the source of my Instagram spam. However I make use of hashtags everyday and on plenty of other photos on my Instagram account.

The difference was that I had never used this combination or theme (Friends) before. My thought process here is that the theme of ‘friends’ assumes you’ll be tagging your Instagram post with the accounts of your friends too, so what better way for a spam account to get reach than to target a photo that ensures their comments will be seen by you, your friends and friends of friends.

Smart really.

My Instagram Spam Solution?

To date this has worked.

I have begun creating my own hashtag lists, relevant to the subject of my photo. They are often a blend of subjects and therefore don’t tend to hit variant words, such as:

#friends #friendship #mates #besties #bffs

Until the next Instagram purge, we’ll have to live with the threat of Instagram spam, but it’s best you are aware of it next time your notifications go wild.

Sources

Instagram Today: 500 Million Windows to the World

Our Social Times

Collaboration Success

Bea Media Group on February 9, 2016

Want collaboration success on your next project? Of course you do.
But, how can you work with the right people and succeed?

Collaboration has a huge impact on social media platforms and on digital content as a whole. A collaboration has the ability to reach a wider audience and you can share the workload with other driven individuals, making it a cliché filled win-win scenario.

Lets be realistic for a second. Why do you need to collaborate when traditional teams are supposed to be well crafted groups of individuals, each providing a different personality and set of skills.

Reaching that team-nirvana is no mean feat when attempting to achieve the correct balance, it takes time. It can work, but mostly for large businesses who operate in a corporate manner, which doesn’t lend itself to the type of collaboration I’m talking about.

On a collaborative project, you don’t have the luxury of time or a wide pool of people to pick from, and your goals are very different.

COLLAB

So, why should this be any different than any other team project?

For one, everyone involved in a collaboration stands to gain. Whether they’re able to build their reputation with a wider audience, work on a specific portfolio item that makes them stand out, or just do cool S#!T.

You just can’t buy that kind of drive.

Collab is all about the scale of your ambition

In the world of collaboration, the end goal – that drive to publish your vision and content – is your boss.

Now’s a good time to discuss goals. Step 1, have some. Your team need to be clear on what you’re going to achieve, even if you’ve just one day to deliver it.

Now’s the time to speak up, outline your vision and throw it in the mix, this is a collaboration after all. You’ll be sharing that success with people just like you.

WORK WITH PEOPLE LIKE YOU

Yes, I would hate to work with someone exactly like me. But to work with people like you is one of the best moves you can make.

Collab is all about the scale of your ambition. If you’ve got it by the bucket-load, so should your team. You don’t have time to be second guessing yourself and neither do they.

It’s all about pressing forward, making mistakes early and changing your direction, but keep going. That’s your ambition talking.

Call it ambition or arrogance, it’s your fuel to deliver that new piece of content for your YouTube channel, or eBook published on Amazon. Either way you got there.

Working with people like you helps to keep you in check. Expect them to have big ideas, ambitions aligned to your own and the courage to change your direction when needed.

That last one is super important, the people around you were integral to that success, be glad they’re the right people.

COLLABORATION SUCCESS

To put it simply then, collaboration requires that hunger only someone completely vested in the project will have. They need skin in the game, if they stand to lose, suddenly their output is directly tied to the scale of their ambitions.

That’s why they should be someone like you. If the size of their ambition is anything like yours, that collaboration is going to be a winner.

COLLABORATION with SASH & BRONZE

When you can plan, script, shoot and edit a film like this with Sash & Bronze, that’s when you know you’re working with the right people for collaboration success.

Check out more of their work here. FACEBOOK // TWITTER // INSTAGRAM

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