An Insider’s Guide to Instagram Celebrities’ Secret Weapon – The Instagram Pod
As long as Instagram has been around, there has been a constant arms race between brands and influencers who want to ‘hack’ the algorithm for maximum reach and engagement.
These efforts have created some of the most creative marketing trends and some have even forced Instagram to implement platform wide changes.
One tactic, however, that has persisted and is like a secret weapon for some of your favorite Instagram celebrities is – Instagram pods.
Instagram Pods? What are those?
If you have a lot of followers, you have likely been invited to one or several of these already.
But if you haven’t, Instagram pods are basically groups that are made up of 10-15 Instagram profiles with a lot of followers, similar audiences and interest groups. All of these people are looking to increase their engagements and other metrics, and they collaborate together to make sure it happens.
Each time someone from the ‘Pod’ posts a picture or video, they will share it in the group chat. The other members will then go in, like the picture and leave a genuine comment that’s relevant to the piece of content in question.
Regular users who see that one of the accounts they follow has liked and commented on a piece of content are then more likely to engage with it.
How did Instagram pods begin?
Pods were a direct response to Instagram taking away chronological feeds a few years ago, and they have persisted due to their sheer efficacy.
As you are probably aware, the Instagram algorithm is constantly working to build connections between profiles and showing users only what they might be most interested in.
Why Instagram pods work
If you’ve been posting on Instagram for the past year or so, you may have noticed that pure organic reach is slowing down. To really attract a large audience, you need to ensure your post gets featured on the Explore page.
Instagram has many different factors to take into account while deciding whether a piece of content shows up on one of the many Explore tabs, but one of the major ones is short term engagement. Basically, the algorithm is evaluating how many likes and comments your post gets in the immediate time after you post it.
If your post is getting a lot of likes rapidly, the algorithm determines that it is a quality post that is worthy of moving up the feed and on the Explore page.
Instagram pods work because they are comprised of powerful individual accounts. A like or comment from each of the members in the pod could potentially open up your post to thousands of new people and has the possibility of going viral if it reaches the trending spots on the Explore tab.
Secondly, Instagram wants powerful accounts like brands and influencers to comment and engage with each other’s posts. It encourages collaboration and improves the total time spent by regular users on the app.
As long as the comments posted by members of the pod stay relevant and witty, everyone benefits.
How do I become a part of one of these pods?
First, you need to find a pod that you want to be invited into.
Usually, these pods aren’t talked about except through private chats or word of mouth. If you have a sizeable audience already, it might be easier for you to get invited to a pod. If you don’t have much of an audience, you might have to pay to be a part of these, at least at the beginning.
A lot of models use Instagram pods because they’re advertising to essentially the same audience.
You can also find pods through Facebook groups or forums about Instagram marketing or online business. Each pod has their own rules regarding engagement and helping the other members of the pod out.
If you’re thinking this sounds like a good idea and want to start your own Instagram pod, keep in mind that you have to give as much as you receive and it takes work. Going like for like and comment for comment in a pod can quickly get overwhelming if there are a lot of members. Just imagine a pod with 20 members with each posting 2-3 times per day!
More often than not what you should be looking to do is delegate the pod work to a member of your team you have hired specifically for social media management.
You’ll have to remain organized and deal with a lot of notifications and direct messages, but Instagram pods are extremely powerful if you can keep up.
Instagram pods are a great tool that a lot of brands use and is actually the secret way a lot of marketing agencies are able to get engagement and views for their Instagram clients. They function the way Instagram wants social media to function, so there isn’t much of an ethical grey area you need to grapple with.
So, if your metrics have plateaued and you really want to step in and compete in the big leagues, consider joining an Instagram pod. It might be the best marketing investment you’ll ever make!e