International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management (IJAEM)

Volume 3, Issue 7 July 2021, pp: 704-708 www.ijaem.net ISSN: 2395-5252

Instagram Automation
Shipra Varshney1, Swagatika Giri2, GauravBhojwani3, Nikhil Goyal4,
#
1
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta Institute of Technology and
Management, New Delhi
2
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta Institute of Technology and
Management, New Delhi
3
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta Institute of Technology and
Management, New Delhi
4
Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering, Dr. Akhilesh Das Gupta Institute of Technology and
Management, New Delhi
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Submitted: 25-06-2021 Revised: 04-07-2021 Accepted: 07-07-2021
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ABSTRACT -Social networking site is an online social media tools. This is the time when Instagram
platform which is used to build social networks Automation comes into picture. We have written a
with others. It is used to share ideas, showcase script for Instagram automation it manages the
talents or to inform about services to a large account, perform the required tasks without any
audience. One of such platforms is Instagram. This human presence.
paper presents an idea of automating the tasks of Instagram automation tools can describe into two
Instagram for influencers. An automated Instagram buckets:
could help influencers by saving their time and 1. Services that take control of the front-facing
energy. Traditionally influencers have to denote a interactions with users such as likes and comments
lot of time in growing their Instagram handles. The 2. Tools that automate Instagram behind the scenes,
Instabot performs various tasks such as liking and taking care of tasks such as publishing, reporting
commenting on bulk of posts together, following and analytics
accounts in bulk, collecting trending hashtags for a Features provided by our Instagram Automation
niche, getting information of popular accounts, Tool:
removing ghost accounts from their list of • Automating Likes, itallows you to acknowledge
followers and followings etc. All these tasks are more accounts and get your Instagram in front of
performed by an automated software instead of more followers. Likes puts low-effort interactions
doing it manually. So, it increases the account’s and probably are not going to result in much
engagement and helps in the growth of the same. trouble to your account on their own.
Keywords -Social Networking, Instagram, •Automating Comments, or saving suggested
Automation. replies to common comments and post without
having to write them manually when someone
I. INTRODUCTION interacts with the account is completely safe.
Instagram is a famous and the most • Automation Tools have the ability to analyse
effective social media platform for people these accounts and hashtags to uncover accounts relevant
days. With an audience of more than 1 billion [1], to your target audience without actually having to
the opportunities of generating leads are limitless. worry about interactions or dig through hashtags by
However, Instagram is time-consuming, especially yourself, doing so can be a safe time-saver.
when we need to create engaging content daily for • Removal of Ghost Following and Ghost followers
the target audience and find ways to grow the becomes easy with Instagram automation.
account or when we are using it for business • Collection of trending hashtags for a particular
instead of a means of entertainment. Liking and niche becomes so easy with Instagram automation.
commenting on endless posts, designing engaging • Following accounts of your interest and
stories, brainstorming for content, following unfollowing the accounts which are not following
people, and it almost feels like dropping the ball. you back is hassle free with the help of automation.
However, one can still maintain the business • Using Automation, you can easily login to your
presence on this platform without much account.
interactions andthe secret is to invest in the right
DOI: 10.35629/5252-0307704708 Impact Factor value 7.429 | ISO 9001: 2008 Certified Journal Page 704
 International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management (IJAEM)
Volume 3, Issue 7 July 2021, pp: 704-708 www.ijaem.net ISSN: 2395-5252

• Downloading image from Instagram is generally Selenium Core and Web servers containing web
stressful and hectic but with automation, it becomes applications to be tested in order that they can
super easy. belong to an equivalent domain. Paul Hammant
Further the paper includes the history of the another ThoughtWorks Engineer offered an answer
technology used in section II, then the methodology to the present problem by creating Selenium remote
adopted is explained in section III, further it (Selenium RC) or Selenium 1. Patrick Lightbody
includes the growth strategies that are must for developed Selenium Grid for parallel testing
account growth in section IV, then the whole purposes, which addresses the need of reducing
purpose of the paper is in section V, finally it has time spent on test execution to minimal. Selenium
the conclusion. automation test was faster as multiple tests are
often administered simultaneously. Shinya
II. HISTORY OF SELENIUM Kasatani of Japan contributed by completing a
Jason Huggins initially developed project on Selenium IDE within the year 2006.
selenium in 2004 while he was working as an Selenium IDE helps automate the browser through
Engineer in ThoughtWorks on an internet the record and playback feature. Simon Stewart
application that needs frequent testing. He created created Web Driver Circa in 2006. This tool helps
the program using JavaScript, after using it; he the software testers to perform tests via
realized the shortcomings of manual testing and programmatic approaches using any programing
therefore the got to curb monotony. At the start he language that's supported.
named the program JavaScriptTestRunner but after In the year 2008, the entire Selenium
realizing the true potential of the program, he made automation testing pioneer team decided to merge
it an open-source program, which he re-named as the online driver and Selenium RC to make a really
Selenium Core. useful gizmo called Selenium 2. Over the years,
So, Why the Name Selenium? many changes and enhancements have taken place
Jason cracked a joke to his team, from and therefore the most up-to-date stable release
which the name Selenium came. During Selenium's being Selenium 3.14.0 in August 2018.
development, another automated testing framework
was popularly made by the company called III. METHODOLOGY
Mercury Interactive. Jason suggested that name and We have made an automated environment
his teammates agree to it. Therefore, that is how we for Instagramusing the technique of Web Scraping
have to call this framework up to the present. [2] or Web Scripting. It is the process of extracting
Selenium is not just a single tool but also a suite of the data from a website where using API is not so
software, each catering to different testing needs of feasible. The web scraping software directly access
an organization. Selenium has four components: the World Wide Web using the Hypertext Transfer
Selenium Integrated Development Environment Protocol or a web browser. To implement it using
(IDE), Selenium Remote Control (RC), WebDriver the web browser it is necessary to keep the driver
and Selenium Grid. of the specific browser in the system where it has to
be implemented, any browser can be used like
Google Chrome, Firefox etc. For this we have
written a script which extracts the informationthat
simulates human web surfing environment. The
script will automatically fetch the required data
from the website without any human interventions.
The script is written in Selenium [3]. It is
a framework which is mostly used in testing of web
applications in large scales. This can be
implemented in various programming languages
which includes C#, Groovy, Java, Perl, PHP,
Python, Ruby and Scala. We have used Python
programming language for implementing the
Fig.1 History of Selenium Instabot.
The process steps are: First, start the web
Due to the Same Origin Policy which browser session, all the tasks that are needed to be
prohibits JavaScript from getting used from a performed will be done in this session. Then find
special name from which it had been launched, the URL that has to be scraped, that is provide the
testers had to travel through the strain of installing URL of Instagram. Then, send a HTTP request to

DOI: 10.35629/5252-0307704708 Impact Factor value 7.429 | ISO 9001: 2008 Certified Journal Page 705
 International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management (IJAEM)
Volume 3, Issue 7 July 2021, pp: 704-708 www.ijaem.net ISSN: 2395-5252

the URL and get the HTML response. The data selenium. Sometimes the data we want to extract is
which is present in the website is also in the HTML hidden behind the JavaScript objects, objects that
format and hence the output the script is giving is need to be clicked on to reveal the content, so these
also in HTML. Then, parse the HTML content. kinds of scenarios selenium is good to go.
Then, inspect the web page and find the data that
we require. This requirement depends on different IV. GROWTH STRATEGIES
situation or task that is needed to be performed on FORINSTAGRAM INFLUENCERS
Instagram. Finally, extract the data that is needed Some of the strategies for growing Instagram
for performing the surfing. profiles are [5]:
The tasks that are automated in the Instabot are: • Good quality content:
Login into Instagram; Collection of trending This is the backbone of any successful influencer;
hashtags for any niche; liking posts in bulk based the content should speak for itself.
on some hashtags given by end user; find the • Share your content:
information of the famous accounts of same niche Share your stories, post, reels etc with more and
it includes extracting their username, name, profiles more people, also share to those people who are not
links, their number of following and followers, present in Instagram, this will increase your reach
hashtags used by them; unfollowing the accounts to the outside world of Instagram and will also
that don’t follow back; remove ghost accounts from increase your views.
the list of followings and followers and following • Liking other’s posts:
account in bulk that are relevant to your account. It is very important specially for a new influencer
All this is done by keeping the target audience in to remain active on Instagram. It can be achieved
mind. by liking posts of other influencers which in return
can even bring likes to the user’s posts. Also, this
3.1 Selenium will help you to get recognized by Instagram
Selenium is a free, open-source automated algorithm.
framework for testing used to validate web • Commenting to increase profile visits and reach:
applications across different browsers and The influencer can reach a wide amount of
platforms. Its major purpose is to automate audience through comment section of others’posts.
websites.It can be done in multiple programming The comment should be so convincing that the user
languages like Java, C#, Python etc to create reading the comment cannot resist from visiting the
Selenium Test Scripts. profile. Also, one should always reply back to the
Selenium Software is a suite of software, each one comments on their posts regularly, as it will hold
is for different Selenium testing needs of an the interest of people in the influencer’s account.
organization. It includes: Selenium Integrated • Follow for Follow Back:
Development Environment (IDE),Selenium This is a tried and tested strategy which works
Remote Control (RC), WebDriver, Selenium Grid almost on every social media platform. The user
[4]. follows a certain number of accounts and then in
return get around 30-40% follow backs. The
3.2 Why Selenium? influencer needs to follow accounts in bulk in order
Selenium is always the first choice for to increase the follow back count.
web automation. It is so because of these reasons:It • Don’t follow random accounts
is open source. It supports multiple languages This is in continuation with the previous point, one
which includes Python, PHP, Java, C#, Ruby, shouldn’t follow any random account in order to
JavaScript etc. It works with multiple operating get a follow back. The accounts which should be
systems, so thescript does not need to be changed followed must be the same accounts which already
for execution in any other operating system apart follow a more successful account of the same
from in which it is written. Its compatibility with niche. Also, you should follow back your active
all the browsers, so one could execute the script in followers, those who like and comments on your
any browser Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, posts and are actively engaged with your accounts.
Opera, IE, Edge, Yandex and many more. It is easy • Use relevant hashtags:
to implement, it is user friendly. It does not require Hashtags are the most important part for increasing
any servers prior to executing, the code is the reach of your account, so only the hashtags
interpreted into web services and the remote driver which are relevant and are trending should be used
get it via HTTP requests. There are many other web to reach out to more and more audience.
scraping methods but selenium is preferred because • Remove ghost accounts:
one can interact with dynamic websites through

DOI: 10.35629/5252-0307704708 Impact Factor value 7.429 | ISO 9001: 2008 Certified Journal Page 706
 International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management (IJAEM)
Volume 3, Issue 7 July 2021, pp: 704-708 www.ijaem.net ISSN: 2395-5252

The accounts which aren’t actively using Instagram

are known as ghost accounts. These accounts won’t
do any good to the influencer, so these accounts
should be unfollowed.
• Post regularly:
The influencer needs to post content on regular
basis so that the activity and reach of the account
doesn’t go down.
• Use Instagram analytics:
Instagram provides various insights about the posts
which are performing well and which aren’t, it
even provides the region, age and gender of the
followers. These insights need to be observed Fig. 2 Comparison in the growth with/without
carefully and accordingly strategies should be using bots
made.
• Reduce your list of followings: Reasons behind the need of automation:
The accounts which don’t follow back after a Time Saving: Instagram bots can easily
certain amount of time should be unfollowed. look for specific hashtags and influencers within
• Eye catchy captions your niche, and follow them instantly [6]. This
The caption should be short and catchy which saves you a lot of time since you do not have to
precisely describes the post. scroll through various profiles.
• Study the competition Time Zone Barrier: Targeting audiences
One of the main motives of every influencer is to that lives in different time zones is very difficult for
leave the competition behind. This can be achieved a person who lives in a particular country but with
by studying the time pattern followed by the help of Instagram bot, you can effectively
competition to post content, the hashtags used them engage and interact with them according to their
and the accounts that are following them. feed time.
Promotional Ease: Manual posting of
promotional ads is very time consuming and
V. NEED OF AUTOMATION
backbreaking at the same time but by virtue of
Even if one has created excellent content
Instagram bot it becomes manageable.
on Instagram, it could become a waste of precious
Hashtag Analytics to uncover new
time if your posts fail to urge real followers and
Followers: Digging through Instagram hashtags on
engagement. Instagram has the highest rate of
your own can be a time-sink. On the other side,
engagement, and that is the main reason why a lot
tools like Instagram bot can automatically analyse
of online marketers and influencers are so keen on
your account and followers to uncover hashtags
using Instagram for their digital marketing
relevant to your business.
campaigns. However, managing your Instagram
Finding the competitors: In this large pool
account to keep it active, famous and engaging
of accounts in Instagram it is very difficult to find
every day would take tremendous time and effort.
the accounts that belongs to your niche, automation
Not to mention the time you would like to spend on
will help you in finding those accounts and along
your other social media accounts also. Even social
with this it helps in tracking their strategies as well.
media managers are having trouble managing
Following and Unfollowing accounts: It
multiple social media accounts to stay each account
becomes hectic to decide which accounts to follow
engaging simultaneously. In such scenarios, using
and which to unfollow, and also following large
Instagram bots proves to be very beneficial since it
number of accounts at once is quite impossible, so
frees you up enough time for other significant
this can also be easily done by automation.
tasks.
According to [5], the difference in the growth of
Instagram handles with/without bots is: VI. CONCLUSION
This paper states that automating
Instagram is great for the growth of Instagram
handles of influencers. Instagram is great platform
for marketing and showcasing the talents, however,
for doing so one has to devote ample amount of
time in making strategies, finding right audiences
for them, making content, engaging in more and

DOI: 10.35629/5252-0307704708 Impact Factor value 7.429 | ISO 9001: 2008 Certified Journal Page 707
 International Journal of Advances in Engineering and Management (IJAEM)
Volume 3, Issue 7 July 2021, pp: 704-708 www.ijaem.net ISSN: 2395-5252

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Instagram reduces the time required as well as 2019 IEEE 24th International Workshop on
saves energy of influencers. Automation of all Computer Aided Modeling and Design of
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selenium script which automatically performs (CAMAD)
everything for the user without any human [6]. Deepthi Wilson. R, Manjuprasad. B – “A
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we can conclude that this method of using www.ijert.org, ISSN: 2278-0181, NCETEIT
Instagram for growth strategy is less prone to errors - 2017 Conference Proceedings
and very effective.

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DOI: 10.35629/5252-0307704708 Impact Factor value 7.429 | ISO 9001: 2008 Certified Journal Page 708