Posting videos to YouTube can be an emotional roller coaster. You pour time, energy, and money into producing content to share with the world. You post it. Then you sit back and wait for the likes, views, and subscriptions to start pouring in. But more often than not, the number of views you get is more of a sprinkle than a tsunami. If nobody is watching or liking your content, how will it spread across the internet? This conundrum led to the creation of YouTube bots, automated software that generates likes, views, comments, and even subscribers for YouTube videos and channels.
Automated YouTube bots can be appealing to businesses just entering the video marketing game. When you’re the new kid on the block, you need a little bit of cred in order to attract new viewers. But without viewers, you have no cred. So bots can help you establish a footing.
But is it worth it to spend money on YouTube bots for a little bit of cred?
YouTube Penalties And Hurdles
Just as Google (YouTube’s parent company) penalizes SEOs who try to game the system, so does YouTube. Late in 2012, YouTube began cracking down on content creators who purchased fake views. They deleted individual videos they suspected of gaming the system, and even shut down entire YouTube accounts they suspected of purchasing views.
The main targets of this purge were music companies that had been buying views for major artists. But as is typical of large search engine purges, lots of small businesses and websites were caught in the crossfire.
According to YouTube’s terms of service:
You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including without limitation, “robots,” “spiders,” or “offline readers,” that accesses the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the YouTube servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional on-line web browser.
So this means that as a user, you agree not to use YouTube bots to generate views, likes, and subscribers. However plenty of YouTube bots exist. Why? Because these vanity metrics are not only important for the ego, but they can also help lend credibility to a new YouTube content creator.
As long as you stay off the radar, and don’t try to generate 10,000 views in one day for a brand new YouTube channel, you’re probably not going to get dinged. If you set your YouTube bots to grow slowly (but more quickly than you could on your own), the growth will appear organic and shouldn’t set off any alarm bells.
And it is important for new YouTube content creators to understand the most recent change in YouTube comments. In order to stave off paid comments and harassing comments (and further push users into Google Plus), YouTube now ties comments to the user’s Google Plus page. Without a page, a user theoretically can’t comment. This hasn’t stopped YouTube bots from selling comments, but it has complicated the process.
Flying below the radar doesn’t mean they won’t ever catch you. So if you do employ the use of YouTube bots, do so with caution and a full understanding that you’re actually breaking the rules.
What Are You Really Getting From YouTube Bots?
The metrics that are improved with YouTube Bots are truly just vanity metrics. Disingenuous likes and subscribers don’t mean much for the success of your overall marketing campaign.
If you buy 1,000 YouTube likes, but your grand total is 1,050, you’ve only generated 50 real likes. These 1,000 fake likes do nothing for the YouTube metrics that matter, and they won’t help you sell your products or increase your reach.
Most YouTube bots do not deliver real people. That means that they may spike your numbers, but they aren’t bringing you business. The time it takes you to grow customers from your videos will probably be about the same, whether you use YouTube bots or not.
Bots Won’t Likely Disappear
As long as social media exists, there will be companies selling fans, followers, likes, comments, and subscribers. It can be very tempting to jump on board. If you decide to take the plunge, do so with open eyes. Understand that you are breaking the rules, and you won’t have a leg to stand on if you get caught. It’s also important to understand that YouTube bots only increase vanity metrics and don’t do anything to genuinely improve your business.
Have you utilized YouTube bots in your video marketing? What has your experience been? Let us know in the comments!
Actually, most reputable view and like botting services do rank your video higher, so it is worth it.