For a few years this page was a free list of Telegram engagement groups, sorted by niche. A friend and I used to run several groups like that ourselves.
I’ve taken the list down.
Instagram engagement groups still get you likes and comments in 2026, but they don’t put your posts in front of people who’d follow you, and Meta’s rules treat swapping engagement as spam. That’s a real risk to your account for numbers that don’t help you grow.
Key takeaways
- Engagement groups and pods swap likes and comments on a quota, usually in Telegram groups or Instagram group chats.
- They raise likes and comments. But Instagram also weighs watch time and shares when it decides who else sees a post, and a pod can’t supply those from the right people.
- Meta’s spam policy, which covers Instagram, bans exchanging engagement such as likes and follows. Instagram has said pods violate its policies.
- Collabs, posts people send to friends, comment-to-DM automation and a newsletter grow the audience a pod only pretends to.
What are Instagram engagement groups?
An engagement group is a set of Instagram users who promise to engage with each other’s posts. Whoever shares a post gets likes or comments from the other members, and owes the same in return.
The theory is that a burst of engagement soon after you post makes Instagram show the post to more people.
The names overlap, but you’ll come across three kinds.
Telegram engagement groups
The large, open version. Telegram is where most pods run, because a group can hold thousands of members and bots can run the rounds.
The list that used to be on this page had groups for fashion, travel, fitness, music, parenting, photography and business, plus groups only for accounts with more than 10,000 followers.
Most are free to join. Some charge, or sell a paid tier.
Instagram pods and comment pods
A pod in the narrow sense is a small group of accounts, often from one niche, in an Instagram group chat. Members drop each new post in the chat, and everyone likes and comments.
Comment pods usually ask for comments of a minimum length, because longer comments were thought to count for more.
Auto-engagement services
Paid services, sometimes sold as “automatic engagement groups”, where an app likes and comments on other members’ posts from your account, and on yours from theirs.
To make it work, you hand over your login. That makes these the riskiest kind by far.
How Telegram engagement groups work
Every group has its own rules, but a round in a large Telegram group usually goes like this:
- A bot opens a round at set times, often several times a day.
- Members drop the link to their latest post, or their username, in the chat.
- When the round closes, every member has to like (and in comment groups, comment on) every post on the list, usually within an hour or so.
- The bot checks who did their part, and warns or removes the members who didn’t.
So the price of joining is time.
In a busy group you like and comment on dozens of posts per round, from accounts you’d never follow, about topics your audience doesn’t care about.
Why there’s no list of groups here
Lists of Telegram engagement groups go stale fast. Mine still said “last updated end of 2021” when I took it down, and groups close, change hands or fill up with spam.
The bigger reason is that I don’t want to send you into a tactic that breaks Instagram’s rules. Read the next two sections before you join one.
Do Instagram engagement groups still work in 2026?
That depends on how you define “work”. I wrote that sentence on this page in 2023, next to a warning that the groups weren’t much use for getting into Explore anymore.
Both still hold.
More likes and comments: yes. A group delivers what it promises.
A 2020 study by researchers at NYU and Drexel looked at nearly 2 million Instagram posts shared in pods, most of them organized on Telegram, and found that pods did raise engagement, and that Instagram’s algorithm promoted the boosted posts further at the time (TechCrunch’s summary of the study (opens in new tab)).
More reach to people who would follow you: much less. Instagram’s ranking has moved on since then, and three things weaken a pod’s effect today:
- Likes are only one signal. On its Creators site (opens in new tab), Instagram lists watch time, retention, shares, likes and comments as the signals it uses to predict who will like a Reel.1 A pod member who taps like and scrolls on adds a like, but no watch time and no shares.
- The engagement comes from the wrong people. Instagram says it learns from people with similar interests, and shows a new Reel to a small group of non-followers first, then wider if it does well. It hasn’t said how it treats pod engagement. But if your likes come from travel, fitness and fashion accounts while you post about baking, that’s the crowd you’re teaching it about.
- Brands look at who engages. A comment section full of “Great shot!” from unrelated accounts looks like what it is. If you want brand deals, a smaller audience that really engages is worth more. I wrote about that in how to become a micro-influencer.
And every hour spent liking strangers’ posts is an hour not spent on a post people would send to a friend.
Why engagement groups put your account at risk
Instagram and Facebook share one rulebook. Since November 2024, one set of Meta Community Standards (opens in new tab) covers Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads.
For engagement groups, two documents matter.
- Meta’s spam policy. The spam policy (opens in new tab) bans selling, buying or exchanging engagement, such as likes, shares, views and follows. It also bans posting or engaging at very high frequencies, by hand or automatically. A pod is an exchange of engagement by design.
- Instagram’s Terms of Use. The Terms of Use (opens in new tab) forbid creating accounts or collecting information in an automated way without Instagram’s permission, and collecting or using other people’s login details. Auto-engagement apps that act from your account run into both.2
Instagram has also said so directly. When the 2020 study came out, Instagram told TechCrunch that pod activity violates its policies, and that it considers pods a breach of its rule against using a third-party app or service to generate fake likes, follows or comments.
It has acted on it, too.
- In May 2018, Facebook removed ten large groups that hundreds of thousands of people used to trade Instagram likes and organize pods, after BuzzFeed News reported on them (opens in new tab). Instagram confirmed the groups broke its terms.
- In November 2018, Instagram started removing inauthentic likes, follows and comments (opens in new tab) made through third-party apps, using machine learning to find the accounts that used them, and asked those accounts to change their passwords.
- In April 2025, Meta said that comments it detects as coordinated fake engagement will be seen less on Facebook (opens in new tab). That announcement was about Facebook, but it shows which way Meta is heading.
What can happen to your account
Meta doesn’t publish a set penalty for joining a pod. Going by its rules and Instagram’s Help Center, these are the realistic consequences:
- Engagement removed. Likes and comments that Instagram judges inauthentic disappear from your posts, as they have since 2018.
- Less reach. Content that breaks the rules isn’t recommended to people who don’t follow you, and an account that keeps breaking them can lose recommendations for all its posts for a while, according to Instagram’s ranking explainer (opens in new tab). Professional accounts can check this in Account Status (opens in new tab).
- Limited features. Instagram can take features away from your account for a while, and Account Status lists the ones you can’t use. Accounts flagged for inauthentic activity may also see a “Try again later” error.
- A disabled account, for repeated breaches of the rules. In most cases you get a warning first.3
Never give a growth service your password
Auto-engagement apps that log in as you are the riskiest kind of engagement group. Instagram’s Help Center (opens in new tab) says you shouldn’t use apps that offer likes and followers in exchange for your login details, and that an app with your login can get complete access to your account.
If you’ve used one, follow the clean-up steps below.
What works instead of engagement groups
What a pod promises, more engagement and more reach, you can get from people who care about your topic. It takes longer, but then every like, comment and share actually helps you grow.
| Tactic | Who engages | Within the rules | Reaches the right new people | Builds an audience you own |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Engagement group or pod | Members from any niche, on a quota | No | No | No |
| Auto-engagement app | Apps acting from members’ accounts | No | No | No |
| Posts people send to a friend | People interested in your topic | Yes | Yes | Partly |
| Collabs and shoutout swaps | Followers of a similar account | Yes | Yes | Partly |
| A real creator peer group | Peers who comment when they have something to say | Yes | Partly | Partly |
| Comment-to-DM automation | People who asked for your link | Yes, with an official-API tool | Partly | Yes, with a newsletter |
All my guides on growing an account are under creator growth.
Make posts people send to a friend
When someone sends your Reel to a friend in a DM, that’s a share, one of the signals Instagram names for deciding who else sees a Reel. A post gets sent when it’s useful, funny or true enough that someone thinks of a friend.
Keep it to one idea per Reel. Instagram’s own tips are to hook people in the first three seconds and to use text on screen for people watching without sound, and it won’t recommend Reels longer than three minutes to new audiences.4
Trial Reels (opens in new tab) show a new Reel to people who don’t follow you first, so you can test a format before your followers see it. You need a professional account to use them.
My guide to becoming known on Instagram has the full plan.
Collab with accounts in your niche
A collab post appears on every collaborator’s profile and in their followers’ feeds, so it reaches people who already follow an account like yours. Shoutout swaps with accounts of a similar size work the same way, and my guide to Instagram shoutouts covers how to find partners.
I’d take one collab with the right account over a month of pod rounds.
Build a real peer group instead of a pod
The honest version of an engagement group is a handful of creators in your niche who know each other’s work. They give feedback before you post, share your post when it fits their audience, and comment when they have something to say.
No rounds, no quotas, no bots.
A peer who comments because the post is good is normal engagement. A quota is an exchange of engagement, and that’s the part Meta’s rules ban.
Turn comments into conversations
Reply to comments, especially in the first hour, and end posts with a question your audience wants to answer.
When a post takes off, let automation do the replying. With comment-to-DM automation, anyone who comments a keyword on your Reel gets your link, free guide or offer in a DM.
Meta keeps this on a short leash, which is a good thing. Through its official API (opens in new tab), a business can send one private reply to the person who commented, within seven days of the comment, and can only follow up if that person writes back.5
Tools such as ManyChat automate this. Whatever you use, connect it through Meta’s own login screen and never give a tool your Instagram password.
DM automation
Turn comments into subscribers and sales
Where DM automation fits next to a newsletter, brand deals and your own products, in my guide to making money on Instagram.
Move followers somewhere you own
Reach on Instagram rises and falls with every change to the app. An email list doesn’t.
Invite followers to a free guide or a newsletter from your bio link, your Stories and your DMs. If you also blog, Instagram for bloggers covers how to get people from a post to your site.
If you’ve already used engagement groups
Leaving is easy. Cleaning up takes five steps.
-
Leave the groups
Stop dropping links, leave the Telegram groups and Instagram group chats, and block the bots that message you.
-
Secure your account
If you gave a growth service your login, change your password and turn on two-factor authentication, which you’ll find in Accounts Center under Password and security (Meta is moving some people to Meta Account settings, so yours may say that instead).
Then revoke access for any third-party app you don’t trust, and remove linked accounts you don’t recognize. Instagram’s Help Center (opens in new tab) has the full checklist.
-
Check Account Status
On a professional account, Account Status shows whether your content can be recommended to people who don’t follow you, and which posts or profile details are holding it back. Edit or remove those, or tap “Disagree with decision” if you think Instagram got it wrong.
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Reset your baseline
Your likes and comments will drop. That’s your real number, and the one to grow from.
In Insights, judge your posts by reach to non-followers, shares and saves rather than likes.
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Post for the people you want
Put the hours you spent on rounds into posts for your real audience, replies and your first collab.
My verdict
Skip engagement groups. They make your numbers look better and your account harder to grow.
They bring likes and comments from people who don’t care about your topic, cost hours a week, and break Meta’s rule on exchanging engagement. Put those hours into collabs, replies and posts worth sending to a friend, and move the followers you win to a newsletter.
Instagram engagement groups: frequently asked questions
Are Instagram engagement groups against the rules?
Yes. Meta’s spam policy, which covers Instagram, bans exchanging engagement such as likes and follows, and Instagram has said that pods violate its policies. Paid apps that like and comment from your account also break Instagram’s Terms of Use.
Do Telegram engagement groups still work in 2026?
They still bring likes and comments. They do little for reach, because Instagram also looks at watch time and shares, and pod engagement comes from people outside your niche.
Can Instagram detect engagement pods?
Instagram doesn’t say exactly how. It has used machine learning to find and remove inauthentic likes, follows and comments since 2018, and in 2020 academic researchers built a model that spotted pod-boosted posts from public data alone.
Can engagement groups get you shadowbanned?
Instagram doesn’t use the word. But content that breaks its rules isn’t recommended to people who don’t follow you, and repeated breaches can take a whole account out of recommendations for a while. On a professional account, Account Status shows whether that has happened.
Where can I find Instagram engagement groups on Telegram?
I don’t list them any more, and I’d advise against joining one. If you want a group of creators to grow with, find peers in your niche and collaborate with them instead.
- Instagram for Creators, How to grow on Instagram (creators.instagram.com/how-to-grow), checked October 2026. ↩
- Meta's Spam policy (transparency.meta.com) and Instagram's Terms of Use, effective January 1, 2025 (help.instagram.com/581066165581870), both checked October 2026. ↩
- Instagram Help Center: Check your Account Status, and What to do if your Instagram profile posts unauthorized content; Instagram Ranking Explained on about.instagram.com. Checked October 2026. ↩
- Instagram for Creators, the Reels page and How to grow on Instagram, checked October 2026. ↩
- Meta for Developers, Instagram Platform, Private Replies: one message per comment, sent within 7 days; follow-ups only after the person replies, within 24 hours of the reply. Checked October 2026. ↩
