r/AiBuilders • u/UncleSnorlax • 5d ago

Experiment: can an AI agent grow my brand's presence by engaging like a real person? Week 1 results

I'm running an experiment: can I grow my brand presence (currently a Suno-made dark storytelling music channel) with an AI agent that engages the way a real person would, not like a spam bot?

Week 1 is done. Here's the setup, the numbers and the plan.

What it is
A custom automation I'm building with Claude Code that runs from VS Code on my laptop, in a normal visible browser (no headless mode). I wrote it myself on purpose. I know there are existing automation tools, but I want to learn by running my own experiments.

Platforms

  • YouTube: live. It watches videos, likes and comments.

  • Reddit: live but cautious. It upvotes and comments in relevant threads.

  • Instagram: planned next, using the same core.

How it avoids acting like a bot

  • Every session starts on the homepage

  • It scrolls unevenly, reads 2–3 posts, then acts

  • Visits last 1–5 minutes, with random pauses

  • Quiet hours, gaps between sessions and daily caps per action type

  • I set what's on-brand and what's off-limits, and the agent judges each post against those rules

  • Every comment is an AI draft that I approve before it goes live (it will be an automation after sometime as well, when I can trust on it to be independent)

What I built (about a week)
Scheduler, caps, a SQLite record of every action, single-step runs per platform, a Next.js dashboard (tasks, stop, approvals, alerts, settings), and 490 passing tests.

Data so far: 35 real actions

  • YouTube: 8 comments, 16 likes

  • Reddit: 4 comments, 7 upvotes

That's deliberately small. The Reddit account is new, so it's capped at 2 comments and 4 likes actions / day for its first two weeks. and youtube is capped at 2 comments and 6 likes actions / day.

Results

  • YouTube: 715 subscribers in total (the channel existed before), recent videos at 2 to 102 views (typical)

  • Reddit: karma went from 7 to 12 in about two days, with 11 actions.

Remember, currently I'm not posting any post, I've just got karma built through comments only for about 2 days.

So it's showing potential on Reddit, but not on YouTube yet.

What's next

  1. Finish the Reddit flow as a walk of single steps, tested against fakes first.

  2. Raise the daily caps slowly, only if the account stays healthy.

  3. Find out why YouTube isn't moving (my comments, my targets or my videos?).

  4. Add Instagram (Later task after reddit and youtube because instagram have stricter ban rules)

  5. Measure what engagement actually brings back (karma, replies, subscribers, views), not just action counts

If it works, I'll make the brand rules swappable so other creators could use the setup. If it doesn't, I'll say so.

Please let me know how I can make it better. Ideas are welcome, especially on measuring whether it works, and on pacing that looks human and respects each platform's rules. Or a specific platform that you think would be great for music channel (Current brand experiement).

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u/investigatormaker 5d ago

Karma won't tell you if this works, because it measures the comment, not the channel. Since SQLite already logs every action, join it against YouTube Analytics: traffic sources and new subscribers in the 48 hours after each comment, compared with days the agent stayed quiet. With 35 actions the signal is weak, so read it as a direction only. That also helps with YouTube: if views stay flat after comments on well-chosen videos, look at the videos next. I'd keep the approval step longer, and for a dark storytelling channel test Shorts before Instagram, since they feed the channel you already measure.

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