I’ve heard it through the grape vine, I’ve seen it with my own eyes and I’ve even experienced it personally… Instagrams decline of engagements that has thrown bloggers, influencers, business owners and the everyday IG addict through a bit of a loophole. Now what has caused the drastic shift of daily engagements on the #6 most downloaded free app in 2016? Its been made clear that millions of people are active on Instagram each day, and as of April of this year 700 million monthly active users. Crazy! So if the popularity of the app continues to increase, why has there been a sudden decrease in engagements and how might this affect todays digital marketers who rely heavily on this platform?
After doing some digging and hearing what theories have been going around, I have noticed a few popular ones being a shadowban, a change in algorithm or even that Instagram is “punishing them”. Instagram has come out and addressed the shadowban issue, which was in fact an actual issue whereas the other two have nothing to do with it. There was a period where users and marketers who rely heavily on hashtags to get optimum results on their posts, were not being noticed through those hashtags. So for people who weren’t following you, if they searched a hashtag that you used, they couldn’t see your photo unless they were following you. Now for a marketer representing a brand that uses Instagram to improve its social reach, this decline in engagements can be quite worrisome. "According to our 2017 Digital Marketing Analytics Report, Instagram has the highest levels of engagement out of all social media channels for both B2B and B2C companies." So
for the individuals who are using Instagram for more of a professional reason,
they most likely have a larger following. Studies show those with larger sized
profiles have a more significant decrease in total interactions than those with
a smaller profile. "The takeaway should definitely not be that Instagram is losing traction but more that it starts to get harder to achieve success in the “fight for interactions'”.
With
these recent changes happening, it seems that it could be the start of many
more changes to come. From a marketer’s perspective, it’s as if organic reach
no longer exists anymore on social media and that Instagram is on the verge of
converting to a pay-to-play platform. “A platform becomes so successful that it’s forced to monetize itself to pay for its costs and to provide a return to its investors, and that’s where Instagram is right now.” Following in Facebook’s footsteps of
being a “glorified advertising network”, I believe that Instagram could very
well be on the way out within the next 5-8 years due to an increase in adverts. However, it only makes sense
for Instagram to gradually monetize into a pay-to-play system just like every
other social media platform has proven to do as well; Facebook, Twitter and
even Pinterest where you can now see “Promoted Pins” on your timeline.
Overall,
shadowbanning is out of any Instagram users control. Whether you use the app
for professional or nonprofessional purposes, it is about connecting to your
audience with the content you choose to post and staying consistent with your
goal objectives. We all knew that Instagram was going to go this route
eventually, its just the matter of evolving with the platform or deciding to
jump on the newest social media app, whatever it may be (we know its coming).
Kennedy
Kennedy
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