The algorithm’s ruined Instagram, for good.
Are you listening, Facebook?
Let me preface this post by saying that I’ve been a long-time user of Instagram. I first signed up for the photo-sharing app when it was in its infancy, back in November 2010. It came at a time when I’d just got my first iPhone; what most people would consider the advent of the smartphone era.
Back then, I wasn’t nearly as savvy about social media as I am today, and so consequently, didn’t care much about growing a sizeable following on any platform. I’d tried with a little success to boost my Twitter numbers, but Instagram, well I didn’t really fancy myself as a proper photographer, so why bother?
That all changed in December 2015 when I bought my first DSLR camera. After months of following pro photographers on IG, I relished the opportunity to elevate my content and post all the bangers.
Up until that point, I had been making do with my smartphone camera, posting prolifically and consistently, some pretty decent content I might add. But I still hadn’t truly carved out my niche, or an area of photography that I truly excelled at.
So, after a trip to Namibia, I consolidated all the content I had shot during my holiday and set out posting my images to the ‘Gram. And man, did the likes start to roll in. I made sure I was using all the right hashtags, following the right people, posting at the right times. And it worked. It genuinely worked. I started seeing my follower count increase over a course of months.
Between, let’s say February 2016 and June 2017, my follower count increased by about a thousand followers. I was pretty consistent with posting in 2016, but fell off a little in 2017. Nonetheless, my account kept on growing.
Then, the algorithm happened.
(For the record, the Instagram algorithm officially rolled out sometime in 2016, but I really only started noticing the adverse effects around the middle of 2017.)
Okay, to catch you up — by the middle of 2017 I’d grown my IG following to a shade under 2000 followers, pretty healthy over the course of two years. Then, starting around the middle of 2017, I started seeing a gradual drop in the average amount of likes that a post would receive (this was prior to Instagram displaying reach metrics on profiles with linked business pages).
Despite the obvious drop in reach and engagement, I kept plodding along, with varying success. One thing was for sure, this was not the same Instagram as the one that I’d used in years prior.
Then, in June 2018, I decided to do a comprehensive audit on my account. It turns out that I had accounts that had followed me back in 2010 but had since deactivated or left the platform, effectively turning them into what are known as ghost followers. I figured getting rid of these ghost followers by blocking them would help Instagram show my posts to more real people, since IG might have been penalising my account for having so many inactive followers (also known as the mysterious shadowban).
Anyway, after the massive clean-up of a few hundred accounts, I was left with around 1350 followers — quite far off from the 2000 mark where I’d remained stagnant for a few months.
After dabbling in landscapes, portraits and athletics niches, I’ve settled into a travel/street photography niche. This suits me as I stay in South Korea and quite enjoy shooting street photography in the cities here. Once again, I do everything to ensure that my posts are optimised for reach and engagement, using the right hashtags, following the right people, posting regularly.
But despite this, Instagram still continues to suffocate the reach of my account with its harsh algorithm.
The interesting thing that I’ve noticed is how some small accounts follow a similar trajectory to mine — they essentially do everything right, but remain suppressed by Instagram. Other accounts on the other hand, seem to grow prolifically faster somehow, despite them not doing anything special.
As someone who’s been on the platform almost since its inception, this leads me to a few conclusions.
1. Bot usage is on the rise
Bot usage was always a problem on Instagram in the pre-algorithm days. But the algorithm hasn’t curbed it at all. Nowadays, what inevitably happens is that someone with a few thousand followers runs a follow-unfollow bot, where they follow you based on a hashtag and then unfollow you a few days later — regardless of whether you’ve followed back or not. It’s this exact practice that Instagram claims to be rooting out with the algorithm but yet the accounts that use these dubious tactics only seem to be growing exponentially. A lot of people purporting to be ‘influencers’ use third-party programs to do this bidding for them.
2. People aren’t just buying followers, but they’re ostensibly buying features and shout-outs too
There are numerous supposed ways to ‘beat’ the algorithm, like DM groups, but from what I’ve encountered, the quality of the accounts coming from those groups is very poor. An example — I have no interest in an account that’s in a completely different niche to mine liking my image.
I also believe that feature accounts are selling features and likes both on, and from their pages respectively. This allegedly serves as a way of making a user’s page more likely to rank in the recommended feed.
3. People are buying Facebook and Instagram ads
So, if 1 and 2 aren’t true, then people must surely be buying Instagram ads from Facebook. This wouldn’t be too far-fetched, especially considering how seamless Facebook make the ad-buying experience. I’ve tried this a few times, and the value isn’t bad, although if your goal is to convert to followers, then the conversion rate is a little low. If you want a ton of likes, then this is definitely one option. I know people are using this, because I’ve seen numerous ads from accounts similar to mine.
What’s been even more interesting to note is how some accounts haven’t increased since the pre-algorithm days, but remained stagnant, both in terms of likes and follows.
The point I want to leave with you is this: Social media, and Instagram specifically, has taken control completely away from the user and become completely unpredictable. I know this seems like a bit of a truism, given all the scandal that’s enveloped Facebook and how we all know that their main target is ad revenue. But this hurts smaller creators and completely skews the playing field, especially for those people who want to grow their accounts organically.
It’s a cynical view, but I firmly believe that in 2018, organic growth on social media is DEAD. It’s a pay-to-play environment and the spoils go to the highest bidder. With IG founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger parting ways with Facebook, it further proves that social networks don’t care about the end user, they care about profits.
What can IG do to fix the problem? Well, the return of a chronological timeline, although unlikely, would be a nice start. And in the meantime, we’ll all predictably keep on using IG only because we’ve become so heavily invested in it.
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