Instagram for business and why organic posts in social media are dead
Instagram for business is almost a reality, alas not a very happy one for many users. While the timeline we were used so far had its own disadvantages, it was still a good place to be for photographers and businesses in general. However, with the rollout of the new algorithm and the new Instagram for business, the organic post in social media is all but dead.
What is Instagram for business?
As Facebook did a couple of years ago, Instagram for business is a split between normal users and businesses who uses Instagram for marketing. If you want your images to be seen, producing quality work won’t matter much, as you will only need to promote / boost your posts for this to happen.
When I heard about Instagram for business, I had an initial positive reaction. Alas, this lasted just the time to see the plan to boost posts in exchange for money. And please, don’t think I am against capitalising a company, as that’s the only way we can provide a service, I just think that the way it is working today won’t survive - another AI algorithm to tell me what I should like.
What’s so wrong about Instagram for business
In reality, nothing would be wrong about Instagram for business apart from a few tiny details, except that if it is anywhere close to what Facebook rolled out a couple of years ago, it will mean that natural listing is dead.
To speak about Instagram for business, and of course you should take it with a salt of grain, as we haven’t seen it yet, we need to speak about Facebook business pages. Since their new algorithm was released, every owner of a business page can tell you that people see less and less of the posts made by businesses. If you are a business and want to be seen on Facebook, there is only one way to go: pay for visibility. It will be the death of the natural or organic post on social media.
I see a lose-lose situation in this way of approaching social networks:
* if you are a business, you will need to spend a lot of money to be seen
* if you are a user, what you will be shown as “relevant” will be what the highest bidder will think you should see
So, who’s winning?
Facebook is winning, as it will capitalise Instagram, but in doing this it will also upset their user base.
Why Instagram for business is the only way to go for Instagram?
While I am of the opinion that Instagram for business and the sponsored posts will be the end of the way we see images in social media today, I also believe that this was the only road that Facebook could have taken to keep Social Media alive.
Instagram is based on the rules of “who follows whom”. It is amazing if you have few selected friends you want to stay in touch. I love seeing my Italian friends’ images, how their kids are growing and how jealous I have to be because of the weather back there. But, this is not the backbone of either Facebook or Instagram nowadays.
We are there to consume images, but we are swamped under a lot of visual noise. The more people I follow, the more noise I see, and the less Instagram is relevant. This was one of the reason why we started phlow — we want to see relevant images, photos we like to see, not those our friends like to publish.
If Instagram wants to continue flourishing, it needs to evolve, and implementing a way of pushing relevant contents is the natural evolution.
The flaw in this remains the “who follows whom” and the fact that the system does not scale, as the moment we start following more than our inner circle of friends, we are swamped by noise.
Instagram for business makes it easy for Facebook to transform what’s relevant into what’s a good business model. We will be shown what brands invest money to push in front of our eyes, more than what’s relevant for us as individuals.
Unlinking my friends from my passions
From day one in planning phlow, I have been adamant on the fact that what my friends like to publish, is not necessarily is what I like to see.
Of course there are times in which I love to see their vacation photos, but when I want to be amazed by beautiful portraits, there is always an artificial intelligence working behind the app. The wrong thing about the AI is that it can only do so much if the number of likes of an image, which are linked to the number of followers of its publishers are the main triggers of its calculations.
At phlow we want you to be a bit more ‘egocentric’. We unlinked your friends from your passions, and the way we look at what’s relevant is through the behaviour of the crowd. The latest trends in makeup, the best tattoos, they come out by looking what the people that are truly interested in those contexts do, how they behave.
It does not matter if you are a big name or a small photographer, the drive behind phlow is how to focus on quality photographs, not quality social media marketers.
Another nail in the coffin
Instagram for business is another nail in the coffin of social media, as they replace the noise of following too many people with the noise generated by businesses ready to pay more money for you to see their images.
A revolution in the very foundations of social media and it’s future, is now overdue.
See what is relevant to you, what you are passionate about. Not what your friends are publishing. Request an invite for early access of the phlow app.
