Instagram "cleanup" - wtf is going on

[John242]

Hey guys,

For the last 2 months, I have noticed 2 things that are really becoming a problem on IG. Wondering if anyone knows any facts of what is actually going on, or if you have any speculation at least.

#1 - losing followers on a daily basis (either bots or inactives) when will this end??
#2 - Why is growing so difficult now? They are limiting the "reach" of our posts and if you have business pages with insights, the stats clearly show a HUGE dropoff since 2 months ago.


So.....seriously wtf is Instagram doing and when will this nonsense end??

For more than 2 months I have watched as my various accounts have begun losing followers on a consistent daily basis. Anywhere from 50-200 per day, for accounts 50k to 500k in various niches. Seems like it's happening to more and more accounts....but why is this going on so long?


Note - I do not use any follow/unfollow methods and never have. All these accounts were grown with Shoutouts, Powerlikes and DM groups over 1-2 years. Some of my accounts were growing at 1000-2000 per day at their peak in the summer and fall. Now, those numbers and that growth does not seem possible....just having a day above 0 would be great!


I know IG made an announcement they were reducing "unauthentic" behavior, yada yada yada in November. But what is the reason for nearly every page to be losing now? I see pages that are 500k-1M and larger in big niches like fitness, travel, pets, etc, and they are losing too. Pages that I know are legit, and have watched grow for years.

It's actually kind of sad. It appears Facebook is ruining Instagram.


Only thing I can speculate is:

-IG is having to clean up more bot profiles than they thought - some reports I've read said 20% of IG is bots, so that's 200M of their 1 billion accounts. I guess cleaning up 200M bots even over a 90 day period would be about 2.22M pages per day. Maybe they're trying to avoid a large purge again like in 2014 when some celebrity accounts lost millions, lol!

-Secondly, even if they are removing millions of bot profiles, what is the reason growing is so hard now? If you look at your explore page, most of the content is from small pages with hardly any views/likes/comments - it used to be 90% of the content had tons of engagement, millions of views, etc. Why is all this content with 2000 views and 200 likes making explore page....? It never used to. And no one is making explore consistently now.


Seems like there is no explanation, so what are we supposed to do just keep waiting and hoping it gets back to normal? Grrrr.... when?!

Curious what everyone else has been experiencing last 2-3 months!

Cheers

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Facebook bought IG. The IG algorithm now behaves like FB pages. When they detect commercial intent your reach goes to shit. Yes they're banning thousands of accts daily. Solution? None that I can see. I think social networks are dying to be honest.

 

[eternalwarrior]

I think social networks are dying to be honest

Won't die until some alternative comes up!

 

[John242]

Facebook bought IG. The IG algorithm now behaves like FB pages. When they detect commercial intent your reach goes to shit. Yes they're banning thousands of accts daily. Solution? None that I can see. I think social networks are dying to be honest.

Ahh you might be right about detecting commercial intent, i.e. being a Business Page. It is nice having the insights, but not if it means they are limiting the reach.

Do you think switching back to a personal page after you've been a business page for a long time could "turn off" their reach limiting? I know only one way to find out, but problem is when you do this, you lose all your insights even if you switch back to personal page. I'd have to test it on a smaller page first I think.

Can you explain what you mean about how IG algorithm behaves like FB pages? I am not familiar with how FB pages and that algorithm works.

 

[0mrlight0]

This is a very interesting thread, I have noticed all the same things and your right about the small pages being on explore. However I have had my most viral post ever get 1.2mill impressions, 4m reach, 126k likes on a 40k Profile. I believe that the reason for the small posts being on explore is that Instagram tests your post with a sample audience and if the sample audience likes the content it puts it on big explore. I think the only way to survive now is really quality content.

 

[John242]

This is a very interesting thread, I have noticed all the same things and your right about the small pages being on explore. However I have had my most viral post ever get 1.2mill impressions, 4m reach, 126k likes on a 40k Profile. I believe that the reason for the small posts being on explore is that Instagram tests your post with a sample audience and if the sample audience likes the content it puts it on big explore. I think the only way to survive now is really quality content.

Wow nice! What type of content was this, and was it a photo or video? Did you boost it with Powerlikes or groups or anything else?

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Ahh you might be right about detecting commercial intent, i.e. being a Business Page. It is nice having the insights, but not if it means they are limiting the reach.

Do you think switching back to a personal page after you've been a business page for a long time could "turn off" their reach limiting? I know only one way to find out, but problem is when you do this, you lose all your insights even if you switch back to personal page. I'd have to test it on a smaller page first I think.

Can you explain what you mean about how IG algorithm behaves like FB pages? I am not familiar with how FB pages and that algorithm works.

FB limits reach for commercial pages, so you have to buy boosts. IG is probably headed down the same path.

I don't know that changing your content back to personal style solves it, most likely they go by behavioral signals. Business pages have different reactions from users than personal ones, that's probably how they detect commercial intent.

Won't die until some alternative comes up!

I believe the alternative is the WWW itself. Why do people waste so much time in Facebook and other networks when they could be running their own sites outside these networks?

 

[KraftyKyle]

Yea this is what pretty much everything is experiencing. Time to start brainstorming more creative methods of growing than f/u

 

[0mrlight0]

Wow nice! What type of content was this, and was it a photo or video? Did you boost it with Powerlikes or groups or anything else?

cartoons/meaningful niche. It was a really nice video of a heartwarming story and it just took off. Still baffled how a 40k did twice as good as accounts like memezar ec. I use my powerlikes.

 

[John242]

FB limits reach for commercial pages, so you have to buy boosts. IG is probably headed down the same path.

I don't know that changing your content back to personal style solves it, most likely they go by behavioral signals. Business pages have different reactions from users than personal ones, that's probably how they detect commercial intent.

Well not changing the content back to personal - I mean changing the profile itself. When you create an account, it is a "personal" account by default. In order to switch it to a business account and have the business insights, it has to be linked to a Facebook business page. So this extra step is their verification that you are a business before they give you those coveted stats - even though anyone can make a FB business page even without an actual operating business.

So perhaps the best bet is to keep them personal accounts from day 1....

I have a fairly new page that is a business page, but I have just switched back and will report how it goes.

 

[Cedani]

They want commercial accounts to pay for being boosted, but even personal accounts are being stifled. Only 10 percent of followers get to see a new post, and only *if* those 10 percent engage will they show more.

 

[smacker]

So.....seriously wtf is Instagram doing and when will this nonsense end??

>>> All these accounts were grown with Shoutouts, Powerlikes and DM groups over 1-2 years.

Nonsense? Hats off to them for cleaning up their platform, which in the end will be a big benefit for user experience and advertisers.. if it was your platform would you not do the same?

 

[John242]

Nonsense? Hats off to them for cleaning up their platform, which in the end will be a big benefit for user experience and advertisers.. if it was your platform would you not do the same?

What I meant by "nonsense" was the continuous lies and deceptive games IG has always played. And now that they are controlled by FB, it seems to have gotten worse. I understand it's their platform and their rules...

But for the record, I have actually spent thousands of dollars on FB and IG ads over the years to advertise a legit business I had. Their support for a paying advertiser was pathetic - in fact, there was absolutely 0 support for Instagram. Even if you contacted through FB ad support, they just played dumb or flat out said "Instagram does not have any support" hmmmm ok??

Why no support? Hiring 50 Instagram tech support agents specifically for paying customers is too much to ask I guess.

I guess I wasn't spending enough. I guess $10k is just chump change to them...not everyone has millions in advertising budgets.



I'm glad they're cleaning up the bots, but they've always been guilty of using one lie to cover up another. And now that list is HUGE.


After years of lying and coverups, I decided not to give them another penny of my money for their non-existent advertiser support. I hope tens of thousands of other businesses follow suit and take their advertising budgets elsewhere....

 

[smacker]

I bet it is frustrating. Similar to when google attempted to clean up search results by introducing penguin and panda updates. Many legit websites were hit by penalties and they offered no way to contact them directly or any support other than a request in webmaster tools that was rarely answered. You were left hanging, trying to guess what the issues were.

On the flip side for the company, platforms such as facebook, instagram or search engines like google are used by billions of people daily. If they offfered an easy way to contact them - can you imagine how flooded they would get with idiotic and time wasting questions?

I guess it’s a trade off between support that’s sustainable and costs.

 

[HoNeYBiRD]

#1 - losing followers on a daily basis (either bots or inactives) when will this end??

This one is simple: never. Instagram is getting better and better in detecting bots, why would you think at all that this will stop? People will keep creating bot accounts, Instagram will keep removing them. But why worry about these followers? As you said, they're either bots or inactive, they only dilute your stats.

 

[ilovetobun69]

This one is simple: never. Instagram is getting better and better in detecting bots, why would you think at all that this will stop? People will keep creating bot accounts, Instagram will keep removing them. But why worry about these followers? As you said, they're either bots or inactive, they only dilute your stats.

I don't know why people are so worried. If you sell the right product you will make enough before the account is detected anyways.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

In order to switch it to a business account and have the business insights, it has to be linked to a Facebook business page. So this extra step is their verification that you are a business before they give you those coveted stats

IMO that's your issue right there. As a formal business acct they expect you to buy ads and so on. Organic reach goes to shit.

 

[ilovetobun69]

IMO that's your issue right there. As a formal business acct they expect you to buy ads and so on. Organic reach goes to shit.

Eh it happens every year. It will go back up .

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Eh it happens every year. It will go back up .

What, exactly, happens every year?

 

[ilovetobun69]

What, exactly, happens every year?

Engagement drops for a few weeks durring holidays .

Most of my accounts are fine although.