Is Instagram becoming like Facebook ?

[Sayros87]

The reach of your non-sponsored posts is determined by a "test" group of your current followers upon initial post. This test group is generally speaking.. random, say out of the 25k followers you have, 100 will see your post.

If only 5 out of this 100 like or engage with your post. Your reach is going to be reduced as Instagram's algorithm has determined this isn't a quality post.

Imagine, you have an account with 1k hardcore fans of your posts. 100 test fans see your initial post, 70 of them like it, this results in 800 more are shown the post because of the algorithm determining its a good post.. This is good reach and ideal.

Now imagine you add 9k not so interested fans - medium fans. They saw an AD they liked so they followed the page

BUT

unlike the original hardcore fans who like the POSTS these fans just jumped onboard the follow train because they liked the AD

Now in our test group, lets take away 70 hardcore fans who like the posts and replace them with 70 not as interested fans who like the ads. So now when you post, out of our test group only 20 of them like the post. Reach declines as a result, engagement drops naturally.

Only the hardcore fans that Instagram has already decided like your posts will STILL see your post, because they engaged so many times already.

I believe this maybe why your followers are growing but your engagement % is dropping.

So according to your explanation, even joining some Telegram groups to try to trick the algorithm wont help a lot, since the new non active followers will determine more or less the reach ?
I wish there was a tool which can show me which members did not interact with my page at all since they followed the page, it could help a lot to leave only quality followers

 

[PeppezZ]

The reach of your non-sponsored posts is determined by a "test" group of your current followers upon initial post. This test group is generally speaking.. random, say out of the 25k followers you have, 100 will see your post.

If only 5 out of this 100 like or engage with your post. Your reach is going to be reduced as Instagram's algorithm has determined this isn't a quality post.

Imagine, you have an account with 1k hardcore fans of your posts. 100 test fans see your initial post, 70 of them like it, this results in 800 more are shown the post because of the algorithm determining its a good post.. This is good reach and ideal.

Now imagine you add 9k not so interested fans - medium fans. They saw an AD they liked so they followed the page

BUT

unlike the original hardcore fans who like the POSTS these fans just jumped onboard the follow train because they liked the AD

Now in our test group, lets take away 70 hardcore fans who like the posts and replace them with 70 not as interested fans who like the ads. So now when you post, out of our test group only 20 of them like the post. Reach declines as a result, engagement drops naturally.

Only the hardcore fans that Instagram has already decided like your posts will STILL see your post, because they engaged so many times already.

I believe this maybe why your followers are growing but your engagement % is dropping.

I agree with all these considerations.
You need to be constantly creative to attract the new followers acquired.

 

[Ludacash]

So according to your explanation, even joining some Telegram groups to try to trick the algorithm wont help a lot, since the new non active followers will determine more or less the reach ?
I wish there was a tool which can show me which members did not interact with my page at all since they followed the page, it could help a lot to leave only quality followers

I never really went all in on the engagement groups thing. What you need to get into the algorithm and get organic growth is a high engagement rate at the end of the day thats most important in my experience. I do this my researching competitor/similar pages and engaging with people who leave comments and then people who like the photos. They are proven to already engage on the platform.

Yeah that tool would be great, cool that you can remove followers instead of outright blocking them. I've been thinking of implanting this strategy of removing people who dont typically engage . Im thinking theres maybe a scraping tool and some organize software out there that can help with this cross-referencing? idk havent really looked into it yet

 

[Sayros87]

I never really went all in on the engagement groups thing. What you need to get into the algorithm and get organic growth is a high engagement rate at the end of the day thats most important in my experience. I do this my researching competitor/similar pages and engaging with people who leave comments and then people who like the photos. They are proven to already engage on the platform.

Yeah that tool would be great, cool that you can remove followers instead of outright blocking them. I've been thinking of implanting this strategy of removing people who dont typically engage . Im thinking theres maybe a scraping tool and some organize software out there that can help with this cross-referencing? idk havent really looked into it yet

I have tried about 8 Apps for Android to remove myr inactive followers, non of them could deal with loading 35k followers, these apps work maybe if you have less than 5k followers. Your Strategy works for sure, but since i dont have too much time to interact with other people on other pages, i thought that getting around 5k real followers a month for only a 100 euro investment is a great thing to do, apparently i was damn wrong. I posted a story today, and only 500 people viewed it! i have literally destroyed my account

 

[handsomeone]

I have tried about 8 Apps for Android to remove myr inactive followers, non of them could deal with loading 35k followers, these apps work maybe if you have less than 5k followers. Your Strategy works for sure, but since i dont have too much time to interact with other people on other pages, i thought that getting around 5k real followers a month for only a 100 euro investment is a great thing to do, apparently i was damn wrong. I posted a story today, and only 500 people viewed it! i have literally destroyed my account

I believe @[URL='https://www.blackhatworld.com/members/ludacash.887718/']Ludacash gave you the full answer but I just wanna add that you didn't destroy your account you can calm down. The algorithm adapts to your behavior and you feed him, remember that. Forget what you did so far, if from now you'd make great content and focus on increasing your organic reach you'd see better results in engagement.[/URL]

 

[Ludacash]

I have tried about 8 Apps for Android to remove myr inactive followers, non of them could deal with loading 35k followers, these apps work maybe if you have less than 5k followers. Your Strategy works for sure, but since i dont have too much time to interact with other people on other pages, i thought that getting around 5k real followers a month for only a 100 euro investment is a great thing to do, apparently i was damn wrong. I posted a story today, and only 500 people viewed it! i have literally destroyed my account

I believe @Ludacash gave you the full answer but I just wanna add that you didn't destroy your account you can calm down. The algorithm adapts to your behavior and you feed him, remember that. Forget what you did so far, if from now you'd make great content and focus on increasing your organic reach you'd see better results in engagement.

A way i remember to help re-establish engagement is to go through your own followers and like their photos/leave comments. Obviously you can't overdo this and go crazy otherwise risking action blocks and shadow bans.

But enough of this strategy overtime people will tend to notice someone they followed a long time ago engaged with them and some will engage back which allows IG to start showing them your posts again if they aren't already. Some of them will unfollow because they don't even remember you. Either way works out for you. Of course some will do nothing.

If you slow down the rate of your follower increase and this process is happening, your engagement rate will naturally increase even quicker.

 

[Rishana]

Put simply, Instagram is slowly moving towards pay-to-play. The hiding of likes was the beginning. Now, they are slowly dropping everyone's organic reach.

 

[Whitewhistle]

This p2p thing is really going to drive users away from them

 

[kingb_p]

Its just Facebooks business Model. They keep dwindling the likes to get you to buy ads from them. Engagement will only keep dropping on instagram just like Facebook and the younger generation will migrate to a new platform like how people moved from FB to IG. (looking more and more like Tiktok now....)

 

[kingb_p]

Kinda feels like what happened to the game Clash of Clans when they removed Town hall snipping for those familiar with the game tbh. Seeing some similarities with IG doing the switch from Chronological order to algorithm.......

 

[airtman]

I have been noticing it on other influential accounts? Their algorithm keeps changing, they must be a recent policy that they have integrated

 

[Sayros87]

Thank you for your reply guys, i did some major changes and i thought to share this with you :

First i changed my account from business account to an artist- content creator account
Second i tried to answer many DMs as possible *( im getting dozens each day )
Third - i downloaded an App to delete all of my previous pending requests ( i was shocked to see that since my account exists- 3 years, i have sent 1200 pending requests )

then after the changes above, i posted a picture with only 5 Hashtags ( new hashtags i never used before ) then boom , 3200 likes ! interestingly when i checked the reach of the post- i was shocked to see that out of the 20k
reach this post had, only 1 user came from the hashtags!

I thought then, ok wonderful, i will keep doing what i did, answering DMs and using few hashtags only, i posted anohter picture yesterday with 12 Hashtags and i was disappointed to see it got only 640 likes! *( 12k reach, 3000 from Hashtags! )

So honestly it confused me even more, certainly im not shadowbanned, but to me it seems really that the general reach of Instagram posts has dropped. i thought to share with you this anyway, maybe some will find it useful for them.

 

[Fang Yu]

It's nothing to do with you or your account. What I will suggest you do is to turn your account into private. Post and interact with your current followers. Continue to respond to DM. Share your new post to people with who you have previous discussions, they like and comment on it, be active respond to comment. Your account will slowly reach more of your current followers, the goals are to get at least 3k likes from them only.

 

[El Flaco]

It reminds me when I was promoting my Facebook page years ago to gain new followers.
Then they decided I should pay so the followers I managed to get with their ads could see my posts.

When I saw Instagram (owned by the same evil Facebook) introduced Business pages on their platform, I told myself there wouldn't be one single chance I would be in the same boat again.

As predicted, the exact same scenario happened again. The visibility dropped dramatically and now you have to pay to access to your followers.
Instagram could be fun for mass following when it was still possible. But making business there organically is a really bad idea although I know personally very creative people who made some insane money there organically (their number of likes has dropped overtime though despite gaining new followers)
It is crazy to see the number of huge Facebook fanpages which used to be very popular in the past and which are now ghost pages.
Social network businesses are hit and run businesses. They can be very profitable in the short term but don't expect long term income there.

 

[kingb_p]

It reminds me when I was promoting my Facebook page years ago to gain new followers.
Then they decided I should pay so the followers I managed to get with their ads could see my posts.

When I saw Instagram (owned by the same evil Facebook) introduced Business pages on their platform, I told myself there wouldn't be one single chance I would be in the same boat again.

As predicted, the exact same scenario happened again. The visibility dropped dramatically and now you have to pay to access to your followers.
Instagram could be fun for mass following when it was still possible. But making business there organically is a really bad idea although I know personally very creative people who made some insane money there organically (their number of likes has dropped overtime though despite gaining new followers)
It is crazy to see the number of huge Facebook fanpages which used to be very popular in the past and which are now ghost pages.
Social network businesses are hit and run businesses. They can be very profitable in the short term but don't expect long term income there.

This pretty much sums up the current situation pretty well. Wouldn't be surprised if engagement increased just a little since Tiktok seems to be rising right now. Things will definitely be interesting if the developers at tiktok decided to allow posting of photos in their platform.

 

[TheKillingJoke]

Do you target Tier 3 countries? or tier 1 countries?

 

[Sayros87]

I

Do you target Tier 3 countries? or tier 1 countries?

a mix, im getting followers from both tier 3 und tier 1 countries

 

[TheKillingJoke]

I

a mix, im getting followers from both tier 3 und tier 1 countries

by design or instagrams doing?

Depending on the answer this could definitely be an answer your question

 

[irivi]

Can anyone tell me what's going on ? is Instagram decreasing the amount of reach per post and becoming like Facebook ? Any Suggestion or idea what might be the problem ? Thank you!

You put too much faith in a company and allowed them to dictate too much of your business... so they bent you over a table and *****d you. Don't rely on SocMed. Don't rely on third-parties. Their business is not your business. Your business is not their business.

 

[lennyserrano]

This drives me crazy, about 4 months ago when i used to have only 10k Followers, i was getting about 600-700 likes per Post plus 60-70 comments, since then im running daily Instagram Ads in my Niche ( Medicine ) and my account grew to have now about 35k Followers, but guess what , the amount of likes and comments im getting per Post these days is decreasing! ( Yesterday's post got only 400 Likes for example and in average im getting only 600-700 likes per Post ! ) My Engagement rate dropped to 2.5% only.

Im not doing anything illegal to get shadow banned, not doing any follow-unfollow methods or blackhat methods, im just running Instagram Ads and getting real followers all the time ( Unless Instagram tricks its client, which is unlikely ) , and it's not like the quality of the posts has decreased, im posting only 2-3 times a week and investing a lot in these posts by giving medical infos etc.

Can anyone tell me what's going on ? is Instagram decreasing the amount of reach per post and becoming like Facebook ? Any Suggestion or idea what might be the problem ? Thank you!

but you got make sure sometime you please your followers or the people watching your post, I make the mistakes sometimes and you can easily make somebody from the post to think oh they dont like it so make sure the content is good and then maybe they are.