Algorithm punishes you for Follow/Unfollow?

IGKing said:

The only problem with this thread is that a lot of the accounts getting hit with engagement strikes are large accounts that don't follow/unfollow. In fact, I've had several people PM me about their engagement rates dropping and they span from whitehat to blackhat, from large to small, from niche to niche.

Some people are getting affected by it, and some people are not.

I can see numerous reasons why some accounts can get hit, but I don't think follow/unfollow is the only reasoning behind it. It COULD be a reason for some accounts. To think Instagram only uses that metric to determine who gets on explore or hashtags is pretty narrow minded. Reposted content, age of the account, location, number of hashtags, specific hashtags, hashtags in the caption or comment, and a million other different things could all be possibilities.

Instagram isn't as simple as it used to be. You need to figure out how to adapt with the system, or you'll get left behind. My advice: try out a bunch of different theories/methods and see which one sticks. And if something sticks, keep tweaking it until you have optimized it.

Best of luck, everyone!

Click to expand...

alienacademy said:

And about your friend comment, he really doesn't know how to target engaging followers. Most of the accounts I build with follow/unfollow have %15+ engagement rate and that's double than Avg. rate.

Click to expand...

alienacademy said:

I had this one account I was building with follow/unfollow which started to get it's most of the posts to explore page when I reached 8k followers.

Click to expand...

boxhead said:

Instagram is performing A/B testing at the moment.

What does that mean?

They've done this stuff for ages. Facebook/Instagram rarely release any changes to anything without A/B testing first.

So at the moment, they've flagged a ton of accounts (of all varieties - data data data) and they're running variations on their algorithms on said accounts (group "B") and comparing the results of that test against accounts that are unchanged (group "A").

They have several reasons for doing this: firstly, their algorithm isn't perfect, and they know it.

Secondly, due to said imperfections, they're in an algorithmic war against, well, you guys -- the black hat types. Or anyone seeking to boost engagement by manipulating their algorithms. And they're losing their war - badly.

So why fight?

Content creators (influencers/bloggers/etc) and those who pay for content creation (brands) are Instagram's lifeblood. And they're being suffocated by blackhat types who're dominating explore pages and algorithmic feeds - all while stealing content and being about as vapid as you can be.

Instagram was built on the idea that original, high quality content drives the platform. They'll fight for that. And not for some deep philosophical reasons, either - because if they don't, someone else will. I don't care big you are - if something better comes along, you're dust.






Just as an aside - why Instagram hasn't introduced a reposting/resharing feature (like uh... every other social media platform) instead of trying to pretend like content isn't endlessly cloned/stolen and engagement along with it - is beyond me. Everyone would win.

I mean, people want to follow curated pages pages - I understand their value. People don't want to follow 2500 different personal accounts that only post occasionally great stuff. Curation is great. That's why we have Spotify playlists - but Spotify playlists' tracks all link back to the original content creator. The content isn't cloned. It isn't stolen. It isn't redundant. It only exists once - it's just accessible from multiple locations.

But Instagram have got their heads stuck in the sand here. I think they consider themselves a place where content is all original and only accessible through its source.

They're dreaming. And they're at war because of it.

Oh well!

Click to expand...

boxhead said:

Instagram is performing A/B testing at the moment.

What does that mean?

They've done this stuff for ages. Facebook/Instagram rarely release any changes to anything without A/B testing first.

So at the moment, they've flagged a ton of accounts (of all varieties - data data data) and they're running variations on their algorithms on said accounts (group "B") and comparing the results of that test against accounts that are unchanged (group "A").

They have several reasons for doing this: firstly, their algorithm isn't perfect, and they know it.

Secondly, due to said imperfections, they're in an algorithmic war against, well, you guys -- the black hat types. Or anyone seeking to boost engagement by manipulating their algorithms. And they're losing their war - badly.

So why fight?

Content creators (influencers/bloggers/etc) and those who pay for content creation (brands) are Instagram's lifeblood. And they're being suffocated by blackhat types who're dominating explore pages and algorithmic feeds - all while stealing content and being about as vapid as you can be.

Instagram was built on the idea that original, high quality content drives the platform. They'll fight for that. And not for some deep philosophical reasons, either - because if they don't, someone else will. I don't care big you are - if something better comes along, you're dust.






Just as an aside - why Instagram hasn't introduced a reposting/resharing feature (like uh... every other social media platform) instead of trying to pretend like content isn't endlessly cloned/stolen and engagement along with it - is beyond me. Everyone would win.

I mean, people want to follow curated pages pages - I understand their value. People don't want to follow 2500 different personal accounts that only post occasionally great stuff. Curation is great. That's why we have Spotify playlists - but Spotify playlists' tracks all link back to the original content creator. The content isn't cloned. It isn't stolen. It isn't redundant. It only exists once - it's just accessible from multiple locations.

But Instagram have got their heads stuck in the sand here. I think they consider themselves a place where content is all original and only accessible through its source.

They're dreaming. And they're at war because of it.

Oh well!

Click to expand...