As so often happens on social media these days, especially when it comes to audience reach, various claims have been popping up recently with regard to Instagram. Specifically that it limits the reach of your posts to only around 7% of your followers. It’s been circulating for a few months, and Instagram finally got sick of these accusations and has responded with a denial of the claims. They say that they’re not hiding anything and that if people scroll down their feeds far enough, your images will appear.
The accusations have been coming for quite a while now, and in multiple languages. Posts are still coming even as recently as a few hours ago.
A post shared by Le Carrousel (@lecarrouselevents) The one above reads… In response, Instagram took to Twitter and not their own platform to respond… Sad but true, especially for small businesses. If you see this photo simply click on Like and comment: YESThat way we will go up in the ranking and Instagram will begin to show the content to our friends. Thank you
So, in short, Instagram is essentially saying that your photos suck, your account sucks, your engagement sucks, and we’re showing your photos, but they’re so far down the list that most people will never see them. But they’re laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of your followers for this, and not their algorithm. In fact, they categorically deny that the algorithm has changed recently. Your followers simply aren’t engaging with you already, so you’re a low priority on their feed. How does this make any sense? If they’re never seeing your posts, how can they engage with them in order to raise your profile’s position in your followers’ feeds? The only way they’re going to increase engagement is if they’re specifically going to your profile to look at your posts. Then, maybe, you’ll start showing up higher in their regular feed. How, exactly, you’re supposed to tell them to engage with your content when they never actually see your content (and won’t see your message asking people to engage with it) is something Instagram doesn’t seem to have actually commented on yet. How’s your Instagram reach these days? Is it climbing up or falling down? [via Engadget]
