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Have you noticed everyone complaining about Instagram and changing up their visibility by showing up on more platforms?
If you've been wondering why everyone seems to leave Instagram and focus more on other platforms, here's the truth.
As a social media management and strategy agency, we are big on Instagram as well. Our target market is on there, it's a great place to showcase our work, and we've build quite a community on there!
So as a team who does social media for a living, we've noticed the changes right away.
The main issues we've noticed and that now others are noticing when it comes to showing up on Instagram as a business are as follows:
-Too many updates
If you have an Instagram account or follow anyone who shared updates on the app, you've noticed that there is a new update basically every week. Whether it's a new feature, changes to the algorithm, or visual aspects- it can be hard to follow.
Now, you may be wondering why is that so bad? Well, the problem is, is that not everyone has these updates. Therefore, it leaves businesses guessing on what strategies they need to follow- the one everyone tells them, or the one they have access to and that work for them?
For example, a lot of people's feed transformed carousel posts into almost 'reel-like' format where it adds boarders to the image, which can make it look awkward if not sized properly.
Everyone is going crazy over this and recommending to create carousels a certain way. While others, including most of our clients, still have the old version of the feed.
This makes it not only impossible to keep up with the changes, but also for service providers to do their work and be trusted to know what they're doing. Overall, it creates too much confusion that the changes don't seem worth it.
-Glitches
If you've been on Instagram lately or have seen any articles on all the glitches people have experienced lately, you probably know what we're talking about. From stories being posted in the wrong order, to posts missing, to more recently- people not being able to respond to DMs. These seem to come and go, but have been occurring way more often, which makes it quite hard for businesses to lead successful launches, among many things.
-No support
This has been an issue for the longest time, but it is much more prevalent now. When we think about all the concerns, we kind of would expect some sort support, at the very least an email. When an app promotes selling more often (the shopping feature, tagging brands, and other) you'd think businesses would at least be able to get support with any issues as they are greatly contouring to the app financially, but this is a big issue brands absolutely despise.
-Ad issues
We've noticed many brands are also experiencing issues with their ads. Whether it not reaching as many people as it promised upon setting it up, it getting held up by issues, or other concerns.
-Bots
The infamous bot issue. From spam comments to spam DMs, it can be quite a problem. What can we do? We report and block them, but they just keep coming back. The real danger comes in when there are straight up fraudulent accounts tricking people into sending them money, or fake accounts of popular people asking for money. When an identity theft claim is reported, people often find that Instagram doesn't think they are fake. Brands and influencers feel helpless in this case.
-Account bans
Very often we've noticed (even with one of our own past clients) where an account would be suspended or banned for a period or time for absolutely no reason. Not only is it greatly messing with the businesses' abilities to make sales and continue to operate on that platform, it is also incredibly hard to reach someone and get it back up at a reasonable time. It can take anywhere from weeks to month in most cases to resolve this issue.
Here's our take on it- platforms often get too excited with making changes that they forget the basics. What is the consumer experience on the app? Are your too focused on having businesses use your platform to sell that you forget to address concerns when something goes wrong?
Are you too focused on allowing content creators to make money so your app becomes more popular that you forget to have someone offer support when they don't get paid for reels? (this happened so many times as well, we've experienced it for ourselves).
At the end of the day, keeping people on is more important than bringing in more people. Until Instagram is able to fix these issues, brands will continue to find and focus on other platforms for their business.
What are your thoughts on this? Feel free to leave a comment!
Are you a brand looking to mix things up and update your strategies into other platforms? Book a free call with us here or email us with any questions: