Instagram has had so many people pulling their hair out this year! With the huge changes in the algorithm and Zuckerberg removing the likes, it has sent the social media world into a hurl of frenzy! People used to be so set on measuring their success on Instagram just through how many likes a post got. So now that businesses are all of a sudden seeing their likes drop so drastically, many are thinking of throwing in the towel. But should we??
Okay so you may be wondering why Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) actually took off the likes in the first place? They started rolling out testing this change in 2018 in certain countries, which hit Australia mid 2019 and it is said that all countries will have this change implemented in 2020. Instagram in its released statements, have said that the reason they have taken off the likes is to “curb the unhealthy behaviour associated with the platform”. They have said that they want people to be able to focus on sharing things that they love rather then things they think will get lots of likes. They have said that the likes measurement impacts people’s mental health negatively as they focus on comparison and people even delete posts that they don’t think get enough likes.
I love it when a company wants to help people.
But does a 566-billion-dollar company make a huge game changing decision like this based on just wanting to help people???
My thoughts on it is that there is a little bit more going on behind the scenes then what Zuckerberg is telling us.
So, if we break it down, who is going to be the most affected from this change? Influencers. Influences have been on the rise over the past few years and make their money by businesses paying them to promote products to their huge following. Generally, influences have built their following off the fact that people are influenced to listen to what they say because of the huge number of likes their posts get. Influencer marketing has become a 5 to 10-billion-dollar industry this year and the thing is that, Instagram doesn’t get a cut of that. In the past businesses would spend money on advertising on Instagram to sell their products, but more and more businesses are moving to selling through influencers, which cuts Instagram’s profit out. I think that by removing the likes, Instagram is trying to deal with Influencers to get businesses back to spending more money on advertising on the platform.
What do you think?
The problem with this change is that it has heavily impacted businesses of all sizes who sell on Instagram or using it as a big branding tool. You may have noticed your number of likes on posts drop. It may make you feel better to know that this change has impacted business pages across the board. This Hyper Auditor graph shows how likes on posts have dropped for business pages who have between 5K to 20K followers with Australia and Brazil being the most heavily impacted.
We can safely assume that this has impacted pages across the board with people less likely to double hit your post to like it.
The only people who this change has positively impacted has been hyper Japanese influences!!
So, I don’t want to leave you feeling depressed and like you should ditch Instagram for your business….
It is actually my favourite platform and with a few tweaks to your strategy you can conquer Instagram in 2020!
Okay, so here are my quick tips to get you going:
- Quality content is key! To grow your page on Instagram you need to focus on creating quality content that your audience really wants to see and read. In the past people would stop their scroll for posts that had a lot of likes, but now you need to be more creative than ever about creating content that will stop a scroll.
- Start to look at other metrics. It is important to set up goals and events on your Google Analytics so you can measure your results on your website from Instagram. Also start to look at how many people your posts are reaching as you will start to reach more people when they are stopping their scroll to look at your posts even if they don’t click the like. Look at what posts get you new followers, measure your hashtags and what posts encourage people to visit your profile.
- Stop relying on rented platforms and start to focus on growing your owned platforms! When you build your empire all around Instagram you are always dictated to by your Landlord- Zuckerberg! But things like your Email List and Website are- your house, your rules. You get to present them the way you want, and no one can take them away from you. So then if the algorithm changes again on Instagram, you still have your other Owned Platforms that are getting you results.
- Have a diverse marketing strategy. THIS IS KEY!! Just like point number 3- if you focus on just building your business on Instagram, then if one thing changes you can lose your whole income for a few months until you get it back up and going again. The whole point of a marketing strategy is to link together key platforms that all contribute to your goals and grow your business. This is why each year you should sit down and put together a strategy that is on paper with measurable goals so that you know you are working towards where you want to go.
- Focus on engagement and conversation. No longer on Instagram can you just post pictures with basic captions and the people will just flock to your doors. The platform is all about building connections and contributing to the community you are in. So that means you have to comment conversation starters on other people’s posts, direct message people to grow relationships and regularly be active. Your page will not grow if you do not contribute.
So in summary the key point is to not cancel on Instagram in 2020! But to focus on these three words:
Value.
Relevancy.
Impact.
If you can focus on these three words as part of your Instagram strategy moving forward in 2020 you will start to see results.