You’ve most likely noticed that your engagement is lower than usual and that you’re not seeing your friends posts as often even if they’ve been regularly posting to their feed.
It appears small creators and business who are trying to expand their reach are suffering the most.
I’m sure you all can agree that something is up with Instagram, and I’m about to explain.
I’ve worked in social media marketing for nearly 5 years and I’ve observed, studied and experimented with this app quite intensely! It’s one of the most used apps by Facebook and makes the most money for Facebook. Therefore, Instagram has to keep evolving to stay relevant and to compete with competitors such as TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube.
My aim is to support small food creators and businesses, and I will shed some light to help you understand what’s been going on with Instagram lately and what steps you can take to combat the changes.
There are three key things I will discuss, that most social media gurus/influencers won’t tell you:
If there are any topics in this blog that you’ like me to explain in more detail, please leave me a comment below.
Firstly, we need to understand why Instagram has made these updates.
Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 for £760m and has since owned this platform. Facebook’s primary objective is to make money and to keep people using their products for as long as possible. Since Instagram is THE most used app, Facebook predominantly and financially relies on the success of this platform.
As I stated earlier, Instagram is under immense pressure to constantly evolve to compete with competitors. You may have noticed that Instagram stories is basically a replica of Snapchat, that IGTV might as well be YouTube and that Reels is just copying TikTok. These features were solely designed to get people spending more time on Instagram than the other popular platforms.
Without getting too technical, algorithms are essentially code that work behind the scenes that send your content to people’s feeds.
Historically, you would post your content and it will be seen by the majority of people who follow you.
We (social media marketers) believe Instagram only pushes your content to only 10% of people that follow you. This is a tiny percentage especially if you already have a small following.
As I mentioned earlier, Instagram’s primary objective is to keep users on the app for as long as possible. They do this by pushing the MOST POPULAR content to your feed, whether that be a well-established brand or influencer that consistently has high engagement and tons of followers. This triggers the algorithm to send their content to your feed as often as possible because it the more people interact with viral content, the longer they are going to stay on the app.
You may have noticed you’re seeing a lot of sponsored ads in your feed and Instagram stories.
Instagram prioritises brands and influencers who pump money behind their content. It’s a very lucrative revenue stream for Instagram and it isn’t going away anytime soon. Any business or creator who wants to grow will inevitably have to adopt the “pay to play” strategy.
I’ve played around with this strategy too. There’s pros and cons, but I’m happy to go into detail in another blog. Leave a comment below if you’d like me to write something on paid advertising via social media.
I know this doesn’t sound fair at all especially that we’re used to an Instagram that wasn’t controlled by Facebook. However, social media marketers agree this is what is now required to get your content seen.
It’s not all doom and gloom. As creators, we also need to adapt and think strategically. If you’re on the app to simply post pictures, that’s fine. This blog is aimed at food creators who want to gain more traction on social media, and why shouldn’t you. You put so much effort and creativity behind you’re the content you share for others to enjoy, it’s nice to be acknowledge and appreciated.
There are hundreds of topics and strategies I can go into immense detail, but I’ll discuss the ones that are almost hidden from small creators.
There are three C words that you must always remember when growing your page: Content, Community and Consistency.
In order to adapt to the new changes, as explained, you need to up your content game.
Observe popular accounts that consistently attract high engagement and are similar to what you create. Typically, the feed has an aesthetic or theme. Having an aesthetically pleasing or eye-catching feed increases your chances of engagement and followers.
The goal is to create ‘thumb stopping’ content. It’s the image that first captures someone’s attention. The content you post doesn’t have to be ultra perfect! You just need to put a little more effort into how you showcase your food. Look at creative ways to make it a lot more appetising.
You don’t need expensive equipment to make your photos pop. Most of my content on my feed is done on my Iphone XS and I don’t have a photography studio. All you need is a simple background and natural light. I’d be happy to share tips on this, just leave me a comment and I can create a full guide.
Are you seeing a lot more Reels in your feed lately? It’s not just because everyone is starting to use it, Instagram wants people to use this feature so that they don’t have to head over to TikTok. Also, videos rank higher than a static image posts. They are considered more entertaining by users, attract longer view times and tend to keep users on the app longer.
If you remember what I mentioned earlier, Instagram wants to keep its users on the app for as long as possible. To get your content to rank higher, regularly use all the features that Instagram offers such as Reels, IGTV, Instagram Live, Stories etc.
Did you know that the pages you are following might be damaging your engagement and suppressing your reach?
I learned this a while back, especially when I started @neyskitchen.official. I tried the “follow for follow” strategy and also followed pages that I was interested in such as restaurants, fashion retailers, celebrities, sports brands, etc.
What I didn’t realise is that this was harming my growth.
The “follow for follow” strategy doesn’t mean the person you’ve agreed to follow will engage with your content in a meaningful way. If you have a small following, it’s tempting to do this strategy to boost your numbers. However, this isn’t sustainable. People that follow you based on this strategy aren’t genuinely interested in your content and therefore won’t engage with or seek out your content.
Don’t obsess about growing your followers. Focus on growing your engagement and reach with those who care about what you create and share. It’s more impressive to have 300 followers and consistently have 300 likes per post rather than 30,000 followers and only be getting 72 or 100 likes. The latter is very suspect and will hinder opportunities to collaborate with brands and businesses.
I’ve worked with brands that have had thousands of followers but extremely poor engagement. In the eyes of the consumer, it makes them look dishonest and less credible.
Following pages that don’t bare any relevance to your niche will prevent the algorithm from working in your favour.
I used to follow brands and businesses and brands that I was simply interested in. What I didn’t realise is that this stopped the growth and discoverability of my page.
The algorithm is designed to organically suggest pages to people based on shared interests.
If you’re following accounts that don’t align with your niche, this confuses the algorithm and makes it harder for it to suggest your page to someone who would be genuinely interested in your content and hit the “follow” button.
When you follow someone from off their page, you will notice Instagram suggests other pages that offer very similar content to the one you just followed.
This is how you start to build a community – by genuinely connecting with others who share your KEY interest.
When I decided to primarily follow and engage with other food creators and food bloggers, my engagement increased and so did my followers, I grew from 450 followers in April 2020 to over 1.4K in May 2020 without any paid advertising. It’s because of two things: (1) I made it easier for the algorithm to show my page to people who were more likely to interact with me and (2) I engaged consistently with other food creators and my followers thus boosting the algorithm to my advantage.
I tested the same strategy with a business account for a former employer and it produced very similar results.
Firstly, let me make it clear that I have nothing against influencers (unless they’re ones that take advantage of businesses). They’re very talented and many of them work hard to get their page to the way it is.
In the marketing industry, an influencer typically defined has someone who has 10K or more followers and has a consistent engagement rate of at least 3%.
As I mentioned earlier, due to the influencers’ content having high engagement, Instagram is going to push their content to your feed more often than that of smaller creators. You’ll unknowingly engage with them the most, which will turn your time and attention away from connecting and engaging with smaller creators. (In my opinion, small creators tend be more original and authentic than most influencers.)
Also, due to the high engagement, the flood of comments and the busy-ness of creating content, it’s unlikely an influencer will interact with you in a meaningful way. If their response is just a “thank you” or “heart emoji” or a very generic response, the algorithm will not see that as genuine engagement. Genuine engagement on Instagram now is more than 4 words.
In order to continue supporting your community of small creators, I recommend limiting the number of influencers you follow.
Here’s some tips on how to grow a thriving and well-connected tribe:
It’s a well-known fact that Instagram is looking to phase out the “like” button as their response to combat mental health issues that are associated with users feeling depressed when their content fails to attract likes.
Social media has come under a lot of scrutiny especially with the correlation between social media and alarmingly high youth suicide rates.
It used to be the more likes you got, the more the algorithm boosted your content organically.
Now, the “like” has been replaced by the “save” button. The more people save your posts, the more reach your content receives. In contrast to the “like” button which is visible, the “save” button is hidden from viewers. It can only be seen by the content creator in their insights section of their business or creator account. Instagram’s logic is because it’s out of site, people are less likely to compare each other’s popularity based on likes. This is also not going to upset a new generation of Instagram users.
We’re so used to hitting the like button it seems odd to now switch over to the save button. We only tend to save someone’s content if we REALLY like it, which is why I emphasised earlier that you need to step up your content. If your content looks stunning, people are more likely going to tap “save” especially if you have the recipe in the caption.
The “share” button, which is also hidden, is considered the an extra “like.”
Based on what I shared about the “like” button being switched over for the “save” button, this is one of the reasons why I do “Follow Friday’s” and “Shout Out Sundays” on my Instagram Stories every week. It’s how I support my fellow food creators and get the algorithm on their side. I encourage you to spare a few minutes of your time to do the same for your community.
As much as we hate the changes by Instagram, we still need to adapt and find ways of being creative in order to thrive on this app.
Consistency and testing is key.
Consistently engage with your community through posting content and engaging with your followers.
Learn what you followers engage with the most and test what content drives more engagement.
Regularly share content on Instagram. You don’t need to post every single day. Focus on quality over quantity and then start to build your post frequency from there.
Experiment and track your progress. You cannot stay idle on this app. You need to regularly test what works and what doesn’t. Have a look at your top three posts and assess them. Pay attention to when you posted them, the captions you used, whether it was a video or image, etc. If it’s not clear, KEEP EXPERIMENTING. It sounds like a lot of hard work, but if you genuinely want to grow on Instagram you’ll need to embrace this.
There are too many self-proclaimed social media gurus who claim there’s an easier route. Please do not waste your time or money on them. I’ve attended some of their webinars, seminars and courses and they’re mostly inconclusive, but you’ll always have my support. If there’s anything in this blog that you’d like me to expand on or give some tips and advice, message me on Instagram. I’m more than happy to share my knowledge.
