We aren’t getting likes, we aren’t seeing pictures of our friends, and overall engagement has taken a nosedive. Let’s face it. Instagram isn’t fun anymore.

We have been talking about engagement a lot lately, and we aren’t getting married!

When we talk about our engagement, we are referring to a measurement of the interactions our content receives on Instagram. This is a sum of likes, shares, comments, views, etc. that our account and posts achieve. Our social team monitors this to determine whether or not our strategies are effective.

It is evident that within the past year, reels have been the top performing component of instagram. So if you are reading this and aren’t big on reels, it’s time to start because 91% of IG users are watching videos!

Where did all of our friends go?

Content creators spend the most time absorbing and creating content on Instagram. Lately, the return hasn’t been so great and we aren’t the only ones frustrated about this. In our personal and professional networks, people have been showing concern for the lack of engagement in recent months.

This isn’t the first time in 2022 that Instagram has faced some backlash. Earlier this year, users were frustrated because they were seeing less content from who they followed, and more content that was ‘suggested’ for them. More background on suggested content can be found here.

Shoutout to celebs for being the true voice of the people.

Even though people complained about this for months, it wasn’t until Kylie Jenner made a post about it that Instagram finally took us seriously. Thanks, Kylie! She posted to her story saying, “stop trying to be tiktok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.” This wouldn’t be the first time that she made a significant impact on social media. In 2018, Snapchat lost $1.3 billion in one week after Kylie stated that she didn’t use it anymore. 

Our Industry needs a voice, too!

At Focus Forward Media, we were doing pretty well a couple months ago. Our reels were getting thousands of views and a couple hundred likes. Recently, we have been getting a couple hundred views and a few dozen likes. What gives?

Below are some examples of recent content, click to watch.

When our videos were performing well, most of the likes and views came from people that did not follow us, meaning that our content was suggested to them in their feed.

After putting the clues together, we realized that Instagram must have stopped pushing our content (like reels) out to larger audiences, where most of the likes and engagement were coming from. This was done in effort to resolve the complaints about users seeing less and less content from the accounts they followed.

In other words, our posts are being recommended to less new people every time we post. 

So, can we have more ‘almost famous’ moments, please? 

In short, yes. Luckily, this phase is only temporary. According to Instagram CEO Adam Mossery, a bug was causing posts to not show up on other people’s feeds for up to 4 hours. That is a lot of time! If posts are not doing well within a certain window of being published, they are less likely to be recommended to others. This bug has since been fixed, so engagement should pick back up soon.

Think about why you are creating reels. Is it to get views? Go viral? For now, creators are encouraged to keep posting content that is relevant to their audience. Eventually, engagement will pick up again and you will have a niche developed- and a loyal fanbase to match!

Got a question regarding your brand’s social media presence? We are here to help.

Follow us to learn more!

Instagram – Focus Forward Media

Instagram – Neilan Media

Tiktok – Focus Forward Media

LinkedIn – Focus Forward Media