Like many creators in the social media space, I got my start on Instagram. Myspace created the ball, Facebook got the ball rolling, but it was really Instagram that got the ball to its goal. The influencer market as we know it would not exist without Instagram, for better or worse. So before I get into the utter dumpster fire the social media platform has turned into, I want to give credit where credit is due. Instagram pivoted social media culture in remarkable ways.
Which is why it’s so disappointing to see how far the platform has fallen in regards to how they treat their creators and their user base. When they implemented an algorithm instead of showing us posts from the users we follow chronologically, we outcried. When every third post became an ad, we outcried. And when the platform decided to copy Tiktok and tanked any account that still primarily posted still images (which, if you recall, is the foundation of the platform) we outcried.
Now, with the valid threat that Tiktok has become, Instagram is not only lobbying HARD to get Tiktok banned, but they’re doing it at the expense of the internet as we know it. This new bill will allow the government to ban anything they deem disruptive or threatening to “sensitive personal data” which is INCREDIBLY vague and if you think this only poses a threat to Tiktok and won’t be misused in the future, you’d be wrong my friend.
Does Instagram Value Their Users? Naw Dawg
Ignoring the lack of general ethics Meta is displaying, let’s talk about how they treat their creators and businesses on the platform. I have the unique perspective of having a business account for my cosmetics company, as well as my person page which is a creator account with about 50K followers.
On my business page, if I’m not running ads, my posts do not get traction. It’s gotten to the point where doing beautiful product shoots and paying influencers to create UGC (user generated content) for me is no longer a strategy that works. I’m sinking money if I don’t also please the Meta Gods by paying them to show my hard work to my existing followers. My business page has around 20k followers and it will get a good 20 likes per cultivated post, which is exactly why people moved from Facebook to Instagram originally. They hated having to pay Facebook to show the followers they already had their posts, and Instagram is doing the exact same thing.
On the creator side, the ONLY reason creators started doing reels was because they were being incentivized. Instagram started by simply suppressing still images. Giant creators who had been posting their still images for years started to see a 50% decrease in their engagement rate, forcing them to try their hand at video content even if they weren’t comfortable with it. And that wasn’t ultimately enough, so Meta rolled out their bonus program.
This is when I personally started posting to reels. I’d long since given up on my posts performing and my aesthetic content didn’t translate to video without a significantly larger amount of effort, which I wasn’t ready to commit to. Turns out I also have a child, a partner and a day job. But once reels started actually paying, it was more worth my time. Over the course of posting on reels, I’ve probably made around 10 grand, which is more than most and less than some. Getting around 6 million views would garner me maybe $500 a month, so anyone who wanted to make a living wage off of being on Instagram would have to either be spending ALL of their time making content or doing a lot of brand deals.
Meta expects the Tiktok ban to go through, and they’re probably right. Because of this, they’ve “paused” the bonus program. Many creators depended on this money. I made about $200-$500 monthly and relied on it as supplemental income. Meta is saying that they’re pausing bonuses to “improve their monetization”, but it seems like very odd timing that they’re implementing this change directly after their attack on Tiktok. Big Zuck is also saying that reels isn’t making the platform enough money to pay creators, right as they’ve rolled out a function allowing creators to pay for their verification. Odd that they can’t pay creators at all when they now have a new stream of income flowing in.
So to summarize, Instagram is bullshit.