This is a 100% manual account, high quality content, always on phone, never logged in to 3rd party apps, services or bots or anything like that.
Was at 15k around April and used to get 20%-30% engagement rate, 4000 likes average easily.
Now I am close to 20k and In the past few weeks (especially the past 2 were the strongest) it has been decreasing and keeps decreasing to 10% engagement, so , I’m getting 2000, my best posts do 2500 likes.
It’s definitely frustrating and I don’t like where it is going. Anyone experiencing something similar lately?
Thanks in advance for the attention and advice, much love.
I did get shadowbanned when I was at around 10k (I believe for using too many hashtags, because I cant find any other reason for it), and it also did decrease my engagement. Did the not logging in for 7 days, not using hashtags for 14 days and then things came back to normal.
Right now I am not shadowbanned because I can find posts in hashtags (at that time I couldnt) and the reach from hashtags seems normal (at the time was zero or very very little)
As a person who does all this IG stuff for my shop only I can tell you that the number of visits didn’t change while the engagement dropped a lot. It only shows how big was the automated activity - I don’t get anymore super long, “well thought” comments one second after posting, or other engaging stuff, but store visits didn’t drop at all.
While the follow/ unfollow, liking and commenting doesn’t work that well anymore did anyone notice the massive outburst of DM’s from certainly hacked accounts about loaded Visa Cards or messages beginning with “here” continuing with links containing my naked photos? There are like 2-3 types of message and I receive 60-100 of them daily, and in 50% cases someone says “sorry, I was hacked” few days later.
I used to get crazy engagement like between anywhere from 1k-10k likes with the avg being somewhere around 3-5k on an account with 3k followers
Then instagram would automatically delete my posts right after posting for like a month no mater what i pisted and infinicore shut down as well now (helped me rank in hashtags) im lucky to get 300 likes now
Try removing ghost followers and find a provider for power likes and boost a few posts and see if that helps wake up your engagement
I’m getting about 25% of the engagement I had a year ago on my personal accounts. Things are worse these days by far, more than ever honestly, and yes it’s unfortunately just Instagram being what it is. You can accept it for what it is and take the lower ER, or just quit and show them how badly they’re doing.
Wish there was more backlash for the shitty decisions they’ve made with the platform, like the quit facebook movement.
I’m getting a drop of 25% at times (not always) but it really has to do with the quality of your followers (targetting) since i have for example also indian followers but i cant remember them even engaging ever. The time of posting matters a lot. You have to post at the start of you time it’s getting active. Not your most active point. I’ve also noticed that posts with a shop icon get in a different category and not in the general explore area.
This is from my observation. Not factual since i dont work at Instagram
If unproperly targetted and engaging with them. I’ve never had bot activity likin my photos. At least small enough to not notice it. So i guess that on the people wrongly targetting their accounts.
Or being dependent on like exchange or services like that. True genuine engagement rarely drops as hard as 75%
If your IG account isnt building some sort of loyal fanbase or community it’s to be expected. Bots search with certain targets. They even engage with the hashtags you use. So while one post might make you go viral you’re not actually building some audience that keeps them engaging with you. Thats most peoples problems with engagement drops i think. So with sooo many bots being affected, you notice that all of a sudden your depending on your ‘loyal’ followers and hashtags dont seem to work anymore (cause botters) dont interact with them anymore
Also, it is through us that there is a decrease in commitment: D
Because bots no longer like other photos, even those who do not use the bot So the number of shares has decreased.
What also contributed to the reduction of the receipts, organic (natural) accounts
It’s all due to Instagram changing the way people’s posts are seen on the app. It’s continually being refined into a more personal display. People will only be shown posts which Instagram thinks they are truly interested in, based on how they use the app. Even hashtag results are personalized for the past year or so.
This post from an old Reddit thread sums it up nicely:
Instagram is very smart. People are complaining about reduced reach consistently and Instagram can honestly respond saying that they are not reducing organic reach. They genuinely flat-out deny it. What they’re really doing is refining it, to the point where every move you make on their app effects what is shown to you. It just so happens that a side effect of this is significantly reduced organic reach (and higher ad spend required to compensate). How in(convenient for them).
I talk more about how you can improve your reach organically here:
The margins to bend their algorithm to our will are ever thinning. Either you play by their rules or you don’t play at all.
Let’s not forget where the majority of hashtag likes came from. We’ve all been suffering since the update(s) and thousands of platforms around the world using automation are also experiencing the same difficulties. I’m sure once we all find our feet things will naturally pick up again, but it won’t be too significant a change. I’m honestly happier getting less likes if a higher percentage of them are truly a reflection of interest. If I’m going to receive automated likes, I’d like them from high-quality accounts that at least seem legitimate, ideally to the point where I can’t even tell the difference.
So the number of shares has decreased.