Instagram likes on a whole have decreased across the board for both influencers and businesses alike. The key reasons are as follows:
1. BOTS have been shut down
BOTS such as Instagress have been shut down recently as part of an anti-spam strategy by instagram. This means auto-likes and auto comments such as ‘cool’ and ‘check out my page’ have ceased or at least decreased significantly. This has caused a huge drop in engagement for many accounts.
2. Instagrams SHADOWBAN
The Shadowban has been quietly banning accounts from reaching new followers in order to filter out accounts breaching Instagrams policies. Unfortunately, simply using a popular hashtag or using the same hashtag consistently has caused many accounts from not being discovered.
How to AVOID the Shadowban:
Don’t use banned or broken hashtags. Check tags that fall under these categories by searching for the hashtags you want to use on a post.
Stop using software that automatically posts to Instagram
No big surges in Instagram behaviour such as following a 100 account in a short period of time or liking 1000 photos in 10 minutes.
How to FIND OUT if you have the ban:
Use another account, and see if your account that you primarily use appears in the hashtag finder, from the tags used in the more recent post
Ask a friend to unfollow the account and asked them to search most recent hashtag used on you latest post. If account is not discoverable then the account has the Shadowban.
How to LIFT the ban:
Stop using broken hashtags
Stop using BOTS
Report that the account has the ban to Instagram
Switch for a time to a personal account from a business account
3. Change to ALGORITHMS
The Instagram feed is not longer chronological. Your accounts discoverablilty is now based on how much you interact with each account. For example if you like a certain accounts post frequently, they are more likely to see your posts first. Basically, iInstagram has become more about how you interact with specific accounts.
4. More CHANGES to the algorithms
Another change to the Instagram algorithms have seen posts appearing two days later on feeds. This has caused less instant likes and an increase in likes two days after the initial posting time.
5. Move to INSTASTORIES
If accounts want to show content instantly and a specific time the best way is through Instastories. More users are seeing stories rather than posts. By advertising the new posts on stories this is one method of integrating Instastories and posts to convert views into likes.
6. INACTIVITY
If an account has been inactive for more than three days this has caused posts after that time to be hidden or undiscoverable on feeds of followers and the explore pages.