Instagram 12+

I’m learning to appreciate the app as a musician would an instrument. For creators, its unparalleled in terms of functional design. Not only that, there’s an opportunity to market, network, monetise content. Business owners be warned, you’re losing sales because you aren’t on Instagram. Facebook likes have less value than an equivalent interaction in Instagram. It’s not too late to jump on board! Forget the website, create an Instagram profile first. It’s continuously improved with advanced social analytics directly influencing the way in which a social network organically grows and integrates into reality. It’s less clunky than Snapchat while offering similar messaging functionality to WhatsApp. If you have to use one-app, Instagram should be your first choice. Congratulations if you’re reading this review, it means you’re about to create something and release it into the social stream, hopefully it’s something positive and gentle.

Happy creating 🌱

Of late Instagram has significantly declined in its functionality as a social media platform. For one algorithmic bias seems to be at an all time high, only pushing certain content and topic and either shadow banning or restricting the reach of any content that they do not personally align with. If that isn’t bad enough, the appeals process is absolutely pointless and half the time isn’t even available.

Another weird thing I’ve noticed is that activity and commenting is inconsistently restricted and limited at times for no clear reason and with no way to appeal (comments are severely restricted even when not violating any policy - no spam in sharing posts, no spamming in comments, no bullying or harassment, no hate speach but “instagram limits certain activities…think we made a mistake?” But the button to report this as a mistake doesn’t work). For example: this morning I entered a competition from a local account for a local tv show who have multiple festive completions currents running daily. This is common particularly during holiday periods and something I have done frequently over the years. I enter 2 competitions, each requiring 1 comment stating what you love about the sponsored product however I cannot comment because I get said error message.

I have been a long-term user of instagram, it used to be a great app that I enjoyed for its photo-sharing abilities and messaging facilities. What has detracted from its past ease of use and enjoyability is the annoying and irrelevant adverts that are almost always spam or a scam. At this point I’d pay for the app just to stop seeing them. The platform is full of spam and bots, which incessantly tag you in photos, try to follow you or send you and other users messages that are inappropriate or pure nonsense. Instagram makes no effort to address the huge number of fake accounts and the constant stream of spam that harasses its users. It also has made minimal effort to address the fact that influencers do not honestly indicate what is or isn’t a sponsored post, not mention the number of misleading products sold and advertised by these means. The stories function was a great addition until every 3rd story from someone you actually follow became an advert that was spam or scam — I see adverts for wigs from a dubious sources about 15 times a day and I am not interested in buying a wig nor a pet bed that I’ve seen 500 times under a different name. Extremely frustrated and over this app, what is the point?