Sinikiwe Mhlongo, a beauty and lifestyle vlogger, with 160 000 followers on IG says in the past few months she has noticed that her engagement on the platform has dropped. “Because Instagram is not arranged in chronological order anymore and now it’s like posts that get a lot of likes or engagement are the ones that stay at the top. And if you are someone that doesn’t have as many followers, or as much engagement, your posts aren’t going to be put at the top.
They have admitted that these changes may not be satisfying to everyone, but are in an experimental phase to try to optimise value for customers. The popular social media platform, which is owned by Facebook, held a workshop with some of the top social media influencers in the country.Amongst those in attendance was local beauty vlogger, Mihlali Ndamase. With over 778 000 IG followers, Ndamase recently made the Hooper HQ influencer list, as one of the top paid Instagram influencers in the world.
Instagram has also been in the news recently, for its plans to get rid of the like button which has sparked a debate among influencers. Joshua Breckman, Corporate Communications manager EMEA Instagram, says the undoing of the like button is in its testing phase in seven countries for now, but he says it is not something they will be implementing very soon.See photo slideshow below: