My love-hate relationship with Instagram Algorithm (short read)

When was the last time you listened to the whole 3 minutes of a song? Or even till the second verse? It's quite a challenge to listen to a song without any context or a joke in the first five seconds! We live in a world where we listen to songs on Instagram reels, feed news from Twitter and learn the dance steps on TikTok. There is no depth in the content we absorb today as it hardly takes 5 seconds. And as a professional singer, it pains me to see how the impressions on my video affect my reach more than the talent itself. However, as a social media marketer, I need to keep track of these metrics and ensure my reels are trending. In 2018, I used to listen to old pop songs that weren’t quite favored by the algorithm. And we all know that there is a specific niche of songs that make your videos go viral. So, after putting up several of my favorite songs, I wasn’t successful in attracting visitors. I had to turn to the social media marketer in myself that pushed me to use the trending songs. But I wasn’t quite happy with this process. There was a clear power struggle between the two roles. I couldn’t be a singer when I was a marketer and vice versa. But I also couldn’t achieve fame without the engagement tracking. The very algorithm that helped me reach my target audience also exploited the data of my supporters. I was convinced that 30 hashtags on my post will help me get to my audience and not the emotion in my voice. I wanted to be my own unique self, but I also wanted to gain popularity. Eventually, I couldn’t quite sustain this method for a long time, and I quit social media altogether. If I were to live that journey now, I would have done it differently. I would’ve made my own narrative and sang to my heart’s content. The emphasis would’ve been on my personal growth and not on the social media growth.

The very algorithm that helped me reach my target audience also exploited the data of my supporters. I was convinced that 30 hashtags on my post will help me get to my audience and not the emotion in my voice. I wanted to be my own unique self, but I also wanted to gain popularity. Eventually, I couldn’t quite sustain this method for a long time, and I quit social media altogether. If I were to live that journey now, I would have done it differently. I would’ve made my own narrative and sang to my heart’s content. The emphasis would’ve been on my personal growth and not on the social media growth. And usage of algorithm would be for the content around the song and not for the melody or the trending lyrics. I would’ve focused on attracting the right kind of audience, the ones that followed me for my content and not for the trending audios. As a social media marketer, I would’ve used my Instagram page as a distribution channel rather than following a fixed pattern. Content and my songs would’ve been marketed to satisfy both of my roles. However, I still sing my favorite songs offline, at public events or upon request. I don’t put up anything on social media anywhere but who knows, someday I might start posting again.