After Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp, Instagram is the largest social media network on the planet. With around 2.1 billion users worldwide, more than 70% of total users are under 35 years old.

While Instagram is rapidly expanding every year in terms of both revenue and user count, people experience bugs and issues every now and then.

Instagram-app

Recently, many complained about DMs not working or stuck on delivering and recent posts not appearing or getting removed from hashtags.

Adding to the trouble, Instagram users are now reporting a significant drop in both reach as well as engagement (1,2,3,4,5).

Many say they barely get any engagement on normal posts and stories with the reach dropping to a couple of accounts despite using trending hashtags and audio.

Users are confused and wondering if they are doing anything wrong. You can check out how the reach and engagement dropped for a Instagram user in the image below.

Instagram-reach-engagement-drop

Click/tap to enlarge image (Source)

Anyone else experiencing terrible engagement in the past 2 weeks? Both my stories & posts have gotten extremely low likes/reach. I was averaging 200 likes and then it kept decreasing until 140 likes and now 70 likes? I usually post landscape pics or me in pretty places, which isn’t super original, I know, but I’ve always had like a stable audience counting with my friends & acquaintances and this just seems super low.
(Source)

basically I did well with views and likes last month but I always go through these ups and downs where randomly some weeks I will literally maybe get 200 views and 18 likes. And other times I’ll get 300 likes if I’m lucky and like 5k views. I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I’m using trending audios and I’ve tried posting at similar times and days where I get views but those never worked. I also use popular hashtags but only use 4 or 5. I really feel discouraged from posting man.
(Source)

With the majority of reports dating back a couple of weeks, some are now suggesting that Instagram prefers reels over posts and stories.

Yes, the algorithm is a mess. It’s prioritising popular content and Reels over those that you follow (although you can override that). But my engagement has dropped by over 75% in recent months. People just aren’t seeing my content – it’s the same for everyone.
(Source)

In case you are seeing a significant drop in reach and engagement, try posting a couple of reels to see if it helps. We hope Instagram analyzes user reports and tweaks its algorithm accordingly.

Rest assured, we will be keeping an eye out on further developments on the issue and update this space so stay tuned.

Note: We have more such stories in our dedicated Instagram section so be sure to follow them as well.

PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

Anurag Chawake
1373 Posts

My fascination with technology and computers goes back to the days of Windows XP. Since then, I have been tinkering with OS, mobile phones, and other things. When I am not working on anything, you will find me enjoying video games on some Discord server.

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