Over the summer Instagram changed their posting algorithm to promote Reels over traditional still images. For someone like me, who uses Instagram as an outlet for my art and has been for about five years, I hate it. Suddenly, my views dropped in half –  from 25 to 30 per post to now 15 to 20 per post –  and I started losing my following. 

  Even though my drop in views is not a big number, it’s still important to me. 

I don’t get that feeling of pride in my work that came from people seeing my art, leaving comments, and sharing what I had made. When my work is shared, and I get that confirmation that I did good, it helps me find my audience, focus my craft, and discover my strengths as an artist. 

Don’t get me wrong, I understand why Instagram did this. The Tik-Tok format – short videos of viral audio clips celebrating nonsense – is really big right now. 

Instead of Instagram copying everyone else, they should stick to the original stuff they had, like Instagram TV and the traditional posts of artsy pictures and captions.

IGTV is for longer videos that are 2-3 minutes long, and that feature is really cool because I could post time-lapses of my art . It is rare to come across an IGTV anymore because of the new found hype in Reels. 

Even though Instagram is aggravating, I still use it to promote my art, however since the algorithm change, I have been looking for a new outlet. Instagram’s gamble to gain and keep users, for me at least, has failed.