When Ads Take Over: Examining the Impact of Instagram Profile Ads
Exploring my experience as a "content creator". Looking at my issues with Instagram and proposing some future solutions/ideas and how I am choosing to navigate my contributions to platforms.
We knew this shift was inevitable, and most people probably haven’t fully noticed it yet. It started with the subtle "sponsored content”, influencers being paid to push products…fine, it’s nice for people to get paid to promote brands I guess…then we saw them in our feeds…that kind of made sense too... I guess Instagram needs to create some sort of revenue to operate this massive social media platform but now…in our PROFILES, without our permission!?
Ads, they are everywhere, this is nothing new, but, I argue, this is a final shift that has pushed me away from Instagram (for the second time).
Below, I propose a way to “passively fight back” and offer a couple options for the future.
It will be important to understand some of how I got here in order to understand where I am coming from in this article, so I am taking the time to add some context below.
If you are already familiar with the project I run and some of my history, feel free to click here to skip ahead.
An Introduction
I have been taking photographs in the “East Vancouver” neighborhoods for the last five-ish years. My first season taking photos was the Winter of 2018. I bought a used Sony a7 and slapped on an old vintage Olympus lens and headed into the neighborhood. I did not want it to be “traditional street photography”. I wasn’t comfortable taking photos without peoples permission and I wanted to have more of a portrait style of photo. I also definitely didn’t have the skills to take out my camera fast enough to capture something quick; so, I would shyly stop people and ask them if I could take their photo based on a piece of clothing or “look” they were giving off.
This started as a curiosity/passion project, with no real intention to share widely online. Initially it was a way to have a hobby as I walked through my neighborhood and noticed things that caught my eye. My original intent was to photograph a diverse range of clothing and people and I could eventually publish some sort of book or zine. Vancouver generally gets a bad rap for its “fashion scene” but I felt like I was seeing it different at this end of the city and there was no one else focused on this neighborhood for its “style”. People visited for many reasons; good restaurants, good coffee, tattoo shops, DIY skatepark, eclectic vintage stores, and more of a “slower pace” than what you’d find downtown or in Kitsilano. The “clientele” is definitely unique.
During this time (2017–18ish), I was already off of social media for a couple of years as I had gotten bored of the endless scrolling cycle, mostly following old friends from high school and university watching everyone start their post-education careers, travel, start families, etc; which was fine, but I was spending way too much time on it. I exited Facebook a year or so prior to the Boomer takeover of Facebook (once my parents started asking how to sign-up for accounts I was out). I felt that Instagram wouldn’t be too far behind once the Zuck stuck his teeth into the platform so I decided to get off Instagram as well. It was freeing, and I found I wasn’t missing much other than the occasional meme or news reference.
After the first few months taking photos and sharing them with my brother (who first encouraged me to pursue this project) he persuaded me to start an Instagram to share the photos, thinking that a) people would love to see and share the photos I had taken of them, and b) it would offer some insight into what was going on in these neighborhoods. So, reluctantly, I jumped back into IG. I started publishing the images on a website and the goal was to get people there, I figured Instagram would be the best place to direct people to the site.
Fast forward to a few months later, I am posting regularly, meeting people in the neighborhood and the followers are coming in at a steady pace. People seemed grateful to be part of the project and they generally liked re-sharing their photos and tagging their friends in the comments when they’d pop up. A few news outlets and YouTube channels took notice and early on in the process I was highlighted on their channels. Of course, without my presence on Instagram, I doubt they would have been able to find me as quick.
An added benefit being back on social media was that, while walking endlessly through the different parts of the city, I met some amazing people, but the conversations were usually short and surface level. Instagram became a way for me to stay connected to the people I talked to and it started to become a useful “social” platform; it allowed me to see all the other amazing things people were up to and it kept me up to date with all the events, brands, styles, shows, and social circles that existed in this corner of the city and kept me inspired and driven to sharpen my craft. I started to add people I met, comment on posts and interact with “the community” as best as I could, and it was generally reciprocated as people continued to tag their friends and share my posts broadly.
Now, six and a bit years later and things are going well. My work is recognized locally and I sometimes get some nice DMs of people telling me I made their day, that they really enjoy the project, and love the diversity of people I’ve been able to capture, things were looking great…
One last point before I get into the real issue of this article…
At no point have I tried to monetize this project. I’ve never felt comfortable selling individual images of the people I’ve taken photos of, although I do ask their permission to shoot, I’ve decided instead to always give back any money I’ve generated in this project to local organizations. I work full time and I have had no desire for this to also become work. Through printing magazines (and this past year a book) I have been able to keep my gear updated as it breaks, donate to local charities and support local artists who make designs for my stickers (which are always free!). Any paid work I’ve done through the website has resulted in me donating half the money back to the community, and the other half to fund my next batch of stickers that I give when I take peoples photos.
I actively try to reject the notion that every art project or hobby has to turn into a “side-hustle”. Will I regret this in the future? Maybe. But for now, it has been fun to just engage with the community and offer my “services” to people who enjoy the content.
All that being said, if this were my paid job, I would be ecstatic, but I also understand it’s next to impossible to be a full time “street photographer”, especially in a city like Vancouver. I look at this project as a service to the community. When people agree to stop and be part of the project then I am okay with them using my photos however they see fit. People use these portraits as profile photos, they repost them on their own feed, print for friends, use as professional website portraits, and of course, dating apps, and I am totally okay with that and occasionally someone will send me a receipt of their donation to the causes I cite on my “about” page, which is amazing.
Without taking on sponsorships or ad partners, there is no way to generate revenue from a project like this, unless I quit my job and made attempt to make freelance photography my full time gig, with this on the side, but still, this project can’t make me enough money to replace my career.
Now, with the history of where this project has come from, I’ll finally explore the problem I am finding.
Let me paint you a picture.
You may have had a similar experience lately.
You are scrolling through a friends profile, looking for an old photo or just admiring their highly curated feed…you’re scrolling…one, two, three of their recent posts go by, four, five…an ad for cranberry juice…? What the hell?
And there it is, an ad in your friends profile on Instagram. When I first came across this I thought it was a bug in the app. I’ve only seen ads in my main feed (and all too frequent I might add)… so maybe this is just a weird glitch that an ad showed up in a personal profile. Until it happened again. And again. And again.
As I was pondering this over a few weeks as I kept seeing them more and more. I asked some friends and family if they had noticed with mixed result, some said for sure, others said they weren’t sure.
I decided to investigate further, straight to the source and there it was, a webpage from Instagram outlining how they are “testing” putting ads on “certain profiles”.
Let’s dig in further…
The first grey box above … “monetizing ads in Instagram profile feed are currently being tested and are only available to a selected group of creators at this time”.
Upon first reading, you’d think that these “tests” are in some sort of agreement with the people whos profiles they are appearing in, that's understandable, if the creator of the content is aware, and is getting paid, well, good for them, definitely a step in the right direction if we want to get paid for our work on Instagram…
It will “…allows you to get paid for engagement on your profile from content that you are already creating”.
Again, great. I’ve always struggled with the fact that I have consistently pulled people back to Instagram because of my content and haven’t been compensated for that work. Maybe this could be a way to generate some income…my mind started to race… Can I actually make taking these photos and posting them on Instagram semi-profitable without “selling out” and pushing products?
Is Instagram exploring profit sharing?
Lets not kid ourselves, this page has been up for over a year and I have yet to hear anyone getting paid for ads, yet those ads are still on peoples profiles, at all times.
To be fair, currently, this is only open to people located in the US, but why are Canadian IGs getting them on our profiles then?
“But Mike” you might say; “without Instagram, you’d have no exposure, looking at ads is the price you have to pay to use a free app”.
While I empathize with these types of arguments, it still lands flat for me. The going rate for businesses advertising on Instagram is $0.03 - 0.08 per impression. Some 11% of businesses surveyed allotting around $5000 per month just for Instagram ads. And, those are the ads appearing in YOUR profile, with no consent or, at this point, revenue sharing with the peoples whos online portfolio space those ads are occupying.
Based on some preliminary “reddit research” I’ve done online, Instagram is paying their users $0.02 - 0.1 per 1000 impressions in the US. Assuming the “low end” of what businesses pay per impression, and the HIGH end of what IG is paying back to their creators, IGs “profit sharing” with their users is 0.0003%.
I still think we are very far away from being able to make “real money” from creating content on Instagram, even if they were paying 10% of their impression costs. If I consider some of my “best posts”, out of the 15000ish impressions, only about 500 people end up on my profile according to my app insights.
The “appearance” of profit sharing but blatantly just using more of our attention space for their ads is one thing. The other aspect I am having issue with is which ads are displayed on my profile. It mentions that they are focused on “advertiser-friendly content”, but what about “creator-friendly ads”? I only assume that the targeted ads I see when scrolling through peoples profiles would be different in the opposite direction, but what if ads appear in my profile that I am not okay with? Political ads? No way. Ads for Shein? fuck off.
With no way to control any of this, its safe to say that my gears are fully ground.
Okay, so, how do we move forward?
I look at this issue now in two ways;
A personal battle against it.
A path forward.
I made the decision a year or so ago to go down to 9 posts on my Instagram profile at all times. This has regularly become a question I get through IG DMs or when I meet people on the street.
I originally made this decision as an aesthetic choice, but it continued to morph into a way hopefully drawing people away from my IG profile and onto my website (and hopefully here now too). That was always the goal anyways, I figured if people wanted to see more, they’d scroll a few posts and then check out the website. I am unsure how much traffic this has actually turned into for my website, but I like to think at least a few people end up there because of it.
Lately, it’s also worked in my favor to serve as a way to allow less ads on my profile. Call it a passive protest but, if people can only scroll once or twice before they are at the end of my posts, in my mind, there’s less of a chance IG can insert an ad in there. It seems like they put them in once every 3-5 posts these days. I realize that this has likely has caused the recent decrease in my reach (that damn algo), but honestly, I don’t care.
As for the future for these big businesses that host our content, well, I think there are many options. For instance it may be a bit soon, but I believe using the Lightning network to “zap sats” (small amounts of bitcoin) over on the new “social channels” like Nostr, instead of likes, is a very interesting proposition. Sure its fractions of a penny, but at least its creator to creator, regardless of what you think about Bitcoin, I’d rather contribute directly to people I follow on a small basis consistently than see ads they aren’t getting paid for in their profile.
Or, an app like this (Substack), where creators can set their own price, and dictate what they want to be seen for free and what they want upgraded paid users to see…with a 90-10 split with the host. 90% to the creator, 10% to the host (well done
). With an added benefit of including your own ads, if you choose so.Or, finally, maybe Instagram can get moving on paying people a fair amount. Facebook has been exploiting our attention and data for way too long, time to give back to the people that make your platform interesting. Without us, what would it be?
There will likely come a time where I get sick of Instagram again and stop using it to publish my work and I assume many others will likely feel the same way. These apps have a short shelf-life and if they don’t do something to keep their creators wanting to engage in the app, why would anyone stay? I think it is imperative that they treat the people who drive traffic, even small amounts relative to some of the “massive accounts”, like small business owners and start returning some of that energy back into the creators.
Thanks for reading, I’ve had this draft written for over six months and have continued to tweak and grow it until I had the right platform to publish.
It is kind of fitting that this will be my second post on Substack and hopefully one that can generate some interest and bring more people along for the ride.
If you’ve made it this far, and want to enter a chance to win a free (I’ll pay to ship) *misprinted* copy of my 2022 book, leave a comment below on what you think of this whole conundrum.
Did you know this was happening?
What do you think we should do?
More writing coming soon!