Digital agencies that offer social media marketing services to their clients need to keep an eye on the social media landscape. It’s important that digital agencies keep a clear picture of what each platform has to offer, what demographic they represent and most importantly, what guidelines and rules they expect their users to follow. At Globital South Africa, we work with digital agencies that need to outsource social media management for their clients. Offering white label social media services means it’s important for us to be on top of social media and the digital world as a whole.
A key player in the Metaverse, Instagram consistently aims to give each of its users an even better experience. The updates that Instagram releases show their commitment to their users and give them as much control over their experience as possible. Evidence of the control Instagram seeks to give users can be seen in the features and functionality brought by their updates.
For instance, Instagram introduced the Sensitive Content Control feature back in July 2021. The feature allowed users to decide for themselves what kind of content they were interested in seeing on their Explore pages. This would help users over the age of 18 decide whether or not they would want to see more or less sensitive content recommended to them, creating a more enjoyable, personalised experience overall.
As of the beginning of June 2022, Instagram expanded the Sensitive Content Control feature in an update. This update will see the same Sensitive Content Control applied to content and accounts found in In-Feed Recommendations, Hashtag Pages, Accounts You Might Follow, Reels and Search.
Understanding how the updates to the Sensitive Content Control feature will affect digital agencies requires some understanding of how Instagram defines ‘Sensitive Content’. According to Instagram, “You can think of sensitive content as posts that don’t necessarily break our rules, but could potentially be upsetting to some people,” This can include content that is violent, content that is sexually suggestive like people or content that promotes the use of regulated products like alcohol, tobacco or vaping, pharmaceuticals etc.
The impact this update has on digital agencies will vary significantly based on the types of clients and industries they represent. For example, if a client offers cosmetic procedures, content promoting or showing those kinds of procedures may be considered sensitive content. This would mean that Instagram users who have their Sensitive Content Controls set to “Less” wouldn’t be shown a lot of that client’s content, which would impact their overall reach and engagement. A client representing a clothing brand that posts images of clothes without models is unlikely to be producing content that would fall under sensitive content and will be largely unaffected by these changes.
It’s important for digital agencies to audit their clients and the types of campaigns they have in place for them. It may be necessary to sit down with those clients to discuss a change in strategy to offer less sensitive content in the hopes of reaching more Instagram users or else prepare them for a potential decline in numbers.
Globital South Africa offers white label social media services for businesses of any size. Whether you require social media outsourcing for a small business or are a digital agency needing to outsource social media management for your clients, we can help. Email us at support@globitalmarketing.com to find out more.
