Social media algorithm leading celebrities to create own apps

Celebrities across the world, including locals such as Jesinta Franklin, are turning their backs on social media and creating their own apps to connect with their fans due to the controversial algorithm.

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Celebrities are turning their backs on Instagram and launching their own apps in a bid to bypass the social media site’s controversial algorithm.

The introduction of the app’s algorithm in 2016 has put celebrities, influencers and businesses off-side because they no longer have the reach they once had.

Instead of listing posts chronologically, Instagram now publishes posts it believes are “meaningful content” as ascertained by what the user is looking at.

Social media marketing and training company Double Tap founder Sammi Hardwick says three things determine the content in your feed — interest, timeliness and relationship.

Chris Hemsworth is one of many celebrities who have released their own app to reach their fans. Picture: Greg Funnell

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“The algorithm provides content in people’s feeds that it (Instagram) believes the user wants to see, based on what the user has been engaging with previously,” Hardwick says.

“Instagram is now putting emphasis on what they call ‘meaningful content’ which is what Instagram believes they (users) want to see.”

Hardwick says the introduction of the algorithm has impacted celebrities and influencers negatively and has resulted in many outsourcing strategists to “beat the system”.

Model Jesinta Franklin will be releasing her app today and sees the algorithm as a barrier to connecting with people. Picture: Tane Coffin for Women's Health

She will feature on the cover of July’s issue of Women’s Health on sale tomorrow. Picture: Tane Coffin for Women's Health

They are also creating their own apps so they have full control over their reach.

“Celebrities and influencers have to hustle more to appear in people’s feeds and, as a result,
the audience is now getting more substance,” Hardwick says.

“It is really important now … to create content that is engaging. And by engaging I mean getting people to interact back with you or make a comment or tag their friends because it means something to them.”

One local celebrity frustrated by Instagram and its algorithm is model Jesinta Franklin.

While she is grateful for what the platform has done for her brand to date, she says she has noticed changes which make connecting with her followers more difficult.

“I noticed it was harder to connect and I also found the app was automatically unfollowing people I had been following,” says Franklin, who is the cover star of the July edition of Women’s Health, on sale tomorrow.

“Also, I was never seeing the content I wanted to see because the algorithm didn’t think it was necessary for me to see it due to their equations. It made it harder and harder to connect and everyone else in the industry is having that same problem.”

Franklin is following in the footsteps of the Kardashian sisters and Chris Hemsworth and will today launch her own app — Jesinta Franklin The Official App. It will showcase all aspects of beauty, fashion, fitness and health and take followers behind the scenes of the Olay ambassador’s glamorous life.

“There will be hair tutorials, beauty tutorials, get the looks, recipes, red carpet looks, inspiring, thought-provoking quotes. It also adds more value to my clients,” she says.

“With Olay, I can give people an insight into my skincare regimen, with direct links to shop the products I feature.”