That’s totally fair. I feel the same way. I also suspect it’s a widespread practice.
Perhaps if IG as an organization weren’t so opaque we would have better rules for using it as a customer engagement platform. Personally, I share personal information with companies and organizations once I feel like I can trust them enough to care for that information correctly. It would be neat if IG enabled that in an organized way.
Out of curiosity (real and legitimate curiosity because you brought up the privacy concerns) if you found yourself in the situation I mentioned above — your only platform with successful engagement is Instagram and you want to expand off of the platform — how would you approach it? For example, I would probably try to speak plainly and openly with my IG audience about my problem and how it affects a service that they enjoy and request feedback.
I think it depends on the page content and the type of audience you have. For a meme/reels page, for example, I don't think the audience is willing to try another platform just because of you. There are already thousands of pages and it wouldn't matter if your page is gone.
But for a more serious page, like training/news/store, I would make it clear to my audience that they can have some richer content from the same creators on another platform/website. Stories don't work as most people mute them. Videos also don't work as people usually mute them. Put the link in the Bio and let them know where they can find you outside of IG.
I can tell you what we do: We use SM as a reach platform but then we create a direct relationship: email, telegram, FB groups. We've build a community of +150.000 people. They are not gone, however now it's harder for us to reach more people.
Perhaps if IG as an organization weren’t so opaque we would have better rules for using it as a customer engagement platform. Personally, I share personal information with companies and organizations once I feel like I can trust them enough to care for that information correctly. It would be neat if IG enabled that in an organized way.
Out of curiosity (real and legitimate curiosity because you brought up the privacy concerns) if you found yourself in the situation I mentioned above — your only platform with successful engagement is Instagram and you want to expand off of the platform — how would you approach it? For example, I would probably try to speak plainly and openly with my IG audience about my problem and how it affects a service that they enjoy and request feedback.