How small businesses in Russia survived the blocking of Instagram | Russia and Russians: a view from Europe | DV
Two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, Russian authorities blocked access to one of the country’s most popular social networks. Officials who, by their rules, call for violence against Russians.
The social network refuses to comply with such regulations, but it is still banned, and the Met agreement is limited by the agreement, which was recognized as extremist. Not only ordinary users suffered from blocking – representatives of large companies that lost customers and money. What they had to face – in the material DW.
Instagram lost 70% of television in Russia
March 13, 2009 in their e-mail boxes received messages from the portal “Gosuslugi”, signed by Roskomnadzor. The agency notified that due to Instagram’s hostility towards the Russians, the social network would be blocked from 00:00 on March 14. In return, all its users were asked to switch to Russian resources.
Meta, which uses the Instagram social network company, is recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation
“Russia is a strange country with its own fruitful Internet platforms, including the social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki,” is expected in writing. New opportunities for communication and business.”
Over the past four months, Instagram has lost not all Russian users, but a lot of them. According to random estimates by Mediascope, the average daily coverage of this social network in Russia fell from 39.5 million users before the war to 11.5 million by the end of May. Confusion and horror – examples of use repeat the first emotions from blocking Instagram businessmen and container creators interviewed by DW.
Unprecedented opportunities for small businesses
Agami, a well-known handmade ceramics store in Moscow, has 35,000 signatures, even though the company itself has only eleven employees. Agami co-founder Maria Gilmanova told DW that during the six years of the company’s operation, growth has been organic and without large investments. Subscribers visited for content, many were interested after Moscow offline fairs.
The brand’s account gained the most subscribers in the last three years, when Agami switched from corporate clients to retail. Usually more than half of the buyers come to the company’s website from social networks. The main source of funding for this was Instagram – thanks to its distribution and cheap promotion tools. “For a small business, this was an unprecedented opportunity to promote without large advertising budgets,” Maria revealed. “We felt terrified at this.”
Subscribers and orders
Accumulation producer Natalia Krayukhina admitted to DW that she was confused when she first learned about the blocking of Instagram. She came to work in the service for the delivery of food for nursing mothers “Let’s feed mom.” For 14.5 members of the company on Instagram, Natalia and her team managed to shoot a lot of photo and video content over the past few months, but now she doesn’t know what to do with it – there is no one to post on the social network.
“Story coverage (the number of users who saw the duration of the video no more than 15 seconds. – Red.) now there are a hundred people, for such a magazine this is about nothing, – Natalia complains. – Coverage of posts is also constantly reduced. Four months ago it was about 20 thousand, and now it is less than 10 thousand. The difference is colossal.” As a result, there was a curtailment of production, and the outflow of customers for business turned into problems – there were fewer orders.
Clients installed VPN
For “Agami” blocking access to Instagram in Russia was not a disaster. “The activity under the posts has slightly decreased, but in general, the coverage has not fallen significantly,” says Gilmanova. “There is a feeling that our audience has set themselves a VPN.” At the same time, the ceramics store faced another problem – the impossibility of development.
Caricature by Sergey Elkin on the discussion of Roskomnadzor using VPN in Russia
“We have widespread growth on Instagram,” the Agami co-founder continues. “He was very slow. Red.), but it is quite small. But I wouldn’t say it had a big impact on sales.” To reduce stagnation, Agami is planning an offline store with a wide reach for customers and growth prospects on the Russian social network VKontakte.
After blocking Instagram, the main Russian social network actually modified the advertising account and announced business support programs. But in the professional communities of the same VKontakte, entrepreneurs and main groups complain that investments in promotion on the platform do not receive new customers.
Blocked Instagramproviding more clients to “VKontakte”
“I checked all the seminars that turned out to be “VKontakte” (for business. – Red.), – Natalia Krayukhina from Let’s Feed Mom. – When Instagram was blocked, VKontakte were great people who made mass events and programs for business – but they happened to be non-working. And I know many people from Moscow business with the same negative experience.”
When Instagram was blocked, small businesses are forced to pay attention to VKontakte
Even taking into account the blocking of Instagram and the inability to advertise there, Feed Mom receives more customers from this social network than from VKontakte, where the company invests money. “We didn’t get big money, but we shelled out 70 rubles in thousands,” Krayukhina appears. “As a result, Instagram is due to drums (short videos of 15, 30 or 60 seconds and with satellite support. – Red.) gives a coverage of about 10 thousand people, YouTube – about the same, and “VKontakte” – two hundred impressions without conversion into a purchase.
Against this background, Russian small businesses may lose their remaining subscribers. On July 6, State Duma deputies submitted to Parliament a consideration of a ban on doing business in social networks blocked for extremism. He, in particular prohibits banks from servicing customersif they offer services through sites blocked in Russia.
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