The post-Instagram era in Kazakhstan: How the popular social network shaped society, business, media and political life in the country.
Instagram has been around for about 10 years, but in the last few years it has become one of the most popular social networks in the world. Despite being only second most popular social network in Kazakhstan, Instagram is a versatile and quite important platform for most Kazakhstanis. In this post, I would like to look at how Instagram has influenced various aspects of life in Kazakhstan, namely social, business, media and political life.
This text was originally written in Russian on March 11 2020. Mostly translated with deepl.com (Free version).
Social
Social lift
Perhaps, the biggest change that Instagram has brought to our lives is the way it has become a social lift that can easily make you the new internet sensation. Of course, even before Instagram came along, video hosting platforms and social networks like Facebook and VKontakte had long ago cemented the concepts of influencer and blogger. But it was after the appearance of the vine.com platform and the subsequent popularization of a new category of content, which we now call vines, that the entire world, and Kazakhstan as well, gained another category of stars - "viners". Over the past few years, we saw a huge number of individual and group vine projects. Many bloggers who once started making vines as a hobby now have a multi-million audiences and are professionally engaged in the production of entertainment content for their pages, all while making good money.
The number of followers and likes on social media, and Instagram in particular, has become a new form of social capital that for some people has become an indicator of their importance and influence. It is important to mention that in November last year, Instagram stopped showing the number of likes under other users' posts. In the early years, users used to post simple snapshots from their everyday lives without any fuss, but today people spend a huge amount of time processing their photos and videos and even more time writing the most pathetic and insightful descriptions for their posts, which are sure to emphasise their personality.
Resolving social issues
As befits a popular social network, Instagram has also become a tool to help draw the audience's attention to various social issues. For Kazakhstan's progressive youth, Instagram has become a platform where they can express their discontent with the conservative values of Kazakh society through their posts. Postings with hashtags like #uyatemes (not shameful) have declared a revolt against traditional foundations and became some sort of tool to fight for freedom of expression. The recent uproar over the situation with the singer @dequiine drew public attention to the problem of sexual harassment, and it is thanks to Instagram that this topic has gained such a public resonance. Eco-activists have been able to create pages and raise public interest around environmental issues, think @auagroup for example.
Charity
Charity could probably be covered under community issues and movements as well, but I still decided to put it in a separate category. Thanks to Instagram's ease of use and accessibility, a large number of different charitable and social projects have appeared on Instagram, making the lives of thousands of people a little better. Hundreds of pages have appeared on Kazakhstan's Instagram to raise funds for ill people who cannot afford treatment abroad. With the support of popular bloggers, projects like @asarume have sprung up to help build homes for families in need.
A new pool of professionals
It is thanks to the enormous popularity of vines that a large number of young professionals who are engaged in the production of photo and video content have begun to emerge in Kazakhstan. In the past few years, video production has reached a professional level and a large number of young professional directors, producers and cameramen have stepped forward. Young professionals in marketing have also begun to appear, and in general, it's the popularization of Instagram in Kazakhstan that has awakened the interest of young people in the industry.
Media
The main channel for attracting traffic
Instagram has become the main channel for attracting traffic for a huge number of news portals and media resources. Almost all of Kazakhstan's large news portals and popular publications have their official Instagram pages, and actively use them to attract audiences to their main websites.
New media and artists
It is worth noting that the popularization of Instagram has led to the creation of new media resources. The most famous example is Salem Social Media, a media resource that specialises in creating entertainment content. Although most of their content is created for YouTube, it is their collaborative projects with viners and their Instagram page @salemvines that has propelled them to popularity. Separately, it is also worth mentioning the attempts of Instagram projects such as @yuframe and @batyroff to become media groups, who have tried to launch a huge number of different YouTube projects and even started their own music labels, "YuMusic" and "Batyroff_Label".
Instagram has become a very important platform for illustrators and artists who have gained massive popularity through their pages on this social network. Illustrators and artists like @qantars and @muratdilmanov and internet comics like @shapalaque have gained mass popularity. For example, you can read about @kanat_n, who thanks to his Instagram page has received offers from Nickelodeon and Disney.
Impact on other social networks
To some extent, Instagram has influenced the development of other social networks and platforms. The emergence of the Telegram channels of popular Instagram stars has made its own small contribution to the popularization of Telegram in our country. Two years ago, the portal hommes.kz compiled a rating of popular Kazakh Telegram channels where the top five were the channels of Instagram stars (the situation didn't change much in the last two years). YouTube channels of popular Vine projects have also contributed to the development of this video hosting in our country. (For some reason, I immediately remembered the Irina Kairatovna Show, which initially mocked popular viners for starting to create YouTube channels en masse, but eventually created an Instagram page themselves (Correct me if that wasn't the case). Of recent examples, we can think of TikTok, which also became popular because of Instagram reposts.
Business
Traditional business
Just as with traditional media, businesses in Kazakhstan have begun to making their Instagram pages en masse in recent years. Every self-respecting business now actively maintains its own page which in some of them serves as a landing page, customer support and even an online shop. Signs and names of businesses with Instagram-nicks have become something commonplace, and asking establishments to publish a story or create a post for a small discount doesn't seem as a something impolite.
Instagram business
Besides enriching themselves through promotional posts and business partnerships, Instagram bloggers have been active in starting their own offline businesses, which instantly become popular because of their online audience. The most common of these are catering businesses and beauty salons. Some examples: @zhekas_doner_house, @yuframe_burger, @space.astana, @oks.beauty. It is interesting that according to my observations the trend of opening their own business exists only in Kazakhstan and CIS countries, while abroad, most Instagram Influencers focus on selling their own merchandise. From examples known to me the most successful Kazakh Instagram-blogger, who started his own merch, is Beibit Alibekov (@alibekovkz and @alibekovstore).
Separate attention should be given to Instagram-stores that sell various goods ranging from Korean cosmetics to copies of watches and trainers. Instagram and other social media have, to some extent, lowered the market entry bar, reducing customer acquisition costs. When opening any goods shop, the biggest problem has always been attracting customers, and now, thanks to the wild popularity of Instagram in Kazakhstan, even people far from business have started trying to open Instagram stores.
Content marketing and personal branding boom
The popularity of Instagram in Kazakhstan has raised the bar in terms of social media advertising. Ordinary product photos and videos have long become boring and businesses have started using content marketing. Catering establishments, educational centres and various shops are actively releasing their video content that is entertaining and informative.
Also with the popularization of Instagram, users have begun to think more about personal branding. In order to increase the number of clients, Kazakh entrepreneurs began to actively maintain their Instagram pages, where they talk about their personal life and business. It is worth noting that personal branding has become popular not only among celebrities and entrepreneurs, but also among ordinary users. "Highly successful" entrepreneurs have begun to launch their own entrepreneurial courses, where they teach people the basics of building a successful business, SMM and working with government tenders.
Political life
Government recognition
Infiltrating every aspect of our lives, Instagram, as a social network, has also gained recognition from the government. Last year, incumbent President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that social media had become a major source of information, and urged officials to pay special attention to working with it. On April 1 last year, he created his Instagram page, which now has more than a million followers. Mayors and other servants of the people have actively started using their Instagram pages, including for monitoring political sentiment in the country.
One of the indicators of the importance of the recognition of Instagram as a social network, and of viners as Influencers, can also be pointed out by their presence at the opening ceremony of the Year of Youth last year, where @yuframe project manager Rasul Abdullayev came up with the idea of creating a marketing ministry.
Speaking of politics and Instagram, one cannot help but mention Gabidulla Abdrakhimov, the former mayor of Shymkent, who lost his credibility after publishing a video from London on his page. The case is an example of how a spontaneous Instagram post can impact a political career in Kazakhstan.
Opposition and new movements
The opposition, just like the current government, actively uses Instagram. The most famous example is the page of fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov. According to some publications, it was because of his live broadcasts that various social networks were blocked in the evenings for months in Kazakhstan.
It is also worth mentioning the #MenOyandym (I'm awake) movement, which went viral on Kazakhstan's Instagram space last year. Various movements for political reforms, such as @oyanqazaqstankz, also conduct their activities mainly through Instagram. In general, probably it should be said that the main political activity in Instagram is created by young people, and it is because of the speed and convenience, this politically active youth has some influence on the situation in the country. One example is last year's presidential election. It was through the frequent updates of independent observers on Instagram that people were able to learn about the numerous irregularities at the polling stations, and thus influence the transparency of the elections.