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Come to think of it, maybe Instagram is giving them what they want. After all, don’t we all wish we could be free from the stress posed by friendly international vacation photos? Others stayed on holiday, in other places. All those photos with a beautiful arrangement of food and the hashtag #foodie? It seems that our lives are miserable, compared to theirs. Instagram decided to change some things around. But let’s take a step back, for now.
Updates and next steps are there to be seen over time. Users will see more posts from people you don’t follow on Instagram. Advertisements are marked, if possible. As a result, ads from your loyal friends will get less screen time in the main feed. More important is the focus on Reels content, i.e. videos, which are a strong trend on the photo-focused social media platform. At least until now. Reminded everyone about TikTok.
Balance: Is Instagram still going the way of TikTok?
Not everyone was surprised. Longtime users or famous users, including the Kardashians. “Make Instagram Instagram again”, a post by American photographer Tati Bruening (@illuminati) was also shared by Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner. “Stop trying to TikTok I want to see cute photos of my friends”, he continued (although some punctuation was missing). They may have other reasons.
Also read: The predictor of the Meta epidemic is very clear: Mark Zuckerberg
In May this year, Instagram confirmed the planned changes. Incoming is a new main menu, complete with a full-screen layout for videos and photos. That’s exactly how TikTok works. The similarities are hard to ignore.
When we reached out to Instagram to find out the reason behind the planned layout changes and how the algorithm tends to show you posts from people you don’t want understandably, the company talked about trying to strike a balance.
“To help Instagram be the best place for people to find entertainment, we’re always working to show you the right balance of posts from your friends and family, and people you don’t follow. – and the right balance of images and videos that we think you want to see,” a Meta spokesperson told HT.
Instagram has 1.4 million monthly active users worldwide, while TikTok is not far behind with 1.2 million monthly active users, according to research firm Statista. Snapchat has just under 600 million active users. TikTok has been banned in India, as part of a major government crackdown on Chinese applications, since the summer of 2020. India is one of Snapchat’s largest markets, with around 150 million active users.
Jenner is also reading the story shared by Bruening. She has 332k followers and Jenner has 363 million. That’s a big combined effort, to get the message out. A change.org online petition has appeared.
When Adam Mosseri, the person who leads the work of Instagram about the upcoming changes, he asked Instagram users to be honest. “If you love it, good. If you hate it, it’s good,” he said, while asking for feedback. It’s true, as it turns out.
Scan the changes: Understanding Instagram’s morphing
Let’s take a look at the three-dimensional changes that Meta looked to implement in Instagram.
First, the new layout for the main feed, which looks very similar to the competing app, TikTok. Second, get more posts on your feed, and push posts from your friends who you follow. Third, pushing Videos, a video platform, before photo posts has been done by Instagram all this time.
“We’re focused on making sure every post is right for you, and we give people the power to shape their experience,” Meta told HT. For 30 days, Meta gives users the option to filter selected posts. A temporary fix, while the next plan is displayed.
Please note that the new full screen feed format is still part of the trial and not all users have received it. Some users also complained that in this new format, they cannot mute or unmute videos (love, Reels, as Instagram calls them) by simply tapping the screen. That’s a useful feature, not something to dismiss.
Instagram and Meta have been accused of being inspired by competing apps, including TikTok and Snapchat. This is a clear reference to the video features Reels per TikTok from the past and Stories, a feature popularized by Snapchat on its social media app. Arguments can be made at the same time, but food is not excluded.
It didn’t work, but what’s the way forward for Instagram?
It is not surprising that Meta wants to make changes to Instagram and how content is delivered to more than a billion users worldwide.
Earlier this year, Meta announced that it had lost active users, for the first time in the world of a social media company. And last month, quarterly numbers indicated a revenue decline, a first for Meta.
The signs were there. In June, an internal memo was made public, warning employees that the company was in “very dangerous times” and that “winds are strong”. But if you read it carefully, the same memo pointed to the importance of Video and the Discovery Engine (that’s the algorithm that identifies what you see) as a revenue generator.
“Growth is fast: time spent on Reels is up more than twice a year in the US and worldwide, with 80% of growth since March coming from Facebook. It’s early days, but the pace is good,” read a note from Chris Cox, chief product officer at Meta. “This will shift the focus to recommending the most important content from everyone. of content on our platforms, to the billions of people who use our products every day,” he added.
Course correction or temporary hiatus?
In the meantime, Instagram is trying to calm down the negative threat. The full screen feed test will be removed, the number of recommended posts will be reduced, and the algorithms that select the recommended content will be reworked. One thing that can’t be missed is the Crazy Horse lens. You must reconcile.
“Feedback from our community is important to get it right, and we will continue to investigate and explore new options based on what we hear,” said Meta’s spokesperson.
But things will not be the same, in the long run. If you’re hoping for stability in the rotation, it might not be. Focusing on video content in Instagram is a smart business decision, supported by numbers and organic and usage trends.
Mark Zuckerberg has already seen Meta’s run rate of more than $1 billion for ads that run in the News Feed. That, along with the increased time spent on the content of Videos (mostly driven by strong exposure), could keep the revenue for Meta in the segments that coming. In the latest earnings call, Zuckerberg also explained that the amount of recommended content will see a big jump – from 15% on Facebook now, up to 50% of all content that can be seen. you on your Facebook and Instagram feed, in the end. of 2023.
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