What changed? Instagram updated its news feed algorithm. Photos will no longer appear in chronological order, but instead be sorted “based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting, and the timeliness of the post.”
What does this mean for me? You may ask… It means Instagram will choose what to show and when – very similar if not exactly like what Facebook has done to its newsfeed. (Remember, Facebook owns Instagram so this should be no big surprise.)
This change grants Instagram the power to control ad content. “On average, people miss about 70% of the posts in their Instagram feed,” says Kevin Systrom, the co-founder and CEO of Instagram. “What this is about is making sure that the 30% you see is the best 30% possible.” While this certainly is true, make no mistake, Instagram is doing this for advertisers like us.
Implications for builders:
Here’s where Instagram comes in. Over the past few years, thousands of brands have joined Instagram after realizing that it is the social media platform brands and consumers engage with the most. The path of least resistance would be to follow a path similar to Facebook and limit organic reach – and this worked with Facebook with very little push back or complaints.
So what happens to brands that have heavily invested in creating wonderful content on Instagram? They will lose out to those of us that are quick to the draw and begin to advertise. So, weather you have a huge amount of content and brand following on Instagram or zero, we will help get you ahead of the game.
Consider this, if your business relies heavily on Instagram as a channel, customer acquisition is about to come with a price tag instead of a perfectly edited photo. And that is a good thing when you have partners like Marketshare!
