How instagram’s move to a newsfeed algorithm will affect users and brands
Instagram – The Facebook owned photo sharing app has announced that it will be moving to a new algorithm to serve content in the user’s newsfeed. This algorithm will be similar to the one used by Facebook, where users see posts with more interaction in the top.
The company announced on their blog – “You may be surprised to learn that people miss on average 70 percent of their inputs. As Instagram has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to keep up with all the photos and videos people share, this means often do not see the messages may not care about the most..”
For us users this means that:
– We will see more posts from our friends because we like and comment on their posts more.
– We will see more ads in the newsfeed which will be targeted as per our interests.
For brands this has made things more challenging :
The new algorithm will emphasize on what is important for each user to view based on the “affinity” (i.e. engagement, views, frequency, etc.) between the user and the accounts they follow. Hence the new algorithm motivates brands and advertisers to critically re-evaluate how to secure and increase visibility among posts prioritized based on “affinity”. This sure means that marketing using influencers will become crucial as the levels on engagement on their content will always ensure visibility amongst the top posts in the feed.
“Maybe it’s dramatic to call it the death of organic social, but increasingly, we’re telling our clients, ‘If you’re not going to put money behind promoting your content, organic engagement is a real tough thing to produce sustainably,” said Kyle Bunch, managing director of social at R/GA. “I’m sure there are going to be plenty of people who feel like they’ve potentially been baited and switched again by Facebook [with] building an audience of followers on their account and having to struggle with a pay-to-reach [model], but a lot of us view it as something that was inevitable,” he said (Read the complete article here)
This has also lead to some unrest amongst avid instagram users:
John Mayer really had something to say –
Can I vote NO to the @instagram algorithm? Don’t kill insta please! — Meg Höchsmann (@MegHoechsmann) March 16, 2016
Ugh, Instagram algorithm, can we not? 🙃 pic.twitter.com/f8hoiFdJs1
— Heather (@sugarpea_) March 16, 2016
What you guys thinking about the proposed Instagram algorithm feed changes? One of the reasons I don’t use Facebook anymore 😟 #RIPInstagram — Stylonylon (@juliarebaudo) March 16, 2016
