For quite some time now, Facebook has been focused on prioritizing content that it thinks each individual user will care about more. Instagram, however, has been quite different, showing content in a strict linear fashion, with the most recent posts displaying at the top of the feed, with older posts displaying as users scroll downward. Well, now Instagram’s taking a cue from its big sibling and prioritizing content it thinks each individual user will be more interested in.
“You may be surprised to learn that people miss on average 70 percent of their feeds,” Instagram shares in a recent blog post. It goes on to say:
To improve your experience, your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.
The order of photos and videos in your feed will be based on the likelihood you’ll be interested in the content, your relationship with the person posting and the timeliness of the post. As we begin, we’re focusing on optimizing the order — all the posts will still be there, just in a different order.
You can read the entire blog post here.
This move isn’t all that surprising, and emphasizes something we’ve known for awhile: social platforms are all about relevancy, and just because something has been posted more recently, doesn’t mean it’s more relevant. However, what’s interesting is that this will make users expect relevancy more and more while they’re on their social platform of choice – and this includes advertisements. The greater story here is that advertisers will need to offer up targeted ads, or their ad dollars will show a poor ROI.
In Instagram’s latest move, the clear winner is the users. The clear loser? Advertisers who don’t focus on relevancy.
image credit: TechCrunch