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Aaron Huckett, Digital Account Director

Today saw the announcement from Instagram that it is now introducing a new ‘order’ to how we view content on this platform. Rather than users just seeing posts in reverse chronological order, Instagram will start to order posts:

“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.”

In other words, it is introducing an algorithm which will judge what the ‘best’ content is and give this priority over other content – very similar to how Facebook does this.

Whilst not a surprise to Instagram users and brands that have been enjoying the relative success of the organic reach of the platform, this will have a massive impact.

The supposed reasoning? Instagram claimed that users currently miss up to 70% of the content due to it’s growth and the amount of content being uploaded daily; therefore they want to ensure the content we are viewing is the best of the best. More realistically, it is also a very tactical move to ensure brands start to make use of paid advertising.

It is unclear how much of an impact this will have for brands, so for now, we would recommend taking the following approach:

Create Stunning Content: make sure the content you are putting out there is ‘the best of the best’ so you are making the most of this algorithm. Review what your Instagram followers have been engaging with and use this as a basis for upcoming content

Consider Advertising: if you have flexible social ad budgets, now is the time to test Instagram advertising and see how it works for your brand to increase engagement and reach

If you need support on this new update and further insights, do not hesitate to get in touch.

(picture: courtesy of http://blog.instagram.com/