Why Instagram? Why?!
Last March 15, 2016, Instagram announced through their blog that they will be changing the order of our feed to show the moments that "they" think we care about the most, rather than displaying our feed in chronological order.
This is what they had to say:
"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.
If your favorite musician shares a video from last night’s concert, it will be waiting for you when you wake up, no matter how many accounts you follow or what time zone you live in. And when your best friend posts a photo of her new puppy, you won’t miss it.
We’re going to take time to get this right and listen to your feedback along the way. You’ll see this new experience in the coming months."
This move puts Instagram in line with social media heavyweights such as Facebook and Twitter which already sort the feeds based on presumed interest and appeal instead of straight chronology. Instagram has become one of the major social media players of today, with around 400 million subscribers. That's much less than Facebook's 1.5 billion but more than Twitter's 320 million users.
Some users, including myself balk at Instagram's decision to tweak our feeds based on algorithms, as it does seem that we have less control of what posts we are going to see. But without the change, Instagram we allegedly miss around 70 percent of what is on our feeds, according to the company. So their hope is that under this new system, us users will see the posts that are the most relevant and interesting to us without having to scroll down indefinitely each time.
As a blogger who attracts majority of my readers through social media, this is indeed a setback. I can already feel the negative impact it has on my account since they changed it a week ago, for example the lower number of likes I get per post. I can only imagine how small business owners who only use Instagram as their online store would feel about this modification. For now, let's all remind our followers to turn on notifications so that they don't miss our posts.
As a blogger who attracts majority of my readers through social media, this is indeed a setback. I can already feel the negative impact it has on my account since they changed it a week ago, for example the lower number of likes I get per post. I can only imagine how small business owners who only use Instagram as their online store would feel about this modification. For now, let's all remind our followers to turn on notifications so that they don't miss our posts.
Instagram says that they will listen to our feedback so that they get this right. So, if you DO NOT want your feed to be presented in a format that you don't have any control over and would prefer having it presented in the current chronological order or - AT LEAST - have the option to sort your feed the way you want, you can sign the petition Keep Instagram Chronological on change.org so that Instagram can take all of our feedback into account before making the change final.
