So we’ve already delved into the world of Facebook and Twitter and taken a closer look at their respective algorithms, but for the final part of this series we are focussing on photo sharing giant, Instagram.
The youngest of the three, Instagram was launched just six years ago in 2010 and it’s safe to say it has taken the world by storm, with (link: https://www.instagram.com/press/?hl=en text: over 400 million monthly active users) and on average more than 80 million photos posted each day. Looking at these figures it’s surprising that it is only in the last few weeks that a personalised algorithm has been introduced to the app.
Up until now users have been able to view all of the content from accounts they’re following in reverse chronological order, however the team at Insta HQ decided it was time to change this after learning that users miss on average 70 percent of their feeds. A personalised algorithm, much like Facebook, is(link: http://blog.instagram.com/post/141107034797/160315-new text: being launched) to help improve the overall user experience. But what can we expect from this algorithm and what exactly will it entail? Well look no further we’ve got all of that covered in this blog.
The nitty gritty
There are four main aspects that will affect this personalised algorithm and the content users will see on their feed, some of which are very similar to that of parent company, Facebook:
### Relationships
The relationship you have with various users will be a contributing factor to if/how often you see their content. Photos from accounts that you frequently engage with either by liking or leaving comments will be more likely to regularly show on your newsfeed. Hopefully meaning you won’t miss any posts from your closest friends or favourite celebrities that you like to spam with Instagram love.
### Timeliness
After years of being based around a chronologically ordered feed, which users are used to, Instagram have taken this into account by keeping a sense of timeliness to the algorithm. The date and time of when a photo is posted will have some influence on where it appears in the feed, to ensure you are still seeing posts that may be time sensitive and before they become “old news”.
### Engagement
What you do and with whom will also play an important part, more specifically direct shares and profile searches. When you engage with a photo by sharing it directly with others Instagram will take note of both the shared photo and whom you’re sharing it with, favouring content from these accounts in the future. As well as this, Instagram also learns what and who you may be interested in seeing by looking at who you regularly search for.
### Popularity
Although the popularity of photos won’t be a huge deciding factor as to what is shown in your feed, it will play a small part. So photos that seem to be gaining a significant amount of likes and comments, and that Instagram thinks you might enjoy seeing after taking into account the previous three aspects, may be bumped up your feed
The response
As with any change to something so many people know and love, it of course caused an uproar. Instagram lovers all over the world didn’t hold back in vocalising their disappointment and annoyance at the upcoming changes. Many are fearing they would miss important content and that Instagram won’t fully be able to understand what photos they want to see, as content they engage with can vary on a daily basis. Brand pages, celebrities and musicians also voiced concern, fearing that their lovingly crafted content would go unseen by their followers. Many of them took matters in to their own hands when the news broke, encouraging followers to “turn on notifications” to ensure they would be notified every time they post and not miss a thing.
> (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDgibpVHGjJ/ text: Ugh Instagram if it’s not broke don’t fix it! Instagram is changing out of chronological order 😔 so let’s say you love someone’s photos but don’t physically “like” their pics they will bump them to the bottom. It’s called INSTAgram for a reason. I don’t really understand it and there has to be another motive because you follow people for a reason.. I’m trying to see everyone’s pics. That’s why you created the unfollow button if u don’t want to see their photos. I hate this new update @instagram is slowly trying to introduce & yes it’s true they warned us all a few weeks ago.)
>
> A photo posted by King Kylie (@kyliejenner) on Mar 28, 2016 at 12:27pm PDT
However this soon became irritating after a spam filled few days, with everyone and their dog (quite literally) going into full panic mode and vying for our attention. With the internet being the internet it wasn’t long before the mockery started in response to this somewhat ridiculous panic…
> I’d let a family member get swallowed by a dragon before I’d allow Instagram push notifications to come to my phone — Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) (link: https://twitter.com/lenadunham/status/714556612132777984 text: March 28, 2016)
> Pls turn off notifications for everything and go outside for 10 mins
>
> — Calvin Harris (@CalvinHarris) (link: https://twitter.com/CalvinHarris/status/714485990203609089 text: March 28, 2016)
> (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDg2YJTLZS9/ text: #pushnotifications #notifications #meangirls #reference #moviereference #funny #ha #notgonnahappen #lies #ig #instagram)
>
> A photo posted by Angelina Rodriguez (@anrar0) on Mar 28, 2016 at 3:21pm PDT
> (link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDf7SPkgAbP/ text: I’m Sorry, Folks. STOP ALREADY. If you are worried no one is going to see your posts and YOU deserve to be a “NOTIFICATION” in my account. YOU ARE DREAMING. You are cool. I think highly of your and your business. You are not so important that you deserve to notify me when you post on Instagram. IF YOU NEED HELP POSTING BETTER CONTENT, contact me, I’ll be your fearless advisor to help you through this transition in the landscape of social media change. (Yes, had to take this opportunity to promote myself. It’s good business) I follow the work of @jenns_trends to learn about using Instagram and Twitter… and other social media stuff. Here is a quote from here recent article and I agree: “So, before you go begging for people to get notifications on your account, let me reiterate the need to create BETTER content. If you really want to know how Instagram’s new algorithm is going to affect you, my recommendation is to up your game. Half-ass photos, boring captions, lack of a good hashtag strategy, and poor community building will crush you. Which it should. So, step up and give your audience what they deserve.” Please, think about what you are doing, asking for people to get notifications is easy for you and annoying for them. Have confidence and respect for your audience. Give them good content and from this you will do well. #mydarndest #socialmedia #socialmediamarketing #marketing #jennstrends #LearnFromJenn #business #instagrammarketing #instagramsuccess #instagramtraining #instagramstrategy #instagramtips #instagramexpert #socialmediasuccess #smallbusiness #socialmediatips #entrepreneur #bestpractices #visualmarketing #instagramforbusiness #smm #smallbiz #instagramnews #instagramupdate #instagramupdates #onlinemarketing #Design #GraphicDesign #ROC #typography)
>
> A photo posted by Bill Klingensmith (@mydarndest) on Mar 28, 2016 at 6:44am PDT
This last image brings us nicely on to our last point, as with Facebook and Twitter it is now more important than ever to focus on creating great content that your audience wants to see. It’s no good seemingly “begging” your followers to turn on notifications if the content they are getting notified about is uninspiring, irrelevant and just not that great. The four main elements of the new algorithm also go hand-in-hand with rich, high quality content. Put simply, the better the content is, the more **engagement** it will receive, and the more users it will be exposed to. Furthermore if you are consistently creating great content with high engagement you will build up a good **relationship** with your followers, again leading to more people repeatedly seeing your content.