instagram: are you prepared for the change?

By now, you are used to your Instagram feed being in chronological order. You are used to scrolling back for a few minutes catching up on what you have missed while being away from the platform. Now, Instagram is taking a tip from Facebook’s development and introducing an Algorithm based feed.

This has people a little angry, confused and overall skeptical. Instagram is coming from the point of optimization. They are saying that users, on average, only see about 30 percent of the content posted on their feeds.

The idea of an algorithm based feed, is tailoring content to the user. Instead of having to scroll back looking for something of interest, your feed will be organized according to your habits. It will include what you want to see, first.

Although it might seem logical, it might have a big impact on those who use instagram as a marketing platform (especially those with a small budget).

Here are a few things small companies (like us) will have to keep in mind to prepare for these changes:

• More Followers, Less Interaction: Seems weird, right? With this new algorithm based feed, consumers will be able to follow more on their feeds because it won’t take away from their regular content. However, even though they are following you, they may never see your content.

• Content is Key: Now, more than ever, engaging content is critical to the success of your brand. If you are not interesting, or engaging, your will be moving to the bottom of the list.

• Influencers are going to be your Best Friends: If influencers weren’t important to your brand before, they will be now. If they are making it to the top of your consumers feed everyday, that is exactly where you want to be too.

• Money Talks: It’s a real shame, but we all knew it was coming. Now on Instagram it might take more than a pretty edited photo to catch the attention of your audience. You might be giving into paid advertising in the near future.