A couple of weeks ago, Instagram made an announcement that it would be changing the way it displays photos on your timeline. Currently, Instagram displays posts in chronological order. In the announcement, they say that the average user misses around 70% of their feed, so to make sure users don’t miss out on the content they like to see the most, they’ll be displaying posts the order that it thinks you want to see the most, based on how you interact on Instagram. This can be based on your relationship with someone, or who you interacts on certain posts.
It’s been rumoured that these changes will happen tomorrow. All today, all I’ve seen in my feed is people asking their followers to ‘turn on notifications’ so they don’t miss a post – which is a feature that allows you to get push notifications for accounts you don’t want to miss an update from.
I don’t have notifications on any of my social media channels, so I doubt I’d ever be using this feature, but the whole thing got me interested and I wanted to do some digging. Especially after the whole #RIPTwitter fiasco last month, where it was rumoured that Twitter was doing the same thing.
There’s no need to panic yet, though, because a spokesperson from Instagram has told The FADER that there are still many tests to be done, and it’s going to take weeks or even months until they are complete and ready to be rolled out to the public.
So we don’t know when this is going to happen, but we do know that Instagram has said it will let users know before it makes the changes. What these changes are specifically, we’re not sure yet. So just keep using Instagram as you are. If you want to stay ahead of the game, remember to engage with your followers because the more your followers engage with your posts, the higher the chance your posts have of being displayed in their timeline, or so it’s thought.
This change has been on my instagram for a few days now, it’s so bloody annoying! I really wish they would add a button to turn it off!
The whole point of this new algorythm is to display content you’re most interested in, so the whole “turn on notifications” thing makes no sense to me! 😀
The thought of receiving notifications every time my favourite Instagrammers post drives me a little bit mad! I think a lot of people are worried but the point of growing a following is keeping them engaged so it shouldn’t be too bad for people.
Robyn | http://www.robynlouiiise.com
Ugh, I would not want this for my feed on ANY social media. I prefer chronological. They at least should add a button to switch between those versions!
Honestly, this is the first time I heard of this and I agree with what everyone here is saying. I hope we could choose between this new feature and the old one. I guess this is why I’ve been seeing some instagram shops with “turn on notification” posts.