Instagram in flux: a road back to lost authenticity?

Catarina Alves de Sousa – Social Media Manager – The saying “take one step back to take two forward” seems to have become part of Instagram's strategy as it heads towards a space for more organic content sharing. There's a clear mood of change on this social network, and it shows in the latest features announced.

This isn't the first time we've seen a platform backtrack on its own progress. There was a time when it was possible to fool Google; it wasn't unusual to slip “hidden” keywords into paragraphs (usually white text on a white background) to improve an article's SEO performance. Before long, Google improved its algorithm, which quickly started spotting these cases and penalising the sites that used such tactics.

Catarina Alves de Sousa – Social Media Manager – The saying “take one step back to take two forward” seems to have become part of Instagram's strategy as it heads towards a space for more organic content sharing. There's a clear mood of change on this social network, and it shows in the latest features announced.

This isn't the first time we've seen a platform backtrack on its own progress. There was a time when it was possible to fool Google; it wasn't unusual to slip “hidden” keywords into paragraphs (usually white text on a white background) to improve an article's SEO performance. Before long, Google improved its algorithm, which quickly started spotting these cases and penalising the sites that used such tactics. Around ten years later, we have an Instagram that has turned into a virtual shop window for an endless array of products, brands and influencers promoting yet more brands, services, products and venues, with few limits. Anyone who was around in the early days of this social network is bound to find today's Instagram strange. Long gone are the days when we used it to keep up with the lives of family and friends, who shared photos of their days and their best moments — spontaneous shots, barely filtered, with equally little concern for likes, shares, followers or how the algorithm was treating them.

With great power comes great responsibility?

The iconic line Uncle Ben delivers to a young Peter Parker fits Instagram's current situation rather well. This is pure speculation, but could some of Instagram's recent changes be, in part, the platform taking responsibility? Are we heading towards more organic content because, in recent years, we've drifted too far from creating content for the sheer pleasure of it?

Hiding excessive stories and a new way to interact with the format

Word is that Instagram is testing grouping several stories together when they come from the same user, as a way of cutting down on visual story “spam”.

One user shared how Instagram is starting to do this:

In this case, instead of showing dozens of stories with a row of little dots, it shows far fewer at a time, but when you tap “Show all”, you can see every story the user has posted in the last 24 hours.

On the other hand, what Instagram takes away, Instagram gives back!

You've probably noticed the hearts you've been getting on the stories you post. These are the result of one of the new features Instagram brought us this year. It may not significantly change how we use and interact with the app, but it's a nice touch and a new way of engaging with this more fleeting kind of content.

Still on stories, we'll finish with an even bigger change.

During 2022, we'll be able to say goodbye to the compulsory 15-second story. Now, if you have longer videos (up to 60 seconds) that you want to share as a story, you'll be able to do so without them being chopped into 15-second chunks.

With IGTV gone, sharing longer videos is no longer a problem on Instagram!

The return of the chronological feed

This is undoubtedly one of the biggest steps Instagram is taking towards a more organic existence. Aware that it was losing ground to TikTok, it took the reins and chose to tackle the problem by letting you choose the type of feed you see when you open your Instagram app.

In truth, Instagram users (especially the long-standing ones) had been asking for the chronological feed to come back for a long time. Fortunately, Instagram listened.

If confirmed, it will mean the end of the engagement-only feed, organised by the best-performing posts or the ones you interact with most, which Instagram's algorithm decides will be most interesting to you. Do you also miss seeing posts in the order they arrive?

The aim of this new feature isn't just to answer users' requests, but also to give them back some of the lost control over what they see when they open the app.

With this new feature, we now have three different ways of displaying the feed:

• Home (default, posts by engagement)
• Favourites (only posts from users you've marked as favourites)
• Following (posts in chronological order from everyone you follow)

Perhaps to make up a little for replacing the feed curated by Instagram's algorithm with posts in chronological order, it makes sense for Instagram to launch the option of marking users as favourites so that, if you want to, you can see only the posts from the people you've chosen as “favourites”.

There's nothing like being able to choose who we most want to see on our favourite app, is there? The development of artificial intelligence is genuinely impressive, but in an app like this it makes sense to give users the power to make the best choices for themselves, especially at a time when there's so much talk about using social media more mindfully and its impact on mental health.

More support for content creators

Content creator is now one of the jobs that come with social media. A content creator who wants to make money from their talent on social media today can count on a range of tools the platforms provide. And in 2022, Instagram will join the social networks that support creators' work, with the launch of new monetisation products on the platform. There's no set date for this yet, but it's certain to happen.

And since 20% of the time currently spent on Instagram goes on watching reels, the platform is increasingly favouring video content. In fact, Instagram stopped being an app built (only) on sharing photos a long time ago.

The focus on video has become a necessity in order to meet Gen Z trends and to compete with TikTok.

Following on from the importance of video content, Instagram plans to launch Reels Visual Replies, a feature that lets you reply to reels with other reels, much like TikTok's “duet” feature. This update will draw even more engagement to this type of content, which is steadily taking centre stage on Instagram.

On top of that, the idea is also to make video fullscreen, so it takes up the entire screen as you scroll through the feed.

And speaking of content creators, it's virtually impossible to mention them without bringing up the much-hyped

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)

In May this year, Instagram began testing the inclusion of NFTs in the app, working with content creators. The idea is that they'll be able to share NFTs they've created or bought on the network. There will be no costs attached to posting or sharing NFTs.

Access to digital collectibles will soon be expanded too, bringing the benefits of NFT ownership to even more creators and collectors. Source: Instagram page @adambombsquad Change really is the key to progress

With all these changes happening on one of our favourite social networks, it's only natural to feel that today's Instagram is a distant memory of the one that first appeared. The photo-sharing network that mirrored simpler times has now become the absolute giant among social networks built around sharing photos — and much more besides. Today, Instagram is a business hub, a stage shared by content creators, influencers and brands, for whom the importance of being on and creating within Instagram does not go unnoticed.

It's arguable that users who are on the platform with no financial interest behind it feel that Instagram's true essence has been lost. Will all these changes under way bring us closer to that lost authenticity?