Some of the most popular social networks in the western world today are Facebook and Instagram, on which the former owns the latter. Despite Instagram belonging to Facebook, they are really different, and the first thing you notice is the way they sort posts. Facebook has very complex algorithms (that change constantly) that try to show you content they think will be the of the most interest for you. Instagram, on the other hand, shows content in a timeline, so, whoever posts first will come first in your feed. Both ways have their good and bad sides, but very soon Instagram will change the way it sorts posts and do it just like Facebook, by relevance.
In a press release on its official blog, Instagram will be implementing the feature in the coming months, so it is not an immediate change. As for why they are switching the news feed, according to the company, people miss around 70 percent of their feeds. When you follow 100 or 200 people, it isn’t hard to keep up with everything, but if you follow thousands of people, then things can get really ugly. At first, Instagram will only reorder posts in a way that they think will be more interesting for you, meaning all posts will still be there. It is not clear if you will still be able to see posts that are not relevant in the future, as it happens with Facebook. Instagram has seen a significant growth in the last few years, hitting the mark of 400 million users, and not so long ago Facebook introduced ads on the social network, so this shift might also be part of Facebook’s strategy to better monetize on Instagram as well.
Last year has been very interesting for Instagram, as the company laid the ground to advertisers. First, back in February, video content started to loop automatically. In March, advertisers were given the option to create carousel ads, which allowed people to swipe left or right to see additional content, but these ad options were only available on a limited basis. Then in September, Instagram opened its ads to everyone, bringing in a significant amount of revenue. Most of the changes, later on, were advertiser-focused, and the only big change for users was the ability to use more than one account, which was implemented just a few weeks ago. It is to be seen the impact that such change in the timeline will have to users, and what it will mean to advertisers.