So for anyone who’s been on Instagram, or any type of social media since Monday you’ll notice that all of your friends are asking you to turn on Instagram notifications to keep up to date and ensure you see their posts, but do you really need to? The answer is not really, unless you really, really like to have your phone inundated with notifications every time somebody posts.
Basically Instagram has announced it will be updating its algorithm to ensure you get to see the posts it thinks you want to see, rather than displaying them in real-time format. Instagram has said that people on average miss 70% of their feed. Really, it’s all down to how many people you are following and how often you check your feed. Think of it like Facebook, when you log on to Facebook it orders the posts in a way it believes suits you best, based on who you interact and engage with most, rather than whatever was posted most recently.
What Does This Mean For Brands?
For brands it does pose a question on what it will do to engagement on your posts. Instead of just posting multiple time a day Instagram is going to need a strategy, much like the rest of your online marketing. Brands are going to need to seriously think about what they’re posting, is this post going to get a lot of engagement? Have we already posted something like this and it not perform so well? Is it actually related to our brand, or are we just posting this because we haven’t posted anything for a few days? Brands have the potential to really excel in this new format, but it does require some thought in to your posts. If you make a post that gets great engagement, then it’s likely to be around the top of your followers feed when they next look if they have missed it, but if you post multiple times a day with low engagement levels then you may find very few people are seeing your post.
What makes things more difficult is the lack of analytical software for Instagram. It’s hard to know how many people are seeing your photos compared to how many likes you’re getting. They have however included views for videos, which is a start, and they’ve also started to roll out an update allowing you to share 60 second videos, rather than the usual 15 seconds. Again, this is where strategy comes in to play, what is the most engaging video length? Is it still 15 seconds, or is a 45 second video more engaging?
So are my posts really going to vanish?
Instagram has said that all posts will still appear in the timelines, just not in the same order, so you are still going to see everything that is posted, but you’ll see your favourite brands and best friends nearer the top, because that’s what you want to see more than all the other posts. Nothing will be removed from the feed, it’ll just appear higher for some people and further down for others, so if you’re favourite brand posts something at 11pm when you are asleep, it may turn up at the top of your feed when you check the next morning.
If your brand needs some help with a strategy for Instagram or any other social platforms or would like to know more about the social media services we offer, then get in touch with us who will be able to assist you with your brand strategy and ensure you’re making the most of social.
