Changes to the Instagram timeline have been the hot topic on the Internet as of late. Today they have a couple new announcements that aim to meet the most frustrated users on their platform halfway.
In a post to their press blog, Instagram said they have heard the frustration. To partly meet the needs and wants of their most vocal users, they are now testing a “New Posts” button that will manually refresh a person’s feed and bring them to the top. Currently, when the app is opened it will automatically refresh the feed causing one to lose their place.
The second tweak that Instagram is making is to how to timeline is sorted altogether. They said that based on feedback they’ve heard, newer posts will now more likely show up on the feed first. One of the biggest turn-offs for many people is the non-chronological timeline because they miss what the people they have chosen to follow are posting, sometimes not seeing it pop up until a week later. This algorithm change seems to be a way towards resolving the frustration of the community while also keeping the ad buyers happy.
The blog post also mentions that more improvements to the timelines are coming in the next few months. What would you want to see them change? Let us know in the comments below.
Photo by Jeremy Levin via Pexels.
At some point Instagram has to consider the idea of fixing the crop. Getting rid of the forced square was a step in the right direction but the cropping they enforce on portrait oriented images forces users to choose between a choice of ruining composition with an awkward crop or adding vertical white letterbox to force said image into support square format. Considering modern smartphone screen ratios and dslr image ratios I cannot figure out a reason why landscape images are allowed to be one aspect ratio and portrait forced to a separate standard.
I don't know what's been going on with IG lately but a while back I stopped stressing about it, posting when I feel like it, using fewer hastags etc and actully saw a good boost in engagement for a change. I think deleting about 100 ghosts accounts from my followers helped also www.instagram.com/mutka
nice. i delete people everyday
I just block the ones that are most likely bot accounts from my following. I rather have 100 true fans than 10 000 fake ones.
I did this just this week. I had around 1100 followers, and now I'm at 630. Zero drop in engagement from the posts I made before & after doing this. Only difference is that now my account has a higher engagement rate per follower, and the new post made it onto the explore page.
Yeah, funny how I've seen accounts with less enagagement than mine with over 10x more "followers". I mean I wouldn't mind having 10k real followers on IG since it would give me more options in terms of where I can shoot as collabs.
I'm not sure why they don't add sorting options in the feed, much like reddit or imgur. Sort by "most popular", "trending", or "newest", and call it a day.
It would be a simple environment if they just left well enough alone, didn't screw with the feed and go chronological. I like the simplicity of IG, but they've messed with it too much. And yes, I think the cropping issue is a ding.
I know everyone is on the Facebook hate train right now, but I think it's widely accepted that IG hasn't been the same since Facebook acquired them. We all expected the same Facebook BS to be applied to the platform, so we can't act surprised, but I think the worst thing is that there isn't a true competitor at the moment, so everyone feels trapped.
I don't know that I'd want all these competing apps and platforms- then you're spending time trying to get yet another following, etc. It's a ton of work as it is with Facebook and IG. If they'd just straighten themselves up and stop playing all the games, I'd be happy. Hopefully Zuckerberg takes this shot across the bow and begins to rethink the approach to the social media monster that he oversees.
I completely agree with you about not liking multiple platforms, but also the lack of legitimate competition often leads to sub-par products. I hope they fix the issues as well, but I have VERY little hope that they will fix it before the average person realizes how toxic / unnecessary social media is.
So they are implementing what FB did with "Most Recent". They both still miss the point, these type of feed options should be a static preferences rather than temporary options.
Remember Instagram (Facebook) does not care about professional photographers or our views. We are part of the product. Ad buyers, lots of users and money is what matters.
On another note the one big thing that still bugs be about most social media platforms is that they value "currated" accounts as high and the ones actually producing content for the platform. It's a lot easier to just repost popular content vs actually produce quality content.
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