As many of you have seen and made clear on your feeds across various social networks this week, Instagram is changing its algorithm and from the looks of it, possibly for the worse. Chronological feed to curated feed is the proposed plan for the Instagram team in hopes "to show the moments we believe you will care about the most." How exactly will they know what I want? Facebook seems to do pretty well in retaining users so they must be doing something right for the majority. Now what does that mean for us photographers and professionals? Who knows but change will come so adapt and get over it!
Do you really think a Change.org petition will make a difference with 150,000 signatures? Not a chance in hell with over 400 million active users on Instagram. Those are most likely professionals fearing their business pages will take a huge hit like they did when Facebook made the changes years ago. Then a small percentage of those signatures are probably just those getting in on the action to throw in their blind opinion, because it's popular to do. Either way people are pissed and I get it. I'm not a fan of the curated feed myself, and I absolutely love the way I can manipulate my posts to times of days and areas of the country and world. In the end, I will see the changes and make it work to my advantage in time.
For you professional creatives out there that use various tools like social media to manage, market, and push yourselves above the pack, this is simply a swift kick in the ass. We are not in control of many of these factors that play into our industry. This should simply be your motivation to quit complaining and move forward. Do what you can with what you have and be the best at it.
As Instagram has made clear in the past with big changes they do them in a timely manor. Ads, were one of the slowest rollouts of a new change I have ever seen in any business and one I still find appealing overall. Change doesn't mean it will happen instantly and be 100% shit, at least in their case they have the knowledge that their users come first and they respect that when making announcements like this, they do it with great regard for the overall majority. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but the majority are not people looking to grow a business like photography from social media and interaction. Most users are people you went to high school with or people documenting life a few snaps at a time throughout the week.
Instead of bringing so much negativity to change as it happens around us on social media lets figure out ways we can take this to our advantage, and continue to grow out reach and creative process well beyond a stupid algorithm we have no control over. I will link to this again but to grow a following on Instagram it's fairly simple and they even post this on their own website. The suggested user list is a list of Instagrammers IG feels exemplifies the perfect community member. Curated with some of the most creative minds in the least likely places. Though the list can gain you tens of thousands of followers in a very short amount of time, it's the rules that help to get on the list that truly matter and will help you push forward on the platform.
Check out the list below and tell me how many you are doing right now.
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Bring a unique perspective to Instagram by sharing inspiring, original photos and videos
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Are actively engaged in and help cultivate the larger Instagram community
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Inspire creativity in fellow Instagrammers by doing things like participating in @instagram's Weekend Hashtag Project or bringing people together in the real world through an InstaMeet
The change doesn't really bother me from a marketing side, it pisses me off from the way I look at photos on Instagram side. I still have a link that I use to read my Facebook feed as chronologically as it lets me, and I hope there will be a magical setting in Instagram, too.
Definitely the most disliked Article ever on here ever. You're a moron.
Says the guy that gets paid for Instagram posts...Its not just for people that post to Instagram, when browsing through I want to know that what I'm looking at is current. Kinda like how Facebook promotes weather reports from the day before.
I usually love your posts on IG, but this one, I'm having a hard time seeing how you don't see the issue and gave it a very hard thumbs down.
We understand that FB algorythems is 15% of your user base most of the time and just do not work well at all, and if they same trend will follow suit for Instagram, it's really easy for you to tell others to get over it when 15% of your base is still 10,500 people on daily basis. Mine is 50 at 15%, as I am just getting started in building mine.
I think why this article is so disliked on Fstoppers is how it comes off. I read this article as "I got in and made it big at the right time, so you all should get over it and just adapt, it's not a big deal.." Yeah, for you it's not. Good for you **two thumbs up**. This is more than just about you, and about trying to make your own way as a photographer in a saturated online social community.
If it's not a big deal to you, I challenge you to delete your page and start from scratch then. Your connections will make it easier for you to build it back up faster then me, but feel free to come along for that ride with a new profile and see if you feel the same way after what FB did to viewership.
My question is this: Will you be able to have a solution for those who are just getting started and will have a near impossible tasks of climbing up to get seen through this algorithm?
The answer it simple. Work hard, do great work, and THEN only then get recognized and established in this community or world for that matter. People want things to be easy but in reality nothing is easy. I busted my ass the last 3 years on Instagram and the photo community to get where I am and not once have I complained about how hard the journey has been to get to this point. If you want to get featured, suggested, or grow your following you have to put the work in like I did. Yes, maybe this new alg will make it slightly harder but over time all things get harder and more complicated as they grow for the masses. They have to attract to millions, sometimes billions to grow to that scale they have to grow the complexity. I am simply saying in this article to get out there and create, learn, bust your ass to get the work and grow. Don't blame your lack of effort and growth on something as stupid as a company wanting to grow and make money.
To be honest you have been one of my favorite community memebrs, always contributing and pushing love my way on this page. I really do appreciate all your comments espeically this one because it puts in the front of the line and shows you are willing to push and question.
I appreciate the fact you read this and appreciate my input. I never expect anything to be easy, I respond to this from a late 3:15am edit session to get up for work at 7am, so I know exactly what you mean. ;)
It really is not that complicated; if you are not satisfied with instagram then move to another platform or create your own.
Social media will always be changing