It’s true, it really is true. In the words of Eminem, guess who’s back back, back again? You won’t believe it, let’s hope you’re sat down. Instagram have listened to our moans and have decided to change the way we see our feed. It’s going back to how it started. That’s right, we’re getting the chronological order back!
Instagram listened
Have you ever seen anyone so excited? That’s how we’re feeling about Instagram making this huge decision. It might not sound like a lot, but trust us, it’s massive. Most of you will have been around back in the good old days when Instagram feeds would show images in the order they were posted, right? You’d scroll down your home page and see your friend’s images, mixed with different brands and companies. It all depended on when they were posted and when you thought to check the app. You know the saying, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it? That’s how we feel about Instagram removing the chronological order. Most people are with us on that one, they’ve received countless complaints and moans from unhappy users since changing things.
So, how did they change it? Well, now, it’s all based upon the algorithm, Yes, that massively hated word that sends shivers down the majority of people’s spines. Of course, if you know how to work to its advantage, you might end up performing well within Instagram. If not, your content may as well not be posted sometimes. That’s not us trying to sound harsh, but Instagram sure did make it much harder to get your work seen. Any form of content posted, even if it had been up for minutes, could be swept away. Overthrown by huge brands with an even bigger presence on the platform.
When did they change things?
Back in 2016 they decided they’d mix things up. It’s not certain who they believed it would benefit, but it certainly wasn’t small, independent artists and businesses. Take a look on your Instagram, it’s likely you’ll see the big household names appear first. If you keep scrolling you might see others. However, it’s often possible to completely miss your friends and family when they post because it just doesn’t get shown.
They’re not bringing it back exactly how we remember it. Instead, it looks like we’ll get more of a choice over how we see things. That sounds like the best possible solution. Allowing your users to decide for themselves. Who knows, people might love the new method. Or perhaps, that’s all they know? They may not have had an account previous to 2016. Instagram are apparently working on a Favourites option. This will allow all their users to decide for themselves what they see more of and how things are displayed.
It’s not certain how this will work yet and what options we’ll have, but it’s a start. Many users will be thankful that they can change things up. After all, there are a lot of people who use Instagram simply to share photos with their friends. They don’t really want ads and brands taking over their homepage. It takes away a lot of the personality that Instagram once had and simply makes it a place for marketing only. While we’re fully for the world of marketing and promoting yourself. It’s hard, even for companies like ourselves to show our work in the best light, because you have to rely on Instagram coming through for you currently.
When will they add the new changes?
2022 is our year! They’re said to be working on things now but it’s all a little bit of a secret. Instagram have confirmed it’s in the pipeline though. We don’t currently know what month we can expect to see these new changes added but at least we know it will be at some point in the new year. We’ll be keeping and eye on their social media accounts to see if they provide any further updates as things progress. Hopefully we’ll have a refined idea of exactly what we can expect to see happening before it hits the app.
Maybe they’ll just surprise us all as a New Year treat, and we’ll all open the app to see the changes being made. It’s unlikely that would happen. They tend to test things on larger accounts first. So, all those influencers out there will get to try it out before the rest of us see it. Hopefully this means bugs are less likely once the updates have gone ahead. It’s not always a bad thing not being in there first. It just means other accounts get to wean out any issues before the rest of us get to have a go. We’ll all just have to wait and see, won’t we?
