Tech / News
Instagram rolls out feed changes, launches business features
The app’s home feed will soon cater to user preferences by letting users ‘see the moments they care about’ first.
The world’s mot popular photo and social media app is poised for more major changes and new features.
With the announcement of the business tools for Instagram last week, the app is now also set to follow in the footsteps of Facebook and Twitter by ditching the chronologically-ordered home feed to a more personalized timeline.
After recently revamping its logo and UI design, Instagram is now slowly rolling out this huge change.
It was March when Instagram made the announcement that they will be adapting an algorithm for the feed that is similar to Facebook or Twitter, giving you a timeline more tailored to the your preferences. (READ: Instagram to scrap chronological feed for personalized timeline)
The algorithm essentially calculates what the user is mostly like to care about by putting these posts on top of the feed.
The change will officially be released to every user by next month, but it seems to be already live to some users, as revealed by recent Twitter posts in reaction to this huge change. Some were surprised while others are not too keen about it.
In an official blog post by Instagram last week, they revealed that people miss a big chunk (70%) of their feeds with the current reverse-chronological order. They also shared that after testing the re-ordered feed to a portion of their users, they found that people are actually more engaged.
Read the full announcement below:
“In March, we announced a new way of ordering posts in feed so you’ll see the moments you care about first.
On average, people miss 70 percent of their feeds. It’s become harder to keep up with all the photos and videos people share as Instagram has grown. Over the past few months, we brought this new way of ordering posts to a portion of the community, and we found that people are liking photos more, commenting more and generally engaging with the community in a more active way.
With this new ordering you won’t miss your favorite band’s video after the concert, even if it took place across the world in a different time zone. And no matter how many accounts you follow, you should see your best friend’s latest posts.
You’ll see this new experience as we roll it out over the coming month. We’re going to keep improving over time to help make Instagram even better.”
Instagram for Business
The photo app giant has also announced that it will finally release business tools for the app. The app’s business community has been asking for more ways to make Instagram a better tool for their business. By the end of the year, Instagram for Business will let businesses and brands use three tools — Business Profiles, Promote, and Insight.
“These business tools are just some of the ways we hope to make growing a business on Instagram that much easier. Business profiles, insights and the ability to promote will be rolling out in the US, Australia and New Zealand in the coming months, and will be available in all regions globally by the end of the year.”
See the full text and details of the announcement in here.
