5 Changes That Could Alter How We Use Instagram Forever

New updates from Instagram

The world of social media changes quickly and Instagram is no exception. In the past few months many major modifications to the service have been announced – including a name change from ‘Instagram’ to ‘Instagram from Facebook’.

There are 5 changes that the Aitkens Media team predict will have the biggest impact for business accounts on Instagram.

False information labels

‘Fake news’ has been a hot topic for several years now, with Facebook at the centre of the controversy.

Instagram, as part of the Facebook family, will be affected by a higher quality control of the content shared on its platform. According to the official announcement, 3rd party teams will manually fact-check reported posts to help reduce the amount of incorrect information being shared.

When a post has been identified as ‘false information’ a label will appear on the Instagram post and users will need to actively click on it to see the content. 

When re-sharing or reposting false content, users will be warned about the label.

Hiding ‘likes’ counts

Instagram has been testing the possibility of hiding the number of likes a post receives. The tests have been going on for several months in a variety of different countries but this hasn’t rolled out worldwide … yet.

We’ve previously written about how these tests on Instagram have been carried out, and how we see this feature developing in the future: ‘Are Instagram Likes About To End?‘

Logging in needed to browse

Up until now, anyone could browse public Instagram accounts without the need to log in. A few weeks ago, this guest browsing feature was limited to only a few rows of images.

This change is unsurprising considering how limited the use of Facebook is without an account. Adding this feature to Instagram is one more effort to unify the brands under the Facebook umbrella and force non-users to register.

For business accounts, this small change could carry important consequences. Currently Instagram has a user base of less than half that of Facebook. Limiting non logged-in access to accounts could severely lower the reach of posts.

Doubling the number of ads

Many Instagram users have been reporting an increase in the amount of ads they encounter while using the app. While there haven’t been any official announcements, there have been reports from employees confirming that the goal is to double the revenue from ads by the end of the year. Some marketers have also reported recently that ads are accounting for as much as 22% out of 45 posts and 23% of Stories.

Reportedly, the ‘Explore’ tab may be the main target of these new ads, with Stories coming close behind.

When Facebook moved into a more ad-heavy strategy, business accounts saw their organic reach plummet. Could this happen with Instagram accounts too? 

We will have to wait and see how these changes are implemented.

Monthly activity limits, maybe?

There isn’t an official number of activities and interactions that accounts are allowed to perform on Instagram, so these new limits are mostly based on user-based observations.

Back in June, a new algorithm came to Instagram and activity limits seemed to go from hourly to daily limits. With the new change that took place a few weeks ago, the limits now appear to be monthly. There have been reports of users being blocked from performing certain actions for up to 10 days.

How can my business stay ahead of these changes? 

Social media platforms are constantly changing the rules of the game. While it’s especially important for those with business accounts to stay up-to-date, it can be extremely hard to do so while running a business at the same time.

Working with a digital marketing agency will guarantee that your social media accounts are always performing as efficiently as possible. 

If you’d like to see how Aitkens Media can help you, get in touch for a friendly chat.