Do you ever wonder why your feed on Instagram looks exactly like your For You Page on Tiktok? Well, you are not alone. Instagram users have expressed their frustration with the current state of affairs in the app.
In its efforts to stop Tiktok from complete and utter domination over the market, Instagram started looking more and more like its competitor. Instagram users took to Twitter to share their frustration with the new changes. Kylie Jenner didn’t shy away from joining the critics. The social media mogul twitted “Stop trying to be TikTok I just want to see cute photos of my friends.” Some went a step further by starting a change.org petition demanding to “Make Instagram Instagram again.” As of Today, the petition has garnered about 312 000 signatures.
Instagram acknowledged the feedback and promised to roll back the new updates. But will they? Well, according to Instagram’s CEO, they are determined to prioritize their shift to Reels. He also implied that this sentiment is not shared by the majority of their users. After all, analytics do not lie and they reflect an overall satisfaction with the changes done to the app.
But what are these changes? Let’s find out.
The ‘Re-Post’ Feature:
The latest addition to the app is a ‘Re-Post’ feature. This new feature is still being tested and is bound to make Kylie Jenner’s friends' “cute photos” even harder to come by in her feed. This new feature will allow you to re-share posts, the same way you can re-share Instagram Stories. The ‘Re-Post’ feature focuses on sharing the most relevant posts from across the platform. With this algorithmically-aligned approach, Tiktok’s approach of choice, your feed will consist more of what is trending, rather than who you choose to follow.
The ‘Add Topics’ Feature:
Another feature Instagram is in the midst of testing is the ‘Add Topics’ option in the Reels upload process. This feature aims at reaching a new engaged audience who shares your interests by adding a topic to your Reels right before posting. It is basically like adding hashtags to your posts. This move highlights Instagram’s urgency to create an algorithmic recommendations system that can hold its own against Tiktok’s.
Say Goodbye to the ‘Shopping Features’:
If you are running an e-commerce business on Instagram, you may want to reconsider your strategy. Because according to an Instagram internal memo, the app is retiring the Instagram Shop tab gradually. This move comes after the app failed to garner the desired revenue from these features. The app hopes to shift its focus entirely to Ad generated revenue instead.
The ‘Candid Challenges’ Feature:
If you thought that Tiktok is the only app Instagram is trying to imitate, you are sorely mistaken. Instagram's new feature, ‘Candid Challenges’, is “inspired” by the BeReal app. This feature is still under review and it prompts users to be authentic by sharing one unfiltered photo a day. Candor is not a word that comes to mind when thinking of Instagram, but this disregard for their brand’s Image in pursuit of relevancy is not new to Instagram.
It is not clear yet if the identity crisis Instagram is facing will prove fruitful. Their attempt to be a one-stop shop of everything social media related is not yet resonating with some users, but this is not stopping them from trying anyways. One thing is for certain, with Nuelink at your service you do not have to pick favorites. You can post on both Instagram and Tiktok with just one click and make use of the content readily available to you.
