FACEGRAM IS COMING
Ever since Instagram’s acquisition by Facebook, we’ve been waiting for (perhaps bemoaning) the parent company’s perspective on content distribution to fully enter the ‘Gram.. and it has arrived.This week, on the official Instagram blog, it was announced that “your feed will soon be ordered to show the moments we believe you will care about the most.” This means IG will begin to algorithmically generate the order of posts you see.The steady augmentations of Instagram from its start-up roots, began in June 2013 when video creation was made possible, then uploading. In November of that year sponsored posts began to deploy. It was only for a select few brands at first, and eventually rolled out to the masses. We then saw the introduction of install ads, non-square images, and multiple photo (slideshow) posts in 2015, to help brands tell a larger story.You might say the shift from Instagram to Facegram is now complete with this revelation that your IG feed will now bring you moments they feel are most impactful to you, versus allowing you to choose them yourself.What the means for users: Simply ‘looking’ at the grams you enjoy won’t be enough to coax the ghost in the machine to serve up your faves. Presumably you’ll need to take action (like or comment) on posts to trigger the learning of who your favorite artist, or best friend is (amongst the litany of people you follow). This is bad news for lookie-loos of the risqué on IG. You’ll have to go directly to their accounts to see the flesh you desire - or double tap and show the world that you are secretly obsessed with Ana Cheri. But seriously, it will also change the chronological arrangement of posts that we’ve all grown accustomed to.What this means for brands: Similar to the other algorithm based social platforms, you’ll have to do what your agency and the trades have been preaching at every meeting since you brought them on - make more compelling content. It will be made more difficult on IG, where the artist community is REAL. The bar on Facebook is a bit lower for brands. Sure even stand outs like Skittles can’t compete with the personal nature of the “look at my cute kid” posts - but often the big brands creative department construct photos, graphics and videos that are standouts amongst the crowd of grainy video and sophomoric memes in your feed. On Instagram, like Tumblr, the community is built of compelling artists showcasing their dynamic visuals - like those featured in the latest IG scale challenge. The definitive alternative for brands, of course, will be to pay for the privilege of being surfaced, as they’ve now become accustomed to on Facebook.
All-in-all this is not a dramatic shift, nor one we weren’t anticipating, but it does signal a bit of a fade to black for Instagram as: the revolutionary app that gave us all the potential to be an amazing photographer; the creation that catapulted the square image into the cultural zeitgeist; the place for beautiful still images that told wonderful stories in small frames. The inevitable transformation from Instagram to Facegram is nearly complete. Long live Facegram.Weigh in :: We learned last month that TWITTER will also slowly move to algorithm-based feeds. Do you think Tumblr, Ello, Vine, Periscope’s interfaces will follow suit? Do you feel this will make it easier or more difficult for brands to gain resonance? JP LESPINASSE | @djtakefiveJP is a seasoned marketing and pr executive, whose emphasis has been social media, digital strategy, and storytelling for the last 12 years at Nokia, NBA, Viacom and most recently at streaming start-up CÜR Music.