Instagram global changes are coming: how they will influence businesses?

Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing app, according to Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram.“The end of an era”, – some people might say. No more “square photos”, apparently. Okay, let’s cool down. It is not like we started a requiem here, is it? 🙂

Instagram posts

However, the changes will have an amazing influence on millions – yes, this number is correct – of businesses all over the world. The message that Instagram’s founder is sending hardly raises any doubts: it is no longer going to concentrate on photos as the main type of content and is going to turn into rather an entertainment app focused on video content. 

At first sight, you might not even understand what’s changing. Yes, for a long time now we watch IGTV, short videos and stories. Some people might say – we always have the video here! But if they are going to demolish posts with “square photos”, they will also change these big written posts under them. And that’s what creates a problem.

Instagram posts now

It is hard to tell how exactly Instagram plans on doing that. After several experiments with the algorithms and feed, the changes with contents will be affecting the app on many levels. Now, everyone who is involved in a complex web of creators, brands, influencers and buyers will be placed in a different system of relationship inside the app.

Why changes?

Why would you change something that works so well? Instagram has an incredible number of daily active users – 500+ million globally, ranking it second behind Facebook for the social network with the highest daily logins.

Prepare yourself for “but” that will change everything. Apparently, the founder of the app and his team consider TikTok to be the main competitor who they have to beat.

After the burst they made in 2021, TikTok actually influenced other platforms. Including Instagram. Proof of this is easy to trace: YouTube has integrated so-called “Shorts”, Twitter “Fleets” and Instagram – “Reels”.

Instagram “Reels”

“We’re also going to experiment with embracing video more broadly – full-screen video, immersive, entertaining, for mobile devices”, Adam Mosseri added. “You will see us do a number of things or experiment with various things in this space over the next few months”.

More monetizations are on the way?

A few days before the announcement, one of Instagram employees said that the application is testing a new form of monetization through ‘Exclusive Stories’.

To be honest, that sounds more like Patreon than TikTok or something. These stories are only available to subscribers of a creator. Also, you can’t take screenshots.

‘Exclusive Stories’ in Instagram

It seems that it will be the exclusive content on Instagram soon. It also means that you have to change your Instagram marketing strategy according to the updates that are coming. As the head of the company said, they will be focusing on four things: creators, video, shopping, and messaging.

So, how will it affect the businesses? In these quite vague circumstances, we can say one thing for sure: the creators (apparently this category includes influencers) will have a significant profit from making exclusive content for money. But, again: it sounds a bit like Patreon. 

If another category they want to improve is shopping, we expect that it will affect the feed. Probably, targeting advertisements will also change. It is hard to say how you’d have to operate your brand’s presence on Instagram since these changes will be implemented, but it is quite dubious that this platform will be less shoppable. For what it’s worth, your business might get even more benefits.

Is it pivot?

Pivot stories are extremely interesting. Usually pivots lead companies to huge success. Such a story was of Netflix, Android and Instagram, by the way. However, this time it is a rather minor pivot.

The platform itself can’t change completely, and there still will be photos, but if the main accent moved to videos, we can say that what many marketers predict (video will be 82% of all content) is going to be even more serious. But the question remains the same: what is going to happen to text posts? It was the main area of communication with the audience. Does the presence – major presence – of video will change what the texts deliver today? We don’t know yet. But if this is a pivot, we won’t have the same influence on the written words on Instagram that we used to.

Summary

Whatever changes are coming, we know for sure one thing: Instagram will definitely alter its content for video in order to get more benefits for businesses.

Otherwise, there is no reason to compete with TikTok that is making its users gain extremely big amounts of profit. In any case, we are continuing to observe the situation, and will tell you more once we gather new information. 🙂