In December 2021 Instagram confirmed that it would bring back the chronological feed that it removed from its platform in 2016. Years ago, Instagram changed the order in which posts appeared when opening the application. Since then, an algorithm chooses the most outstanding content or that which is of most interest to the user.

In the past, the platform used to display posts in chronological order, until it decided to switch to an AI-driven algorithm. When the change was made, many users were unhappy, with the average Instagrammer missing out on approximately 70 per cent of their feed.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, announced that it was looking into adding a chronological feed option for its users. After announcing the news Instagram confirmed the news with the following statement; We want people to have meaningful control over their experience. We’ve been experimenting with Favourites, a way for you to decide which posts you want to see at the top. We’re also working on another option to see posts from people you follow in chronological order.

This information was added to all of this;


We want to make it clear that we are creating new options. We are giving people more options so they can decide what suits them best, not switching everyone to a chronological feed. You can expect more on this early next year 2022.

 

Probably, behind these changes there is something that is easy to guess.

At Somos Sinapsis we think that the decision to bring back the chronological feeds is a success for the app’s users. But realistically we also think that Meta makes changes only when it feels pressured by users, either because of bad press or immediate regulation.

What is Instagram’s algorithm and why is it important?

 

Before we continue with this article we want to tell you what Instagram’s algorithm is and why it is so important. Instagram’s algorithm is a mechanism that classifies content according to what it thinks we are most interested in. It doesn’t really have a single algorithm, but rather several. Each of them has its own function so that we can make the most of our time on the application.

Let’s remember that in its beginnings this social network was exclusively for photographs and images, which we could see in chronological order. As the application gained users, it became impossible to view all the content shared by our contacts. One of the repercussions of chronological order was that everyone posted at the same time in order to be “more seen”.

Knowing the functions of Instagram’s algorithms, it is easy to see why they are so important.

 

  • The importance of algorithms for the application. With them, the application manages to entertain us more by showing us content selected especially for us based on our interests. In other words, we enter the application knowing that we are going to spend a long time inside it.
  • The importance of algorithms for the user. By classifying the content of our followers according to past actions, we will be able to see content with which we have already interacted previously.

In the end, this has a double side or a dark side, whatever we want to call it. On the one hand, by classifying content, Instagram considers that it is doing us a favour. But on the other hand, and in a way, it is also manipulating our lives according to the content it shows us. Maybe it’s a bit conspiratorial, but we know that when we enter social networks we are providing a lot of information about ourselves.

 

 

How Instagram’s chronological feed works

There are a few factors that influence Instagram’s algorithm for feed posts, which are confirmed by Instagram.

  • Information about the post. Whether it is a photo or a video, when it was published and how many likes it has.
  • Information about advertisements.  Which ones are interesting to us, whether they are posts by friends and how often users engage with our content.
  • Activity. If we watch a lot of videos, and what type of content we interact with the most.
  • Interaction history. This is mainly about whether people like our content and engage with it with comments or likes.

Once the algorithm has all this information, it goes to work calculating the probability that someone will interact with a post. In addition to all this, it guesses the probability of five important and key interactions to determine the classification of feeds, which are the following.

  • Time spent. How much time we will spend on the publication.
  • Likes. How likely we are to like the post.
  • Comments. What is the real probability that we will comment on the post.
  • Save action. What is the probability that we are so interested in the post that we will save it.
  • Click to discover the profile. How likely we are to access a profile after seeing its publication.

 As this type of algorithms are uncontrollable and difficult to avoid, the recommendation we can make from Somos Sinapsis is that you do the best you can.

Bibliotecaria frustrada que un día descubrió el potencial que tenía de creatividad y después de varios cursos de marketing decidió explotarlo en redes sociales y terminó haciéndose community mánager de diferentes empresas y artistas. Le encanta el silencio pero es melómana hasta la médula, puro espíritu de contradicción. Fanática de libros, películas y series de terror. Vive mirando una estrella, siempre en estado de espera.