Over the past few years, Instagram has grown to become the favorite social network for brand advertisers. This is mainly because compared to other social networks, Instagram records the highest numbers of consumers engagements.
However, it appears that going forward customers acquisition by brands will take more than just a perfectly edited photo. That is the effect to be expected once Instagram drops the chronological order of feeds flow to users.
As announced last week, the social network announced users will no longer get feeds based on their chronological order. Instead, the feeds will start showing depending on their popularity and other social signals. Much like how Facebook feeds.
Instagram says these changes are meant to optimize a user’s feed. However, critics argue, that these changes are only meant to give Instagram powers to control ad content. They say the social network is looking to increase revenue per individual user, as much as it seeks to grow the total number of users.
For the year 2015, the social network made revenue of over $600m. For the year 2016, Instagram is projected to grow its revenue by at least 149%. As more and more brands flocked to the social network given its reputation of high consumers’ engagements, it would appear now Instagram wants to monetize further on the increasing brands usage of the platform.
Either way you look at it, the social network is following the footsteps of its parent company.