In His Seemly Daily Update, Adam Moserri Has Reported Another New Instagram Update That’s In The Works.
Within his recent post, the CEO of Instagram announced:
We’ve added new ways to tag and improved ranking:
– Product Tags
– Enhanced Tags
– Ranking for originality
Moserri stated: “If you create something from scratch, you should get more credit than if you are re-sharing something that you found from someone else. [As such] we’re going to do more to try and value original content more, particularly compared to reposted content.”
This new updated has confused some audiences who are not sure what this means for accounts that may be re-sharing content.
As a result of the confusion surrounding the change Moserri took to Twitter to answer some of the most common questions being asked.
Content made outside of the app will not be penalised. The premise is that as long as the content is yours it is okay to edit it outside the app. Despite this, content with visible watermarks such as from TikTok will be penalised.
Secondly, if users have been known to copy others’ posts in the past this will be an indicator to detect stolen content in the future. The app will then lessen your reach. This includes popular graphics and memes.
This ranking is not foolproof though. The classifiers can predict how likely the content is to be original but they can never be 100% sure. Moserri mentions “if it’s someone pretending to be the original creator, which is less likely but could happen, it’ll be hard for us to know.” Therefore it’s hard for Instagram to crack down on this type of content and it is likely users who copy other people’s content will just find ways around them. As well as this, well-meaning accounts may be penalised unjustly.
This may mean that brands are penalised for utilising UGC even if they are approved by the original page. This content can be a great way to engage followers more but this may now have the opposite effect.
This update may be looked down upon by social media managers who have just had to accommodate the new duo feed update. Some may feel that all these new updates are actually pushing away users rather than encouraging them to stay on the app. These updates seem like attempts to claw back users who may have strayed to more user-friendly apps. Although the update is well-meaning it is likely to not achieve what it sets out to.
A better way for the site to identify original content is to push enhanced tags (a feature introduced earlier this year)
Finally, for our previous #SocialShort, click here.
