Instagram Announces Changes to Further Reward Original Content on the Platform

 

Instagram, a social platform owned by Meta, announced a series of algorithm updates through its head Adam Mosseri. These updates involve replacing reposted content with original content and removing aggregators from recommendations. These changes will be rolled out gradually over the coming months.

The New Algorithm: Empowering Originality

Instagram needs to increase reach for creators of original content to be the best platform for creators to do this Instagram has introduced a new feature called "direct replace". Under this feature, Instagram will no longer recommend content to users if they are not the original creators of the content.

Instead, Instagram will search for the original creator of the content and recommend their original post. Reposted content will also be labeled and linked back to the original post.

The change made by Instagram is that they are altering how they treat aggregators in terms of recommendations. So who are aggregators? An aggregator is an account that is focused mainly on reposting content created by others rather than creating original content themselves and they include meme accounts, News aggregators, and reposting services.

Accounts that reshare content will be removed from the recommendations, but that will only apply if they share original content that they didn’t enhance.

Instagram will have no problem if you edit or enhance that piece of content making it different from the original one.

Combating Content Aggregators

When the new update is rolled out, aggregators' reach will be limited, and the account that originally posted the content will get positive reach to enhance their Instagram growth. Aggregators gather content from various sources and share it with their own audience.

While they can be useful in curating and presenting interesting content from multiple creators, they can also interfere with the discovery process and make it difficult for original content creators to get their work noticed.

Impact and Analysis

Potential benefits

Original content creators will benefit greatly as their content will be recommended more frequently due to the impact of aggregator accounts, which will no longer be recommended.

Also, accounts that post original content will have increased exposure both from recommendation and explore pages.

This will also nurture a more diverse creative environment by encouraging people to be more creative by sharing their unique ideas, we will start seeing more content being posted on the platform catering to a broader audience with varied interests.

Also with less emphasis on reposts users are more likely to encounter content they haven’t seen before sparking discoveries.

Strategies for Users

For original content creators, there are things you can do to optimize your content with the new algorithm. First off, let's start off with some of the things that will not give you a higher reach according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri such as hashtags, he stated that hashtags won’t help and they are not a requirement if you want to grow your account.

Having a large number of followers is important for reaching a wider audience on social media. However, it is not the only factor that determines the success of your account.

While having more followers can lead to greater reach, it is not the only metric that matters. Therefore, if your goal is to increase your reach, focusing only on gaining followers may not be the most effective strategy.

So what exactly does matter if you are trying to optimize your reach with the new algorithm? How many likes you are getting per post, how many views you are getting per reel, and how many reshares you are getting per photo, reel, or carousel are the ones that matter.

If you notice a decline in your follower count but an increase in engagement, it is an indication that your content is reaching a wider audience.

Conversely, if your follower count is increasing but engagement is decreasing, then that is a cause for concern. Therefore, creators should prioritize measuring their engagement rates instead of focusing entirely on their number of followers.

Conclusion

The new algorithm rollout will be of great help to many creators, especially small ones. These small creators have been positively impacted because previously, aggregator accounts were able to repost their content without any modification. As a result, the aggregator would get more reach, while the original account that shared the content would see its reach plummet.

So If you post original content, Instagram will suggest your account on the feed and explore page. This means that your content will be discovered by more people, leading to increased reach.

On the other hand, aggregator accounts will receive less reach, and their reshared content will not be recommended. This applies to those who repost the same original content without making any changes to it.

The accounts that reposted unoriginal content will be eligible again 30 days after their last repost.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

How can aggregators “make content their own” so they can still be recommended?-Adam Mosseri suggests that to prevent Instagram from flagging your content as unoriginal, you should make edits to it. For example, if you create a green-screen video, turn a photo into a meme, or significantly alter the content through editing, it will be considered original by Instagram. However, simply copying or pretending that the content is your own will not be tolerated by the platform.

Is Instagram targeting meme accounts since they announced they are going to remove aggregators from recommendations?-Again according to Adam, Instagram is not targeting meme accounts since there are a lot of amazing original meme creators, but you take someone else meme and repost it then you are an aggregator but if you are making your memes then that's original content.

What happens if Instagram incorrectly identifies non-original content? How will they determine what is original?- Instagram uses a classifier to check if someone is posting original content. They look for signs such as whether the same photos and videos have been posted by other accounts, or if an account has a consistent voice. They also check if an account is taking content from other accounts and reposting it.

Will this week’s updates about recommendations apply to Threads?- No, they won’t apply to threads they are just for Instagram, however, they are exploring how Threads will bring similar ideas since they share a lot of the same infrastructure.