Quit Pushing Me Around, Instagram!

Chronological, reliable, and unbiased. As a member of Generation Y, I have associated these words with one of my favorite social media platforms: Instagram. Instagram has been my go-to for a clean, neat, and orderly platform to view photos from friends, family, and celebrities. It never mattered how often we “interacted,” if at all—Instagram would show me pictures, sequentially, and open a window into their lives for me.

This is all changing as Instagram (owned by Facebook) plans to roll out a Facebook-like algorithm for my feed. Now I’ll have to seek out specific profiles to see photos—ugh, the effort that will take! And not only that, but in order to see specific users’ posts, I can’t just follow them. Instead, I’ll have to turn on notifications, the things that pop up on your phone for Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Timehop, Pinterest, Google, Outlook, Calendar…you get the idea.

It hasn’t happened yet, and I’m already annoyed. But what does this mean for businesses?

Previously, businesses could target demographics of all Instagram users with promoted ads. And brand-loyal followers would see posts automatically in their feeds. Now, in order to ensure that consumers see your advertisement, you’ll have to pay, and even your followers will have to turn on push notifications to see your content.

As a user already battling through constant push notifications, there’s just no way I’ll be willing to turn on another to alert me every time Nordstrom posts a photo. So the takeaway is this: businesses will no longer be able to count on consumers seeing their advertisements. And I can no longer count on seeing my girl Selena Gomez’s latest trendy meal.

The struggle is real, guys. And it just got realer.

CLM | Mar 31, 2016