It’s #TravelTuesday and I, Dave Williams, am here again! I know you’ve been looking forward to my inner thoughts all week!
I’m cutting straight to the chase this week. I’ve discovered some really interesting stuff about Instagram, and I want to share it with you all. A few weeks back I posted a poll on my Instagram story – here’s what that looked like: –
As you can see, an overwhelming majority of people, at just over 10:1, want to see photos on their Instagram feed rather than video. I’m not going to get tied up with the metrics – this is a poll of my 37k followers, not of the entire populous, and although it’s not necessarily too accurate it certainly makes a point in itself.
The reason I posted that poll is because there’s been a lot said lately about how Instagram is focusing on Reels, which are videos of up to sixty seconds. These Reels differ from normal posts in that they feature in their own feed, as well as the normal feed. I decided to conduct an experiment, and the results are fairly loud.
I’ve been shooting short, portrait oriented video on my iPhone while I’ve been out on my photographic adventures. I took a bunch of these short videos and, along with overlaid music, I posted them to Instagram Reels. Take a look at what happened immediately afterwards: –
Yep – this is what Instagram used to look like! When I started taking Instagram seriously as a photographer and influencer, this happened every time I posted a photo. A bunch of likes, comments, and new followers. It was every time I posted, and I had so many notifications from Instagram that I had to switch the notifications off.
Since then, Facebook bought Instagram. A major part of them putting their ‘stamp’ on it and monetising it for their profits involved the algorithm. Ever since then I, and many other photographers and influencers, have seen a noticeable decline in engagement on Instagram. Posting Reels has made my notifications look like they used to look, so it’s definitely true that Instagram is focused on Reels and video content.
That’s my experiment, and that’s what I wanted to share with you today. Take from it what you will. And, until next week…
much love
Dave
