Is Instagram about friends, or is it about entertainment?
For everyone working in social media, Adam Mosseri’s channel (head of Instagram) has become a must-follow to understand how the platform works and the logic behind algorithm changes and performance.
Many of us have wondered what Instagram’s identity is after it transitioned from being the social network of deeply aestheticised images to one of the most important platforms for vertical videos, constantly competing with TikTok.
So it’s worth reading what he said during his latest video to understand why ‘sends’ are so important in the ranking of content performance.
It’s quite amusing to note how he ‘forgot’ to mention TikTok when talking about entertainment ;).
This is what he said in his latest video:
“Is Instagram about friends, or is it about entertainment? I get the question all the time.
All the time, actually—I got it last week at an internal all-hands. And the truth is, we are the intersection of those two ideas.
We are not the best place to message your friend. If I’m running late and we’re going to grab a coffee, I’m probably going to use WhatsApp. And we’re not the best place to just sit back and be entertained.
If I’m really tired at the end of the day and need to veg out for a few hours, I’m gonna pick Netflix over Instagram.
But we can be the best place to talk to the people you care about, about your interests. And that’s really our identity. We’re about connecting over creativity.
That’s why I talk about ‘sends’ all the time as an important feature in ranking.
That’s why we built content notes. That’s why the reply model for Stories is actually based on DMs and why the way you can reshare something from Feed is through messaging, as opposed to reposting it to Feed.
We’re always looking for more ways to help people connect around and over their interests.
That identity has stayed the same for a long time now and will stay the same in the future. How we meet that mission will change as the world changes.”
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