This Week on Instagram – July 22, 2024 

A lot is happening in the world of Instagram, and we’re here to help you keep track of what’s what. 

Instagram Leans into Private User Habits

First, and most important for your organic social media, Instagram is leaning towards private sharing between friends (think DMs). Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram, has repeatedly emphasized this trend. 

There have been new DM features released:

  • Edit a message (within 15 minutes of sending it)
  • Pin message threads to the top in your messages (coming to professional accounts soon)

This is followed up by Instagram testing making messages the app’s primary focus. So, where you click “+” to add a post, it could become a message button.

Another new thing that fits into this theme? Instagram has added Notes to the Feed and Reels. 

Notes are temporary (3 days) ways to connect on a piece of content. They can only be seen by people who follow one another. 

Why does this matter to businesses using Instagram to promote?

Simple! First, Instagram has made it clear that one signal for ranking is sends per reach. We’ve known for a while to shoot for “shareable” content, and now it fits into a larger trend for the app as a whole. 

According to Mosseri, more stories and DMs are posted on the app than Reels or other Feed posts. They are leaning into this. This also means that our Reels Feed and regular feed are starting to look a little more like TikTok’s, with entertainment at the forefront. People share entertaining stuff.

Other things to keep in mind…

Testing: Super Likes

Instagram is testing Super Likes on stories. Users could only “super like” one story per day. I don’t love this feature because it feels like a dating app, which, both personally and professionally, I try to avoid people acting like that’s what Instagram is… There are enough people in DMs who are giving unsolicited and inappropriate attention. It’s probably a soapbox for another day and from my personal brand account (lol). 

Ads: Can’t Boost Full-Screen Carousels

If you’re running ads on Instagram and boosting posts, you can’t boost carousels if they are using the full-screen ratio (9:16). So if you plan to boost it, don’t use that size. Variable-size carousels are a new feature that was rolled out last month.

If you found this helpful and would like to see more content like it, sign up for our mailing list!