Changes announced on Instagram

Social media giant, Instagram will look a bit more like TikTok now as they have announced it will “shift from a photo-sharing app to a video-sharing app”. 

Why the change? TikTok exploded to the top of the social media game with short form videos. As for Instagram, Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said the move to expand video formats on the platform was because he no longer viewed Instagram as a square photo-sharing app. He said that competition from TikTok and YouTube is fueling the increased focus on video. 

The stiff competition in the social media space has driven these changes that will be rolled out in the coming weeks. For the millions of users of IG and TikTok, this will mean longer and more frequent videos to keep us all entertained. On the flip side of this news, this could also mean users will see in their feeds recommended content from accounts they don’t already follow which means less control on what you see in your feed. In addition potentially more ads and sponsored content that you may not want to sit through. 

What do you think about this change? Do you think longer video time is good news for content creators and influencers looking at monetizing their content, or do you think users may not stick around to watch longer content and may be turned off that IG is “no longer a photo-sharing app” that it is well-known for?