Turn On Instagram Notifications, We’re Begging You!

If you’ve been on Instagram at all today, you’ve probably seen a dozen or so panicky messages like this one going through your feed (yep, we did it too):

Like Facebook and Twitter before it, Instagram is reportedly about to turn on an algorithm that will put the best photos at the top of your feed, and hide lower-performing posts further down – or possibly not show them at all, if the rumors are true.

This has a lot of people freaking out that their posts will be hidden from their followers, causing them to beg for permission to ping their followers’ phones every time they post a new picture.

No, YOU’RE desperate for validation and attention!

Seriously, though, this update would have pretty big implications for people who make a living on Instagram:

Brands and professionals should definitely freak out. Some community managers spent months of hard work increasing the number of followers they have on their Instagram accounts. And soon, only a fraction of this fanbase is going to receive Instagram posts. It’s true, algorithmic feeds force us to compete.

Even worse, Instagram doesn’t provide analytics tools (except video views). They won’t know how many people view their posts. Professionals won’t know if they’re doing a good job and what type of posts is performing well. If a brand’s reach decreases dramatically, some brands will also have to pay for ads like on Facebook. This isn’t a bad thing for Instagram, but brands don’t want to pay for something that they could do for free.

For their part, Instagram is trying to calm everyone down by saying that no drastic changes are happening any time soon.

Naturally, the snarky backlash has already started.