New Instagram Features Look Unfavourably on Reposting
The gram has never been a fan of TikTok, that’s no secret. But, the new Instagram features couldn’t make it any more obvious.
Yesterday, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri shared a video outlining 3 new Instagram features. He explained what each of the features were, and how they would be changing the platform. Mosseri detailed how these changes were meant to “make sure that credit is going to those who deserve it.”
The 3 changes include product tags being made available to everyone. This means you can tag products in your post. Enhanced tags being rolled out, so you can assign yourself a creative category like “songwriter” or “photographer”. Finally, the heavier promotion of original content.
Back in February 2021, Instagram warned it wouldn’t promote TikTok content that was reposted on Reels as heavily. Now, going a step further than this, Mosseri says that you won’t get as much credit for reposting someone else’s content.
“We’re going to try and do more to try and value original content more, particularly compared to reposted content.”
Whilst valuing fresh content isn’t exactly new, it looks like Instagram will be leaning more heavily towards this. From one perspective, this can be viewed as a simple encouragement to bring out user’s creative sides. To urge them to pick up the camera themselves, and try their hand at content creation.
From another angle, it’s one more plea from Instagram for users to stop reposting TikTok content on the platform.
After rebranding and shifting its vision, Meta has spelled out that its new focus will be creators and creation. This is opposed to providing platforms for people to connect with one another. Shopping tools have been added to Facebook and Instagram, and Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that Reels is a particular focus. He cited short-form video as “our fastest growing content format by far.”
We can expect, in future, to see even more updates that help Instagram compete with the likes of TikTok and YouTube.
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