Hello and welcome to the April Instagram round-up! It’s all change over on Instagram this month with the new algorithm being phased in. What does this mean for all of us, and is it good or bad?
Well, according to Instagram the changes are to improve your experience helping you to see what you care about most. There was a bit of a panic in the blogging world when the changes were announced, users expressing their worry that their feeds would get lost in a sea of super popular Instagrammers and sponsored posts. There was even an online petition going around at one point however the changes to our feeds have been slowly phased in by Instagram and the furore seems to have died down a bit.
For those of you that don’t know, Instagram will no longer show posts in chronological order but instead show you the content of those you interact with the most (a bit like Facebook) The most important thing is to continue liking and engaging with the posts you enjoy and that way you shouldn’t miss anything. There have been calls to ‘turn on notifications’ but chances are you are following a couple of thousand people or more and couldn’t possibly keep up with everyone’s activity that way.
Fear not as I’ve found a few articles that help to explain what the changes mean and why they might not necessarily be a bad thing. In this post from Slouching Towards Thatcham, Tim explains how the changes will affect bloggers and why it’s probably not necessary to ask your followers to turn on notifications (with a bit of maths to back up his theory!)
Aby from You Baby Me Mummy describes how to use the new algorithm to your advantage and make the changes work for you and your blog.
One of the more exciting changes for me personally is that Instagram will soon give users the flexibility to tell your Instagram story in videos of up to 60 seconds long. You can read about the specifics on the Instagram blog and watch the video embedded below to find out more.
In this post I found on Fashion Mumblr, Josie explains that the changes are brilliant for the ‘honest Instagrammer’ and drives the point home that a loyal engaged audience who actually care about what you’re posting is far more important than thousands of followers who don’t.
As always I am ending this round-up with 5 of my favourite Instagrammers, here are my top picks for this month:
@photalife Darren’s account is the perfect mix of landscape, lots of florals and small people. Pretty much something for everyone!
@newyoungmum I love Alice’s account it’s bright and cheerful with beautiful snaps of family life.
@tarajgreaves You will never fail to find an interesting image on Tara’s Instagram and her little girl is such a cutie.
@chandlerolivephotography There are so many ethereal images in this gallery, the way the photographer uses light makes the images so dreamy.
@candidchildhood is a community account run by 5 Instagrammers that feature outstanding photography based on what is perceived a candid childhood, well worth a follow for photo inspiration.
