Instagram’s ‘favourites’ feature lets users customise feeds; ads to follow
Instagram has introduced a new feature that will allow users to customise their Instagram feeds.
The favourites feature will roll out from today, enabling users to select up to 50 ‘favourite’ accounts that will be prioritised by the Instagram algorithm, showing higher in their home feeds.
The update is the latest in a string of changes to the platform as Instagram continues to battle against the growing success of Tik Tok, the platform favoured among Gen Z for its hyper-personalised algorithm, and purpose built content creating and viewing capabilities.
The new feature will also enable users to toggle between viewing their ‘following’ lists and their ‘favourite’ lists, giving them more control over the content their are consuming on the Meta platform.
Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, differentiated the ‘following feed’ as a way for users to “see the latest posts from the accounts [they] follow in the order they were posted”, while the ‘favourites’ feed will allow users to “quickly catch up on the accounts [they] care about most”, again in the order of posting.
The changes bring about obvious questions as to how customisable feeds might affect the placement of paid ads on the platform, as well as engagement with campaigns involving influencers.
The platform told Mumbrella that they would not include ads in the initial launch of the ‘favourites’ and ‘following’ feeds, but feed ads would eventually be shown across both feeds.
“All existing Instagram feed ads will be eligible to be shown in the favourites and following views,” said an Instagram spokesperson. “While we won’t include ads at our initial launch, we plan to introduce ads for the favourites and following feeds in the coming months.”
“All Instagram feed ads will be eligible to serve across all Instagram views including Home, Following, and Favourites. Advertisers will not be able to choose to include or exclude ads from appearing on Favourites or Following,” added the spokesperson.
Overall, Instagram does not believe the changes will have any major impacts for advertisers, “including with regards to performance or reach”.
In terms of how the changes might affect influencers and users, influencer Belle Bambi said:
“I think these changes will benefit users and creators in a colourful new way. It will be amazing to see how we can now reach our audience and I think that continuously finding new and exciting ways to do that is what’s important in today’s social media climate. Being able to see more of the people we love, and further than that to be able to customise that experience puts the power in all of our hands. And that is super special!”
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