Instagram will soon begin introducing its new algorithm based feed. So rather than displaying the posts in chronological order, Instagram’s algorithm will order the feed to display what it believes is the most relevant content for each user.

This makes sense for a number of reasons.

1. Any platform that builds an audience as large as Instagram, now sitting above 400 million users, can expect to introduce some type of filtering system to handle the sheer amount of content pushing to user’s feeds. As users amass huge followings, feeds are becoming more and more cluttered making it harder to see what’s relevant.

2. Platforms need to start capitalising on these large audiences and build profits. Monetising Instagram for its shareholders and more importantly, Facebook.

3. Growing user base = growing costs. With more than 70 million image uploads every day, I can only imagine what Instagram’s infrastructure costs might be.

Regardless, these feed changes pose some challenges for users, especially for brands including a large number of smaller businesses who basically run their business through Instagram’s platform. These users have spent years cultivating their following and these changes have the potential to drastically impact their reach, so it’s not something they wish to let go of without a fight. As of today a petition on Change.org has amassed over 300,000 signatures from users demanding the feed stay as it is.

Instagram says this change is to allow users to

See the moments you care about first

According to Instagram, users are missing an average of 70% of their feeds and this change is designed to optimise a user’s feed to prioritise content the user cares about most.

Instagram is hoping this will help the platform grow (and drive ad sales) by making feeds more relevant to users. If users can follow more pages without cluttering their feeds then they are likely to increase the number of users they follow.

Instagram has not yet detailed how the algorithm will work, although with Instagram not having as much profiling data as Facebook, it raises the question of how they will know what is most relevant for each user. I wouldn’t be surprised if they cross reference data collected by Facebook to tap into Facebook’s detailed user profiles. As evil as this is, it doesn’t seem unfeasible considering Facebook owns Instagram.

Unfortunately it appears Instagram is heading the same way Facebook is. I’m sure we all remember when Facebook changed their algorithm and organic post views dropped dramatically, leaving business and brand pages having to pay to boost posts in order to get any significant reach. Paid advertising on Instagram will no doubt become common place to reach followers just as it is with Facebook.

Users will now need to make sure they cleverly craft each and every post in order to maximise engagement, requiring a larger investment of time and resources. This will increase the demand for additional support for small to medium businesses as the need for highly crafted content increases.

Businesses will need to revise their Instagram strategies as changes roll out in order to maximise the platforms effectiveness. Unfortunately for some, this will involve additional ad spend, not so unfortunate for Facebook shareholders though.