You might have noticed a few changes to Instagram over the past few weeks—and now it’s official. Instagram has caved and decided to make newer posts more important to its users.

 

 

I received messages from several people about this over this, and while I, too, had noticed some changes, Instagram made it official on March 22, saying, “With these changes, your feed will feel more fresh, and you won’t miss the moments you care about.”

 

 

Instagram for photographers: What this means

 

Simply put, you’re more likely to see new posts from the people you follow as opposed to random posts from a few days ago.

 

 

But Instagram didn’t stop there. As a part of the update, they also announced that they are testing a “New Posts” button that “lets you choose when you want to refresh, rather than it happening automatically.”

 

 

This is even more of a big deal to me because I had been caught several times opening the app and seeing a photo that I wanted to learn more about, only to have it pushed way down in my feed. This should alleviate that problem, and also alert you (similar to Twitter) of new posts from your followers from within the app.

 

 

Instagram added that they’re going to be making additional improvements in the next few months as well, so stay tuned.

 

 

The effect on marketing for photographers?

 

When it comes to Instagram for photographers, this should help you with your Instagram marketing. It’ll mean you can take advantage of prime-time slots to post your images, and hopefully be seen more often. It should be easier to predict, rather than having your images appear at random to users.

 

 

What doesn’t change is how you should go about marketing yourself through Instagram. You’ll still want to use best practices like adding relevant hashtags, tagging locations, and more.

 

 

Also, sponsored posts aren’t affected. The more and more I use Instagram, the more sponsored posts I see. For photographers who pay for posts, this shouldn’t change in any way.

 

 

Why did this happen?

 

While there was a ton of backlash against Instagram when they introduced their algorithm (and further refined it), this doesn’t appear to be happening based on users’ requests. Instead, this is the likely result of Vero, the new social network that organizes every post by time.

 

 

Instagram for photographers- conclusion

 

The changes that Instagram is making are great for users. For photographers, this should help us in terms of scheduling our posts and better predicting user engagement across our images.

 

 

A version of this article originally appeared on Photofocus.

 

 

About Bryan:

 

Bryan is a photographer specializing in capturing events, theatre, food/drink, and corporate moments. Based in Grand Rapids, MI, he has worked with clients such as CNBC, Michigan State University, ArtPrize, Steelcase, SpartanNash, and more. His work has also been featured by Delta Airlines, NBC, Microsoft, LiveStrong, and Pure Michigan.  Click here to learn more about Bryan Esler.

 

 

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