Instagram is boosting content discovery with a new section that will bring up posts that are “Recommended for You” in your feed.
When scrolling through your feed, Instagram will now suggest posts that are Recommended for You. The feature was first spotted as a test earlier this month but has now quietly gone live on the platform.
The new section is clearly labelled so you will notice when a post is not from an account you currently follow. It contains three to five suggested posts that are selected based on posts liked by accounts you follow.
While Instagram has offered recommended content through the discover tab for quite some time, it is the first time that content discovery will be based on what other accounts you follow or like, rather than on your own activity. Another noticeable difference is that these “Recommended for You” posts will appear directly in your home feed, not in a separate tab.
This is a big change for Instagram, probably the biggest since the platform introduced its algorithm-based feed ranking, making the switch from a chronological order. With that said, all recent updates on the platform have been pushing for more content discovery. The most visible of all, being the new follow hashtags feature that was introduced back in November.
If you don’t want Instagram suggesting posts for you, you can choose to turn off the feature. However, this will only be temporary, and suggested posts will soon make their way back onto your feed.
And of course, users aren’t too happy about the new feature:
https://twitter.com/ryanthemermaid/status/945454334791131136
https://twitter.com/itskamm/status/945833455295909888
https://twitter.com/bellaabrookss/status/945990367547088896
Instagram explained that the “Recommended for You” section is currently being rolled out to all iOS and Android users.
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