What is Really Happening with the New Instagram Feeds (and should you care)

We’ve been hearing for a while about a big change coming to Instagram.

Instead of having one main feed we scroll through (forgetting about reels, stories & video tabs for a minute) they are going to move to having three feed options.

To get all the skinny on what is coming, I jumped on a Zoom with the San Diego based queen of Instagram – Jenn Herman.

If you don’t know Jenn’s name yet, she literally wrote the book on Instagram – Instagram for Dummies – and is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on all things Insta.

So here is the skinny. “We know it’s coming, but none of us know what it’s going to look like, but most likely it’s going to have three feeds,” Jenn says.

Feed 1 – HOME: This is your home feed where the content is algorithmically sorted and includes suggested posts, ads and is essentially the same as what you get right now. This feed is great for nonprofits as it gives you a chance to be seen by new people all the time with suggested posts and the like. 

Feed 2 – FAVOURITES:  Instagram will give you the option to sort through your followers and favourite the ones you want to always see. Say you follow 3,000 people (and we hope you don’t), it would be impossible to see everything they share. Instead you can pick out say 50 businesses, influencers, friends as favourites and it will just pull in the content from these people. We don’t know if there will be ads there as well or not, but most likely because – revenue.

Feed 3 – FOLLOWING: Now, this is the one people are most excited about – it’s where you will get all the Instagram content from everyone you follow but it will be delivered chronologically rather than by the algorithm.

But what does it mean for you as a nonprofit or social enterprise on the ‘gram?

“The big question in everyone’s mind is do we need to prepare for this?” Jenn says. “Does this change our posting schedule? If people are looking at a chronological feed, do I need to post every single day?

“There’s all these things that people have questions about,” she says. “And right now, my advice is just pause. Don’t worry about it, because we don’t know yet. My prediction is that not many people are actually going to use the chronological feed.”

Watch this space, we will let you know on our social media channels when the new three feed launches and if there are any updates or things you need to prepare.

In the meanwhile, you can hop over to the Change the World podcast and get my FULL 45-minute chat with Jenn Herman. We talk about all the new things on Instagram including reels, lives, new analytics, carousels, links in stories and much more.

Get the Podcast Here!

Also for all of you in North America, you can also register to see Jenn run a free class at Change the World North America in just a few weeks where she will be demystifying the whole of Instagram and sharing strategy on how to use it for a cause. (P.S. if you are a night owl or early morning person in the southern hemisphere – you can always join us too!). 

Register for Jenn’s class here