8th February 2022
2022: The year of the content creators
We have all debated it, or thought about it, is a content creator a real job? Well, Instagram think so! The social media network is giving its creators more opportunities to make more money – with Instagram Subscriptions.
The latest feature to hit the App Store in November is currently being tested with a handpicked group of popular U.S. creators. Instagram has released the feature to the test group of creators who will be able to give their followers paid access to exclusive content, such as live videos and stories. In return, their subscribers will be awarded with their own exclusive feature, a “Subscribers Badge’ which Instagram say will help them stand out in their favourite creators’ inbox or comments section. Every little helps to get noticed, eh?
It’s a big move for Instagram as they test an “alpha” feature, meaning they get real feedback from creators and fans. Testing the feature with “live” users will mean the social media network can iterate and improve the feature before it hits the full market.
So it looks like we might be adding to our Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ subscriptions!
A subscription will gain you access to subscriber-only content, ping you alerts to exclusive live streams, behind-the-scenes content, special polls and all with a smaller viewing audience. With the added value of a Subscriber Badge which appears alongside a subscribers comment or message.
You might be thinking, how does this content remain “exclusive”, well, Instagram have confirmed that resharing or screenshotting this content will be a violation of their terms and conditions.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented that the Subscription feature will “help creators earn more by offering benefits to their most engaged followers like access to exclusive Lives and Stories.”
“I’m excited to keep building tools for creators to make a living doing creative work and to put these tools in more creators’ hands soon,”.
The return of the chronological feed
Hands up if you log into Instagram and have no idea what order your feed is in?
Well, Instagram head Adam Mosseri has released a video showing how they are testing three new feed settings, including the return of the much-missed chronological option.
Users will have three options to choose from for how they view their Instagram feed; Home, Favourites and Following.
Home: This is the option we are familiar with now – Instagram decides what to show us, based on what it thinks we will be interested in (ranked using their algorithm).
Favourites: A new option which will give users the ability to select a subset of accounts they consider their ‘favourite’, meaning their feed will be occupied by a pick handed set up accounts.
Following: The one that got away (and we never forgot about)! The chronological stream of posts from all accounts that you follow.
Since Instagram removed the feature in 2016, users have complained about missing content and have resisted the social media network curating their feed for them. Content Creators struggle with some of their followers missing their content entirely and there have been many theories about how Instagram decides what content to show you. You can read Mosseri’s blog on that topic here.