Are the days of the aesthetically pleasing Instagram grid numbered? 

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri announced on 30th June that video was an area that they fully plan to "lean into more." Talking openly about the strategy for the company, he stated that Instagram is no longer “a square photo sharing app” and that people head to the platform to be entertained (we’d argue entertained or educated but maybe that’s splitting hairs). 

For a social media guru, he’s refreshingly open and has recently taken to his own platform to give us fair warning of the change in direction we should expect. He announced that they want to leverage the entertainment and video elements after seeing growth in TikTok and YouTube - the big competition is something that they need to embrace and address. So whilst video experiences have already grown on the app, via IGTV, Stories and Reels, prepare for algorithm changes and a number of updates that will enhance the discoverability of video via explore and the home feed… unless you’ve been head in the sand you’ll know that Video. Is. King.

As panic ensued among old school photo posters and fans of an aesthetically pleasing grid, Mosseri gave a further update on 21st July in his Insta Stories, stating that they are “NOT deprioritising photos, merely embracing video more.” Hmm our interpretation of it all is that you may be able to keep your grid of squares for now, but if the testing and algorithm bias is on video  content then that’s where you’ll want to be focusing your Insta efforts!

So, what can we do?

In short - get filming!

Honestly, we feel the pain! Check out the Nutshell feed https://www.instagram.com/social_nutshell/ …it’s vibrant, it’s fun, it reflects our brand colours, it pulls in our audience content, …hey it even has diagonal tiles (so very 2019!).

We choose a scheduler based on the fact that we can preview the grid (thanks @Later), we use Canva to create consistency within our brand guidelines… because that’s how it works, right?

When we both trained in social media management the grid aesthetic was an important element of the organic social media strategy, the other elements of the strategy are still bang on (getting the audience, content and tone right!) but the digital landscape is forever changing. 

Time moves on - and so must we, and we need to adapt to meet our potential followers and customers in the most frictionless way within the platform - video!

The Benefits

Apart from the fact that your videos will be more discoverable due to algorithm changes, videos are also more likely to stop scrollers and grab attention. Keeping ahead of platform changes will give your account the best chances of achieving your objectives for social media.

Recent tracking updates have made life a bit harder for those using paid social advertising, to be clear - performance of Facebook, Insta and Google Ads isn’t impacted but the measurement is, so we’re seeing that our clients sales are still rolling in but we’ve had to find more workarounds to gain clarity on reporting. This reduced tracking and measurement means that retargeting audiences are smaller than they would have been previously, however using video in ads is a great way to build up retargeting audiences quickly through video views. So, having a good play with video and testing different creatives on your organic socials will lay strong foundations and prove what works when you put budget behind the content in the form of paid ads. 

Overall, the opportunities that Instagram offer have reached far beyond the picture perfect grid for sometime now, and whilst we aren’t certain what format new changes will take, we know for certain that those embracing video will benefit the most, so it’s time to start the camera rolling!