TikTok fever is taking over the digital world by storm and that’s why social media apps like Instagram are taking more inspiration for their own interface.
The leading social media company revealed today that it has entered into its trial phase for testing out a new full-screen feed that’s super similar to that seen on TikTok.
The whole idea is for the app to improve the way images appear in its new format and this new step seems to be the direction that they’re willing to head in.
Instagram also recently mentioned how they’re going to be using this testing period to experiment with new changes to the navigation bar that’s located towards the app’s bottom. Users will also soon be able to find some interesting shortcuts in regards to posting creation and getting access to their text messages too.
In 2020, we saw the app make some controversial decisions when it chose to relocate its Compose option where it placed the button in the middle of the Reels’ navigation bar. Soon after that, we saw it being moved to a more interesting location on the top right-hand side of the app.
But we do feel this change may have been done to help engage users and allow them to venture into Reels, whether intentionally or unintentionally. But at the same time, that most likely came at a cost of making users less motivated to create conventional posts at a quicker speed.
Hence, now that we are hearing the app make plans to see the button back on the navigation bar means watching a fall in new content produced as so many users are going to switch up and make better use of time through post-creation on TikTok.
In terms of the new full-screen option for its feed, we heard the company announce its plans for a similar trial in May. But that certainly did not go down too well as it received plenty of complaints across the board from users, not to mention harsh negative criticism of the decision.
Not only would this new format hide captions as well as comments being made by users, but it would also end up making content visible via a ratio that comprises 9:16. And that means saying hello to the app’s traditional images in square form and the other horizontal picture format too.
For those images that previously failed to fit into the format’s new alignment for the feed, we saw the app introduce a blurred border so it could blend seamlessly without appearing obvious.
But the news again didn’t sit down well with users who started to launch complaints directly to the company’s CEO Adam Mosseri regarding this new update.
Meanwhile, another top issue that many had in the previous test was related to the presence of white spaces showing up in between the posts. And the overall vibes it gave were a really odd remix of the TikTok feed and a more card-style feed. Many also held the opinion that the new design was just adding too much clutter in one go.
Thankfully, the app has recently confirmed that it would be eliminating these odd white spaces whenever viewers saw videos in the 9:16 ratio.
Instagram has also announced some great news for its content creators as the update will now allow creators’ content to be recommended to even those that aren’t following them. This is also in line with TikTok which loves to throw in content that it thinks its users might like via its ‘For You’ page.
We do see how the new changes can be beneficial from a marketing and professional point of view because when various social media platforms use the same format, it allows them to reuse their content across the apps instead of altering it to fit different standards.
We saw these changes come about through a recent announcement by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg who stated through the Instagram app that images are still the primary focus of the app. This has to do with the great backlash he is facing for Instagram as many feel they’re in the race to compete with TikTok instead of bettering photography, which some feel was its most valuable feature.
There is yet to be any update on what the app will do to answer so many people’s growing concerns.
Read next: Instagram To Launch ‘Gentle Nudge’ That Encourages Teens To See Different Topics On The Explore Page
The leading social media company revealed today that it has entered into its trial phase for testing out a new full-screen feed that’s super similar to that seen on TikTok.
The whole idea is for the app to improve the way images appear in its new format and this new step seems to be the direction that they’re willing to head in.
Instagram also recently mentioned how they’re going to be using this testing period to experiment with new changes to the navigation bar that’s located towards the app’s bottom. Users will also soon be able to find some interesting shortcuts in regards to posting creation and getting access to their text messages too.
In 2020, we saw the app make some controversial decisions when it chose to relocate its Compose option where it placed the button in the middle of the Reels’ navigation bar. Soon after that, we saw it being moved to a more interesting location on the top right-hand side of the app.
But we do feel this change may have been done to help engage users and allow them to venture into Reels, whether intentionally or unintentionally. But at the same time, that most likely came at a cost of making users less motivated to create conventional posts at a quicker speed.
Hence, now that we are hearing the app make plans to see the button back on the navigation bar means watching a fall in new content produced as so many users are going to switch up and make better use of time through post-creation on TikTok.
In terms of the new full-screen option for its feed, we heard the company announce its plans for a similar trial in May. But that certainly did not go down too well as it received plenty of complaints across the board from users, not to mention harsh negative criticism of the decision.
Not only would this new format hide captions as well as comments being made by users, but it would also end up making content visible via a ratio that comprises 9:16. And that means saying hello to the app’s traditional images in square form and the other horizontal picture format too.
For those images that previously failed to fit into the format’s new alignment for the feed, we saw the app introduce a blurred border so it could blend seamlessly without appearing obvious.
But the news again didn’t sit down well with users who started to launch complaints directly to the company’s CEO Adam Mosseri regarding this new update.
Meanwhile, another top issue that many had in the previous test was related to the presence of white spaces showing up in between the posts. And the overall vibes it gave were a really odd remix of the TikTok feed and a more card-style feed. Many also held the opinion that the new design was just adding too much clutter in one go.
Thankfully, the app has recently confirmed that it would be eliminating these odd white spaces whenever viewers saw videos in the 9:16 ratio.
Instagram has also announced some great news for its content creators as the update will now allow creators’ content to be recommended to even those that aren’t following them. This is also in line with TikTok which loves to throw in content that it thinks its users might like via its ‘For You’ page.
We do see how the new changes can be beneficial from a marketing and professional point of view because when various social media platforms use the same format, it allows them to reuse their content across the apps instead of altering it to fit different standards.
We saw these changes come about through a recent announcement by Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg who stated through the Instagram app that images are still the primary focus of the app. This has to do with the great backlash he is facing for Instagram as many feel they’re in the race to compete with TikTok instead of bettering photography, which some feel was its most valuable feature.
There is yet to be any update on what the app will do to answer so many people’s growing concerns.
Read next: Instagram To Launch ‘Gentle Nudge’ That Encourages Teens To See Different Topics On The Explore Page
