14 DAY TRIAL // 2022 was a rather controversial year for Instagram as far as the content served to users was concerned. The company took some rather strange decisions, at one point turning the platform into a TikTok-inspired clone that everybody hated.
This approach was eventually reverted, but on the other hand, Instagram’s focus on video continued to spearhead the company’s strategy.
Despite the obvious demand for a photo-focused platform, that is, as most people who joined Instagram were specifically looking for images, not videos.
Now in a story posted on Instagram, even CEO Adam Mosseri admits that users were served too many videos. Some photographers have been upset about the new approach used by Instagram, Mosseri says, explaining that while videos are now playing a key role on the platform, the big goal is to actually create a balance that would retain the focus on photos.
“I think we were overfocused on video in 2022 and pushed ranking too far and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos. We’ve since balanced, so things like how often someone likes photos versus videos and how often someone comments on photos versus videos are roughly equal, which is a good sign that things are balanced. And so, to the degree that there is more video on Instagram over time, it’s going to be because that’s what’s driving overall engagement more,” Mosseri said in the story, as per The Verge.
The CEO also discussed the issue of spam that seems to be plaguing the platform these days. Mosseri explained that spam and bots are indeed a big problem for Instagram, with the comments, in particular, causing quite a lot of problems right now.
However, the company is already working on this, though it remains to be seen if its efforts would eventually manage to deal with spam or not.