Instagram Announces Algorithm Update To Boost Small, Original Content Creators

Instagram, the popular social media platform, has recently announced major changes on how its system recommends content. The Meta-owned platform is updating its recommendation algorithms as part of highlighting content from smaller, original creators. The company said that the changes aim to give all creators a more equal chance of breaking through to new audiences.

In a blog post, Meta announced that a new input to ranking will give smaller creators more distribution on Instagram. Previously, accounts with the largest followings often saw the most reach on the platform. Instagram is currently working on a new way to rank recommendations that will show eligible content to a small audience that it thinks will enjoy it. As this audience engages with the content, the top performing set of reels is shown to a slightly wider audience, and then the best of these content are shown to an even wider group. Meta is all set to roll out these changes over the coming months.

Meanwhile, if the platform finds two or more identical pieces of content, only the original one will be recommended. This means that the original content will directly replace the reposted content in recommendations. "This replacement only applies in places where we recommend content, such as explore, reels, and in-feed recommendations. When content is replaced, we will notify the original creator," Meta added in the blog post. 

Additionally, Instagram will also add labels to reposted content that will link users to the original creator. This label will remain visible to followers of the account reposting it. In the coming months, Instagram will also discourage content aggregators by making them ineligible for recommendations across the platform. Instagram accounts that post content repeatedly from other users that they didn't create or enhance will not be shown on surfaces where the platform recommends content. Affected accounts can again become eligible for recommendations after 30 days. "This will not impact a set of publishers we’ve identified who have licensing agreements and/or explicit permissions from content creators," added Meta.