A new article on Social Media Today reports that Jane Manchun Wong has discovered Instagram is testing a process designed to categorize your following list for the purpose of enabling you to better manage what content appears in your feed. The process works by assessing your engagement with each follower on the one hand, and topics on the other.


”Insta-Following-Categories”


The screenshot above shows how the option would automatically sort your following list into topics. This process would be based on the information provided within Instagram business pages. However, the way you interacted with other users would also influence the structure of your new list, with the system employing factors like 'Least interacted with' or 'Most shown in feed’ – based on your activity.

This is interesting because by providing you with a 'Least interacted with' section, Insta would be going a long way toward recommending profiles to unfollow. The main benefit for the platform’s algorithm, if you went ahead and unfollowed based on the data, would be a better understanding of what you enjoy and don’t enjoy. This is a departure from what social media platforms usually do. It’s about encouraging quality, rather than just getting you to follow as many accounts as possible.

Instagram isn’t the first platform to do this, however. Twitter tried out a very similar feature last year. It seems that social media sites are acting to please users who have become more savvy and choosy about what they see when they open an app. While everyone was encouraged to rush and add everyone on Facebook when it first emerged, that led to cluttered feeds and lots and lots of noise. By the time Instagram arrived, people were more careful about curating personal content.

I’d be interested to hear what Warrior Forum members think about this. It’s got to follow that more seasoned, selective users mean your content needs to have more quality, right? Will that ultimately lead to a better advertising environment for marketers and companies – with less irrelevant clutter? Will it give you an improved chance of having your content read and increase the odds you’ll strike a chord with the users who are interested in your service or product?

For now, this is just a test, and we don’t know if it will end up rolling out. However, being that it’s a move based on a change in user behavior, is it both a positive prospect and one that might just happen?