I love Instagram; I tend to spend a chunk of my day on it, cat videos and all.

I also like to support local creatives, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen those smaller accounts I follow posting on how their engagement has tanked on the platform. Anyone who has a small business profile will know that it’s really hard to get a good following without spending days on content, encouraging users to engage and comment, and then still having to throw a bunch of money at ads.

But it seems like Instagram is finally listening, with their announcement from the end of April showing they are willing to make a change in their algorithm… so will the proposed updates make a difference?

The algorithm update consists of:

• A new input to ranking that will give smaller creators more distribution.
• Replacing reposts with original content in recommendations.
• Adding labels to reposted content, lining to the original creator.
• Removing content aggregators from recommendations.

Although the majority is more for reducing the number of reposted content, at least this new approach means that Instagram are going to “give all creators a more equal chance of breaking through to new audiences.”

Previously Instagram tended to rank content depending on how large an accounts’ following was, which made it harder for smaller accounts to get eyes on their content. Now it seems that they will be moving to a step system based on engagement, if initial engagement with the content from a set audience with the content is good, it will move up a step to a slightly wider audience and so on. In the update, there is a lot of mention of “content”, but whether this applies to all formats or just reels is a little unclear at this point, as we know Instagram loves pushing on reels.

For dealing with reposted content, Instagram is moving to show more original content in recommendations, and if reposted content is still shown, it will have a label to link it to the original creator to give viewers a chance to engage with the original. And if accounts repeatedly continue to post unoriginal content, namely aggregator accounts, they will be penalised and not be featured in areas where Instagram recommends content. However, these accounts will be reviewed and allowed into recommendations again after 30 days.

This update will only be rolling out in a few months, but it’ll be intriguing to see if small businesses, and their audience, start seeing any improvements. Engagement will be key, so get liking, commenting and sharing those local creators! And as for the cat videos, hopefully I’ll still be able to get my fix, but at least it’ll hopefully be from the original posters and not some random account trying to sell me cheap shirts with my cat’s face on.

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