The news that photos were dying on Instagram was clearly exaggerated. Or at least, that’s what Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said. In fact, during a Q&A session on his Stories, he stated his intention to return to prioritizing photos on the platform.
2022, the year of Instagram video
Some people might be asking themselves: “But wait, wasn’t Instagram still a place where we could post our photos?” Of course it was! It was allowed (and even encouraged) to post photos on Instagram. However, the “problem” lay in the reach they garnered compared to other formats. Namely, video, which was prioritized by Instagram’s algorithm.
In other words, when we scrolled through our feed, we often came across those videos of dogs, cats, stunts, or podcast clips that we watched on loop. However, there was content that remained in the background. It simply didn’t appear unless we scrolled far enough down the feed. And that content, sometimes lost in a sort of Instagram black hole, was photos (even if they were of cute dogs or cats).
Complaints were mounting. Not so much from users scrolling through feeds, but from content creators who saw their engagement drop dramatically. These complaints did not fall on deaf ears. Indeed, during a Q&A session in his Instagram Stories, Adam Mosseri addressed them. After all, he admitted that the platform’s focus had been skewed too heavily toward video in 2022 and that this was something to change for 2023.
2023, the year of Instagram photos?
However, the Instagram CEO’s statements do not mean that the focus is now entirely on photos. In fact, Adam Mosseri said that it is normal for the engagement generated by videos to be higher than that generated by photos. In other words, anyone who might be celebrating the eventual triumph of photos over Instagram can put away the firecrackers. However, there are reasons to be pleased. After all, photos will be given similar prominence to videos, or at least they will appear more frequently than they did in 2022.
Most of these complaints came from photographers, who were beginning to lose hope in the platform as a space for promotion. And they were, in fact, right. After all, as we saw in one of our blog posts, Instagram took an aggressive approach to TikTok and began prioritizing videos. In fact, at one point it even compiled all the videos on the platform into Reels, which demonstrated a clear commitment to this format.
But things seem to be changing. And there’s nothing like reading the full transcript of everything Mosseri said during the Q&A session.
What did Instagram’s CEO say?
We listened to it again and are sharing the transcript here:
We definitely have a lot of upset photographers, and I should be clear: although we’re leaning toward video, we still value photos on Instagram. Photos will always be a part of Instagram.
I think in 2022 we were overly focused on video, pushed the ranking too much, and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos. Since then, we’ve been balancing things out, so metrics like how often people like photos versus videos and how often they comment on photos versus videos are roughly the same, which is a positive sign that things are balanced. Still, given that there’s been more video content recently, it’s normal for this to lead to greater engagement [with this type of content].
But photos will always be an important part of what we do. And there will always be people who love and are interested in finding photos on Instagram or elsewhere. I want to make sure we’re very clear about that.
In short, video will continue to take center stage. However, we’ll be able to post photos on Instagram without being penalized as much by the algorithm. That sounds good to us! And it might even signal the “de-TikTokization” of Instagram.
