Instagram Rolls Out Full-screen Home Feed With More Suggested Reels

Announced this week, Instagram is trialling a full-screen home feed prioritising suggested video content. 

I’m not sure if you’ve seen your feed transform but I’ve seen the changes to Instagram that they’re trialling and…I hate it. 

Very similar to TikTok’s format, posts in the main feed will now take up all of the screens (pushing captions to a swipe up overlay). They are also introducing more suggested content into users' main feeds, in particular increasing Instagram reels.

This is my absolute favourite comment on the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri’s announcement of the tall video/photo trial:

“Is Mark forcing you to make these changes bro? Blink twice if you’re in danger” @thebkh

I feel like all of us are in danger. Which yes, might be a little dramatic, but it’s how I feel. As a business owner, it is clear to me what direction they’re heading in, but I can absolutely be a little reluctant in wanting to make those changes as I personally love photos and what I can do with messaging on static images. 

Yes, you can still post static images and these will be available to see regularly on the following and favourites lists, but the home feed will be mostly videos. This shift in prioritising video content reflects the research that Later did by analysing “over 81M Instagram feed posts (excluding Reels) from 2020 to 2022” with “the average engagement rate for images has decreased by 38% — from 3.57% to 2.23%.” However, they gave a glimmer of hope stating that “accounts that have embraced Reels since their launch … have seen an increase in reach and engagement overall.”

Despite my initial hesitation to the announcement, we all know that Instagram constantly changes and we need to adapt to thrive so here are a couple of initial thoughts on content moving forwards:

1. Captions are probably better placed on the video rather than below as these are now shielded and involve a swipe to read past the first line. 
2. Creators and businesses are going to have to be more creative in how they post content that is now video-first and use different apps/programmes to help. 
3. Carousels are still available but it is yet to be seen how much engagement these will now get. 
4. Review the current engagement on your account and see what is pulling in the most - this will likely be reels as they’re being prioritised. 
5. Take a look at your most popular photo content and see how you could create this type of content in video format. 

In the past, I might’ve worried that I don’t have time to create a tonne of video content and that it will mess with my feed’s aesthetic, but because Mosseri has been hinting at this for some time, we’ve looked into ways to make things more streamlined and tools that we can use to create great video content from existing pieces. 

If you’d like to speak to us to find out about how we can help you integrate video into your social media strategy, click below to book your free strategy call to find out how we can support you and your business. Francesca@s