News and updates from social, culture and tech.

Guess what's back?!? The Instagram Chronological Feed
There are now three options for viewing your Instagram feed: the main, algorithmic Home feed; the chronological feed (Following); and the new Favorites feed, which consists of accounts you choose. With the change, IG's Home feed will now function more like Tiktok. Users will now be introduced to new, recommended content from accounts they don't follow while still maintaining the ability to view only content from the creators they follow/love.This change is especially exciting for brands/marketers because it means the opportunity for organic reach is back on Instagram. Brands can now reach current followers more consistently (without the algorithm interfering) AND they have the ability to reach new audiences with high-quality, on-trend content (without relying on paid tactics).However, organic reach is not a given and "high-quality" are the key words to remember. To take advantage of this new organic reach, brands should continue to integrate Reels, audio and trending content into their IG strategy.

Instagram Will Allow All Users to Tag Products in Posts
As social commerce continues to be an area of focus for social platforms, Instagram is allowing all users to tag products in in-feed posts. The new feature creates the biggest opportunity for retail brands. Moving forward, consider how product tagging could be applied for future campaigns, product launches and (especially) influencer activations.

Welcome TikTok Stories (pilot) 👋
Stories will allow users to post "quick" daily content that will live for 24 hours. The update is designed to mimic the success of IG Stories and intended to increase user time on the platform. If you haven't figured out your brand shows up on Tiktok, now is the time to do so!

Instagram launches updated creator tags to provide more credit for content contributors
In an effort to help ensure Black and underrepresented creators receive credit for their work Instagram has started rolling out "enhanced tags". Now when tagging a creator in a post it will display their "profile category" as well as their name, stylist, photographer etc.

Instagram is testing new Stories Likes
To provide more insights to creators on story engagement, Instagram introduced Stories Likes which allow users to "like" any story without having to start a conversation with the creator. The "like" button will appear as a heart, similar to in-feed, at the bottom of Stories next to the messaging feature.

Whether we like it or not, social platforms are making space for NFT Integrations
"Teams at Facebook and Instagram are readying a feature that will allow users to display their NFTs on their social media profiles, as well as working on a prototype to help users create — or mint — the collectible tokens, according to several people familiar with the matter. Two of the people said that Meta has also discussed launching a marketplace for users to buy and sell NFTs."

TikTok Introduced Instant Page Experiences
The native lightweight landing page is designed to streamline the customer journey; viewers can engage with all page elements without leaving the app. The lightweight native landing pages load up to 11 times quicker than standard mobile pages.

Introducing Fan Subscriptions on Instagram
With Youtube & TikTok offering more opportunities for creators, Instagram has launched a test of Fan Subscriptions for creators to tap into to continue building relationships with and gaining the trust of their audience. The feature allows creators to host subscriber only live events, post subscriber specific stories, and showcases a bag for subscribers that creators will be able to. This allows creators to learn more about who their audience is.