Dive Brief:
- Instagram has further refined its Explore tab with a new “Picked for you” feature that pulls algorithmically selected videos into collections, Digiday reports.
- In April, Instagram changed the Explore tab to include more video, including a section called “Videos you might like” based on videos users liked in the past.
- According to Instagram, video views on the social media platform increased 150% in the last six months.
Dive Insight:
Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, makes a large portion of its mobile ad revenue from video ads, so this move isn't a surprise. Although there was some outcry when Instagram moved from an organic chronological feed to an algorithm timeline, adding an algorithm-driven video recommendation feature shouldn’t bother users who have become accustomed to a feature that shows them videos based on what they’ve already engaged with.
From Instagram’s standpoint, the new feature helps automatically curate its users’ Explore tab. For marketers, it is likely that the new feature will allow for lookalike targeting for advertising as well as organic marketing video content.