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Instagram becomes more interest-oriented with the hashtag following
STATES CHRONICLE – Instagram is an app which shows you the photographic content shared by the friends, artists, and celebrities you choose to follow. The platform hasn’t been much about interests, but this is going to change soon. It will roll out an update which will allow you to follow various hashtags. This way, you’ll see posts related a certain topic.
You will soon be able to follow hashtags on Instagram
Whenever you wanted to find posts related to a certain topic on Instagram, you had to go to the Explore tab, and search for the hashtags you were interested in. Now, the new update will automatically show you posts related to a hashtag you like, once you follow it.
However, this change cannot be implemented immediately. First of all, Instagram needs to make sure that harmful or spam content ends up delivered to the users through this hashtag following mechanism. Once this is fixed, users will get the chance to explore their interests more, and go beyond the posts of their social community.
This technique might also offer Instagram some valuable information on custom ads. Instead of bothering users, they could look what they’re interested in judging from the hashtags they’re following, and then show them personalized ads. However, the platform said this wasn’t their purpose.
Instagram will prevent spamming by downgrading the posts of low quality
The testing of this hashtag following system started last month, but the update will start rolling out today. If you tap the pages associated with hashtags, you will get a Follow button as you enter them. Then, you will be displayed the best posts related to your interests, judging from their quality and from when they were posted.
Once something you don’t want to see will pop up in your news feed, you’ll be able to downvote it by selecting the menu in the right corner. This way, Instagram will be able to tell when this technique is used for spamming, and will prevent these posts from appearing in the news feed.
Image Source: Pixabay
