all the signs point to IG becoming a multimedia blog in my opinion. The layout itself changed a lot and with all the new features and tweaks coming up it sounds really plausible to me.
A lot of blogs have a Text section and a Media section that, most of the time, links to an Instagram profile.
The added slideshow feature for posts on IG let’s you now tell stories even better…
What will be updated next is probably the text section, speaking in form of titles, format and seperation etc.
Comment section got tidied up, you will be able to pin your top stories forever creating a gallery.
Don’t know If you noticed, a lot of big pages started to put their posts into this form:
Hello my friends,…
.
I loved it a lot!
.
This was an amazing expirience for me and my buddys,…
.
Thank you!"
.
Hashtag in the comments.
Also IG’s ‘See translation’ is not too shabby, and AI is getting smarter everyday so even slang could be perfectly translated.
I don’t know how the possibility to follow a hashtag might come into play, maybe categories or sidebar kind of thing?
Interesting thought process. I don’t disagree, but I would perhaps suggest that Instagram is changing the way blogs are presented, rather than that Instagram itself is becoming a blog.
I recently spoke to someone who said that his company was changing their marketing spending strategy, given that there’s greater ROI for them in using influencers on Instagram than in reaching out to blogs. And I think Gen Zs will likely have less patience for blogging and will be likelier to use IG or other social media to more concisely do what blogs have been doing for years.
So rather than seeing Instagram turn into a blogging platform, I think Instagram is replacing blogs.
I think we need to think about what a blog is in the first place. A blog is a place to storytell and provide entertainment/escapism for people that are either interested in you as a person or the things you do through pictures, text and if you choose to video.
You have all those possibilities on Facebook too, referencing to what @Smylie said. But Facebook is way more personal and not structured to be a story telling platform. It more of a marketplace and debating platform that is more serious than Instagram. There are a lot more serious debates on FB and people try to represent themselves in the best way possible.
People on IG don’t give a peep, it’s more playful, creative and open. Also the only news channel I know on IG is JerryNews at the moment and they function more as an eye catcher than as informational platform.
Back to what I stated in the beginning, IG is becoming a Blogging Platform by replacing Blogs, so what you’re saying is basically right too
The link in the bio will most likely function as a shop section for Influencers etc. which is also interesting since you can tag products in your posts.
It has all the functions of a blog in an optimized and more compact form, only thing that is missing is an option to format text in the caption so people will read long form captions!
Blogs (the good ones) provide a lot of information and greater detail than what IG is meant for. Yes, you can share a ridiculously long post in the caption, or worse, as a picture of text, but you cannot use IG to create a blog post with bullet points, examples, explanations and so on.
Depth of content - good blog is a college course by a PhD professor with tons of experience while IG is at best a Udemy course that someone slapped over the weekend.
You can use IG to drive traffic to your blogs and vice versa, but one is not a substitute for the other.
Fair point. But I look at Generation Zs and their general disinterest in messages longer than a tweet or IG story and just wonder if we’re moving away from some of that stuff mattering. In certain niches, yes, detail will always matter. But in others, I do think Instagram has the potential to overtake the blogging model. We shall see.
There will always be lazy people who don’t want to read / watch the full 100% and those who live to consume as much as they can from a particular topic. The ratios might be changing, that for sure, but good content will always be needed.
It also depends on your business model, of course. If you are an IG model, blogging ain’t gonna be as good as some ass pics and cleavage If you have a fitness training course, you might have to do a bit of both - IG to gather the audience, b(v)logging to show you are more than just muscle. If you teach guitar, knitting, IM, gardening or something “teachable” - blogging has no replacement.
I don’t disagree that blogging will always be helpful for more comprehensive needs. I just think that younger generations aren’t going to have interest in reading OR writing blogs. Vlogs, yes, I can definitely see. But I don’t see them flocking to blogs as readers or writers. And THAT is where I think Instagram will supplant blogging for them.
I think you need to see it from a different perspective. People are always on the go and therefore the mobile device will be more present than ever before in our lives.
People have always been lazy, it’s just a matter of interest! If you can get people to read your blog, you can get them to read long instagram captions as well.
If you teach guitar, knitting, gardening etc. Instagram is the replacement because A) You can post a short video of you doing the thing, imagine a slideshow here 1. You see the video of the person playing the guitar 2. You get the Chords on a picture.
This also gives the possibility to join groups with the “teacher” and he can send you daily tasks right into your DMs plus you get to chat with other people that have the same interest as you!
Haha fair point, but don’t go too hard on our younger generation! Vlogs are a big thing and will take over reality TV, Influencers do have more influence than TV already.
Everything has changed is changing everyday, only a matter of time.
Cool things are happening all around the world and AI is a big part of it
Oh, definitely not trying to be too hard on them! My sister is among them, but it’s definitely informed my perspective of how they look at things. She will always look for a video or an Instagram post before she goes to a blog, and I think she may get a decent amount of news from Snapchat. I KNOW she’s not an anomaly.
The only thing that IG will always be missing vs blogs is depth. Yes, you can consume content, yes the content is awesome and you can learn to play guitar… however, you cannot learn as much as to be convinced to go buy the product.
At the end of the day, it is all about the sale.
Unless you are Kylie Jenner and people line up to buy your stuff even before you sell it, you need to convince your viewers you know something they don’t and you are capable of closing that gap between your level and theirs. And that cannot happen in 2 minute videos or 4 paragraph captions.
At the end of the day though, let’s be honest - if you want to be successful, you have to be EVERYWHERE. You need Ig, you need a blog, you need videos, a podcast and the whole package. Most of the people who are super successful on one platform are those who started super early. If you are entering the market now, you cannot afford not to do it all.
The newer generations do not have the patience to read longer blog posts, therefore there will be less need for that.
Soon we will move to hyerogliphic writing.
(I am an avid reader myself and I feel like I could ramble forever, but IG stops me from doing that.)
Yes, Instagram is missing depth, fair point! But do you think there will never be a way to add depth to Instagram?
As you know, Bloggers are optimizing their webpage for mobile devices too because they see the shift from PC to mobile.
Regarding the Kylie Jenner point: Not everyone wants to create product, some just want to close deals with companies! To sell your product that you created is always going to be way harder than to advertise for different companies!
I think it might depend on the niche. I write a story on each post and almost always max out the character count. My core audience is pretty young and I have good engagement. From the comments, it’s clear that people are reading it
Hmm. I realize this post is an opinion, but I don’t think that IG could ever replace a blog.
IG is a business first and foremost, and anytime they see fit to shut down your page, you are out of luck. I have seen HUGE accounts use IG as a blogging platform (they were celeb news type pages), where they made all their money by getting the ppl from Fashionnova and Fit tea, etc. to advertise on their pages, then when IG felt they violated their terms of service, they shut down their page, hence their money flow. The sad part is that they put LITTLE into their actual blog (design, structure, content, etc., but put a lot into their IG captions, photos, page, etc.). The better idea would have been for them to link back to their blog articles with teasers, and of course, have a store link on their blog to their e-commerce store, or have a Woo Commerce store on their blog.
I would NEVER give any of these social media platforms that much control beyond trying to use them for their traffic or whatever ‘little’ audience they would allow me to reach. They’re too fickle and too much of a monopoly. Why would I want to make them richer? Anyway, just my opinion. I use 'em for what I need 'em for like they use us (me) for what they need us (me) for. Running and maintaining blogs is a pain, I am actually up now looking for a better VPS to host my blog, but I know in the long run I have to keep my own blog and make sure it looks up to par. Ahh, well, to each their own. Just my two cents… BTW, I am an IG rebel right now … at TOTAL war with them (I will prolly lose…lol, but nonetheless, I will fight).
I agree with @MojoJojo Insta isn’t a blog where u can learn something that isn’t cooking shitty or make a ugly an useless diy
And i agree with @CosmeticSnob but i can say that the newer generations have the passions to follow every moment of the day on IG or watch a long video on youtube of their favorite influencer so the problem is only the form !
If you have a fitness training course, you might have to do a bit of both - IG to gather the audience, b(v)logging to show you are more than just muscle. If you teach guitar, knitting, IM, gardening or something “teachable” - blogging has no replacement.
