The photographic network of the Meta group that is absolutely trying to renew itself and retain its users after a somewhat complicated year. After copying Snapchat with its stories and Tiktok with its Reels, the application has unveiled the imminent launch of its Candid Stories, a concept very similar to that of the French application BeReal.
I already told you about it here, the concept of Bereal is to send one notification per day. Users have 2 minutes to take a picture of what they are doing. Photo taken both in the normal way and in a selfie. Then it is published and remains on the app until the next notification the following day. A very simple concept but one that appeals to young people all over the world. The app has been downloaded more than 73 million times worldwide since its inception two years ago.
Insta Candid Stories will follow the same principle. A notification, a limited time, a photo taken by the front and rear cameras. You will be able to publish your photos both in a story dedicated specifically to this format, and in a regular story, as you do today.
Another novelty. Insta will roll out a Notes feature where you can place a written status on your profile, like in the heyday of Facebook. This time in which everyone has told the life of him in somewhat ridiculous statutes. With that, they add a feature that is admittedly old but still innovative because you don’t see it anywhere anymore. The text has given way to the image. Today to get a message across on Insta, you have to post it as a story, so we can communicate more easily if we want to resell concert tickets, for example.
Insta is therefore betting a lot on its new features because it hasn’t been joy on their side for some time. We remember this summer, when the application changed its algorithm to copy that of Tiktok and offer video content of strangers to its users. A huge belly. The platform’s most influential content creators, such as Kylie Jenner, took issue with the app by criticizing the change. Obviously it was not beneficial for them because they lost visibility, and therefore money because their sponsored content was no longer liked.
Insta has since backed off, but is still trying to catch up. His boss had also said that for that the transition from photo to video was mandatory. With its new features, Instagram shows its relentless desire to rejuvenate itself. Because after being widely criticized for its lack of authenticity, excessive filtering and sponsored influencers, Insta is looking to take the opposite position and go back to basics.
The big question now is: will it work? Answer: it is very likely. I remind you that Insta has 2 billion users worldwide and, despite the criticisms, it remains one of the most downloaded and used social networks. Also, whenever the app wanted to launch new concepts, even if we’ve seen them before elsewhere, it always worked. Check out the stories, they started off with influencers on Snapchat, and now they’ve invaded everyone’s life on Instagram. The same for the reels. We can tell ourselves that we are not on Instagram to see vertical videos on our feed, but we watch them anyway and the result: they get millions of views.
But if the platform’s active users are quickly won over, Insta’s main goal is to bring GenZ back to the application they abandoned for Tiktok and Bereal. Two applications that represent the anti-instagram a bit. GenZ wants something real, something unfiltered, to be able to show a piece of skin without being censored, or not see their parents commenting on their post… And these are not things that Instagram offers at the moment. We don’t yet know the official launch date for these Candid Stories and Notes, but it shouldn’t be long… and we should get addicted to them soon.
