Over time, engagement on Instagram has increasingly shifted to DMs, and Instagram is now trying to give DMs a boost with new features like “Notes” that work with more private sharing.
It is also experimenting with a bigger change in this regard, with some users now seeing a new messaging icon in the app's bottom feature bar.
As you can see in this example posted by Jasmine Enberg, some users have noticed that the messaging and post creation icons have been swapped in the main UI, with the “+” compose button moving to the top right and the messaging paper plane now highlighted in the center of the bottom features panel.
This is clearly a focus on DM sharing rather than feed posts, and could be another step in aligning with this change in usage, while also steering user behavior towards engaging with connections.
As mentioned above, it will happen anyway.
In 2022, in response to user concerns that they were no longer seeing updates from profiles they followed within the app, Instagram chief executive Adam Mosseri Point out that:
“My friends post more to their stories and send more DMs than they post to their feeds.”
Mosseri is This tendency has been emphasized many times since then..
During an announcement about the new messaging features earlier this year, Mosseri explained:
“When you think of Instagram, you probably think of a feed of square photos. But the way Instagram works has changed a lot over the last few years, and when you look at what people are sharing and how they're expressing their creativity, the primary way they do that is actually through Instagram Direct Messages (DMs). On any given day, more photos and videos are shared through Direct Messages than through Stories or Feeds.”
As a result, DMs are now the main channel for interaction between users, and the main feed is quickly becoming a stream of recommended entertainment, like TikTok.
So while this change may make sense in line with the shift, it's also a major shift in the focus of the app and could impact user behavior.
Perhaps IG could consider rolling out this format only to users who don’t post but share frequently in DMs, tailoring the app to users’ personal usage behavior.
In some ways, it's a risky move, but the Create icon is still easily accessible, so it doesn't mean Instagram is taking away any functionality.
But even so, the impact on behavior can be significant.
Perhaps that's what IG is trying to address with this initial test. We've reached out to Instagram for more details on the test and its plans for this update, and will update this post if we hear back.
