After a wait of over five years, Instagram finally brought back a chronological feed option. Photographers and other Instagram users have been clamoring for this since it was first removed.
While I applaud Instagram for listening to its users (it only took five years), there are still a few things that we’d love to see be brought to the platform.
Last year, Instagram said that it was no longer a photo sharing platform. It has since walked back from that statement a bit, saying that it values photography in addition to the heavy emphasis it’s placing on video. In order for Instagram to truly embrace its photography audience, we recommend the following.
Community and genre-based groups
Hashtags are great, but they can certainly become overwhelming. Let users put their photos and videos into groups. Wouldn’t it be great to create mini-communities on Instagram, where you can show off your work with users in your area, or users with the same interests?
Groups were big back when Flickr was the top photo sharing site, and there was a reason for that. Community. If Instagram added this, it would drive up engagement, increase community and probably make Instagram a bit more enjoyable to use.
Inclusion of posts in Highlights, or the ability to create albums
Highlights let you put your Instagram stories into subsections that are visible on your profile. And while these are great, they’re somewhat limited in how they can be used. Mainly, they can only be used with stories.
This means that you have to add your images as stories in order to put them in a Highlight. We’d love to see Instagram allow users to add regular posts into Highlights, as it’s a great way for photographers (and videographers, mind you) to categorize their work and create a mini-portfolio.
Selling of prints
Instagram’s shop platform has evolved quite quickly, but right now there’s no easy way to include prints. It’d be great if Instagram could team up with a company like Fine Art America and offer this ability. Let photographers sell prints, but also things like pillows, coffee mugs and more, without having to go to a third-party site.
An iPad app
Photo editing is becoming easier and easier on iPads, with Photoshop, Lightroom, Affinity Photo and (soon) Capture One available. It’s a pain to have to post to social media from an iPad tablet, however.
Instead of relying on third-party tools, make it easy for photographers. Create an iPad app.
Instagram has said that they have no plans to do so because of a lack of demand. But Instagram’s own CEO contradicted himself on Twitter, responding, “Yup, we get this one a lot. It’s still just not a big enough group of people to be a priority.”
According to an article on The Verge, Apple shipped out 17.5 million iPads globally in 2021, and iPads make up 34 percent of the worldwide tablet market. The demand is more than there, and it certainly would not be hard to take the current iPhone app and adapt it for a larger screen.
More crop aspect ratios
When Instagram first started, you had one option for an aspect ratio of your image — square. It’s come a long way since then, offering a couple different horizontal and vertical crops for your images. But it’s still missing some key ones, like a 2×3 aspect ratio.
It’d be great to see Instagram adopt more standard aspect ratios, which can completely turn your image into something new if you let it!
Ability to feature certain photos
When you view an Instagram user’s profile, you see a chronological feed. This is great, but it’d also be great to see a way to feature certain photos. This can work in a number of ways.
The top row of photos can be “sticky” photos that the user chooses to feature. Or, this could be automated, highlighting the user’s top engaged photos. Alternatively, a slideshow could appear with the user’s hand-picked top five photos.
In essence, this lets profiles become more personable and customizable.
Better support
We’ve spoken with multiple photographers who are starting to give up on the Instagram platform. Their accounts have either been banished for no reason, their live feeds have been shut down due to “suspicious content” and more.
Instagram needs to offer a way for users to contact a support member (as does its parent company, Facebook). It’s frustrating to not have solutions to problems like this, let alone for them to happen in the first place!
