Instagram is one of my favourite social media platforms and there are some features i’d like to see being developed for the platform, which I think will improve the experience
1. Photo Groups
Instagram right now is a mess. It is quite hard, for example to view epic photos shared on the site unless you click on widely used hashtags and search manually.
The company should come up with a way of aggregating photos and videos of the same nature in groups, and these groups should be readily accessible with just a few clicks in the app. This will have 2 effects: One, you’ll be able to identify users that upload amazing content and easily follow them and two it will bond together content creators which will in turn improve the quality of uploads.
These groups can be generated automatically before posting so that the content creator can tag the post to the correct group
2. Video channels
As you know, you can upload short videos on Instagram. However, the situation is the same for photos, it is hard to identify content creators of your choice, unless you Google the famous ones, which can be tedious. The company can emulate what Vine has done, grouping videos under categories like Humour, Style, News, Food, Tech etc.
3. Livestream
Instagram has the opportunity to compete with Meerkat and Periscope in the recent livestream fad, complete with filters! This will be used by brands in live-streaming product launches, by news companies in reporting events and of course by general users in livestreaming events in their lives.
4. Embedded analytics on posts
Twitter recently added an analytics button on posts which shows the number of users engaged and the impressions generated from the tweet. Such a feature if embedded on Instagram will help brands target influential users to market their products due to their high engagement and impressions numbers
5. Instagram shops
Instagram can decide to open a new platform where one can easily buy goods they see within the site. The platform has over 300 million active users and due to the visual nature of the site, this can be a revenue stream for the company. I find this important because Pinterest, another visual centric app, announced buyable pins, which could score big with retailers. Instagram, I believe, is one app that can challenge Pinterest in this in-app commerce fad.
