Unassisted Writing #4 - Your New Grid on Instagram

With the rise of AI, chatbots and predictive text on smartphones, I want to get back to writing, without assistance from any of those tools. My weekly LinkedIn article talks about marketing, the world of work and anything else that I think may be relevant to this platform.

A Rectangular Grid is Coming to Instagram; Design Accordingly

There have been reports that Instagram was going to begin testing rectangular feeds and the boss of Instagram has since confirmed it. I’m already seeing it on business profiles I follow and manage.

Another example of the tiktokification of social media. Instagram grids will soon all be Reel shaped.

This is going to tick off a lot of people who are obsessed with their feed aesthetic, but as the head of Instagram mentions in the story linked above, an overwhelming percentage of content shared on social media in 2024 is in the vertical format. The smartphone has changed the way we create and consume content. The old all-square feed of 2014 is a thing of the past.

For social media marketers, it’s probably a good idea to start shifting to vertical design templates. Canva defaults to the square, 1080 x 1080 style, so for now, we will have to make the change manually. Aim for something in the 1250px-1300px height range.

More Questioning of AI Hype

Earlier this summer, I wrote about how Goldman Sachs released a report in which it argues that the ROI on AI is nowhere near the hype.?

I’m starting to see more and more of this kind of talk emerge online. This week, a new video appeared in my YouTube recommendations:

(It seems that video embeds are blocked by this channel)

In this video, an AI aficionado, who has spent decades in the field, argues that we are a long way off from seeing human intelligence in machines.

I’ve already written about my thoughts on this emerging debate here and here, so I won’t rehash it again in great detail.?

In short, my sense is that for marketers and many others in the knowledge economy, AI will take on increased importance in an incremental fashion. AI boosted tools will be added slowly to our day-to-day workflow, but won’t have the capacity to replace us.?

Time will tell.

Carousels Are Hot Right Now

I’m liking how carousels are performing on social media right now.? On LinkedIn or on Instagram, click-through and view metrics are usually solid.?

Another benefit of using carousels: They’re an easy way to repackage existing content and information to round out your monthly content calendar.?

I also think that there is also something about having to swipe to reveal hidden information that is irresistible to people, which of course, contributes to better metrics.

Instagram just increased their carousel limit to 20 slides, which tells me that they have data indicating an uptick in swiping and believe that there is more room for growth there.?

Last week's article: Memes, Emojis and Fake AI Hype