As you’ve probably heard (and might be freaking out about), Instagram is changing the way content is displayed within its feed. This means that instead of content being displayed chronologically, so when you log in you’re able to scroll through the content from newest to older, Instagram will be applying an algorithm that “ranks” content to show you what you’re most likely to engage with, regardless of its post time.

This change seems to have really shaken up the influencer world with a storm of frantic “turn on post notifications to never miss a post” images popping up on Instagram over the past few days, but before you go signing yourself up for post notifications (those are bound to get annoying!), let’s grab a coffee and chat a bit about what’s really happening with Instagram and the impact it may have.

Way back in 2012, Facebook acquired lnstagram for $1B – the app was only 18 months old at the time and was much simpler than it is now: a place to take photos, add a filter and share to a chronological feed. Back then there were no ads, we all followed a handful of people and posted whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted without the use of 10 photo editing apps or only posting at strategic times during the day in hopes of garnering the highest engagement from our followers. It was mostly an app where it was easy to add filters to your photos but over the years it has evolved into one of (if not the most) important platform for influencers.

With Facebook spending a big chunk of change to acquire Instagram and the explosive growth of the platform, they’ve been working to monetize Instagram through ads – you’ve probably seen these pop up in your feed, some are good, some are not so good, but they offer brands the opportunity to get their content in front of a larger audience than their own followers and offer Instagram the opportunity to make some cash from the totally free to use app. It makes total sense.

Several years ago Facebook itself made a big change to how content is displayed within the newsfeed – as Facebook had grown and evolved, it became more than just a destination to keep up with friends and family, it became a complete content hub for your life and interests. From news sites to brand pages, we began “liking” and “friending” all over the place which meant that on any given day, there were hundreds of pieces of content being produced and presented to us, which meant it became impossible to keep up with. Enter Facebook Edge Rank, their algorithm that began weighting content based off of your behavior on the platform – things you frequently engaged with were more likely to appear higher in your feed, content you just scrolled right past was less likely to be resurfaced. This ended up being a fundamental change for brands on Facebook, with a shift to paid advertising becoming necessary in order to have content seen at scale. As everyday users we bitched and complained, marketers had about a gazillion meetings to develop a new strategy for Facebook  – the launch of the Facebook Newsfeed Algorithm was a very real reminder that social media is not an owned channel. You’re simply hanging out in someone else’s space and guess what? They can do whatever they want because they’re the owners.

But back to Instagram… should we be freaking out about the introduction of an algorithm to Instagram’s Newsfeed? Maybe, but most likely not. Instagram reports that because of the current chronological feed, users miss about 70% of content produced by people that they follow. Pretty crazy! With the new algorithm content will have a chance to be seen regardless of the time of day it was posted (good news for anyone who travels internationally!). Engaging content will be what ranks highly within the algorithm – posts that generate high engagement will be more likely to be shown. And you know who is known for creating amazing, engaging content? Influencers! So instead of driving your followers to subscribe to your posts (which by the way, means that they’ll receive a push notification every time you post… if they do this for everyone they follow, it means their phone will be getting a gazillion notifications every day… which means they’ll eventually begin ignoring them or being driven crazy by them and turning them off), continue to focus on creating and sharing high quality content that resonates with your followers.

Be strategic – analyze past Instagram content performance to get a feel for what’s working for you, from photo themes to hashtag usage. Test new things and learn from the results. Diversify the platforms you use to connect with your audience. Experiment with Snapchat. Give your blog a little more love (it’s the one channel that’s actually yours!). At the end of the day high quality content will always be king, so keep on keepin’ on and don’t let a little algorithm get you down.

Worry about your content and not your notifications and I promise you it’ll all be okay.