Instagram encouraging users to “Try a New Account”

A hidden menu is encouraging users to “Try a New Account” on Instagram. It appears that Instagram is actively encouraging at least some users to begin segmenting their time on Insta by accounts. What does this say about the future of the platform?

A Hidden Message

We noticed it in the iOS app: If you go to your profile, your account name at the top of the screen now has a dropdown menu icon. This is meant to encourage switching between accounts. But if you aren’t already logged into multiple accounts, then when you tap that area, and you’ll see a message like this appear:

Keep Up With a Smaller Group of Friends. Create another account to stay in touch with a group of your friends.

Swipe to the next slide, and you’ll see a similar prompt:

Dive Into What You Love. Create another account to explore your interests.

Why it matters

We have said it many times, but we’ll say it again: Users increasingly prefer to interact in “gated,” smaller group settings on social. This is yet another sign that the Facebook universe (FB, IG, WhatsApp) is making efforts to facilitate the desire to segment social media experiences. (You could think of it as Instagram essentially doubling down on the Close Friends feature, too.)

A more cynical take could be that Instagram is encouraging people to setup multiple accounts in order to inflate their user numbers… After all, TikTok was just projected to top 1.2 billion users in 2021.

Yet another take is that this is a reminder to the community that Instagram’s built-in account switching feature lets social media marketers quickly switch between branded and personal accounts. If nothing else, here’s a reminder to those of you who fall into this category. 😊


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