You may have a lot of feelings about the chronological versus ranked feed on Instagram.

You may feel that when the main feed began to be ranked in 2016, your content got lost in the mix and you have less control. It seemed like it was up to the “Instagram gods” to help your church content get more exposure. 

If you feel angry or frustrated by the Instagram algorithms you’ll be encouraged by this post and see how you can use Instagram to your church’s advantage to reach more people.

Keep reading. 

Table of Contents

1. Chronological Instagram Feed: What Are Following and Favorites 
2. Chronological Instagram Feed: Will Your Church Reach More or Less People 
3. Chronological Instagram Feed: How to Adjust Your Church’s Social Media Strategy
4. Chronological Instagram Feed: 3 Types of Content Your Church Must Create

Chronological Instagram Feed: What Are Following and Favorites 

Here’s the low down according to the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri. 

You will have 3 feed options: 

Main Feed: The main feed (formerly known as the home feed) will continue to be ranked and be the “default” feed every time you open Instagram. 

Following: Posts from accounts you follow in the order they were posted.

Favorites: Posts from accounts you choose in starting with the most recent posts. You can have up to 50 accounts on your list.

Your Favorites will show up higher in your Main Feed but the Main Feed will continue to be ranked to help you discover new things and content that you didn’t even know existed but you might enjoy.

When you tap the Instagram logo in the top left corner, you'll be able to toggle between the different feeds. If you don't have it yet, sit tight, it's coming.

Chronological Instagram Feed: Will Your Church Reach More or Less People 

You might be wondering, will our church account reach more or less people with the introduction of the chronological feed? 

You will reach more people, when you create valuable content and use this new feature to your advantage. 

If you are partial to the chronological feed because it feels like getting “control” back from Instagram, consider this with Instagram’s ranking + recommendations “the average account reaches 50% more followers than with the chronological feed.” (Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram). 

In other words, your church account will potentially reach more followers through Instagrams recommendation & ranking algorithms.

Your church account being recommended to others depends on how much engagement your account receives. Which means, creating content that the people that follow you LOVE is the key to reaching more people. 

This is true regardless of the new chronological feed options.

Plus, the default feed will be the Main Feed every time a person logs into Instagram, meaning you have to tap to see the Following and Favorites feed. Some people may not take the time to do that and continue using the Main Feed because people gravitate towards what is less effort.

Chronological Instagram Feed: How to Adjust Your Church’s Social Media Strategy

What does this mean for your church social media strategy? Two things.

#1 Ask Your Followers to Put Your Church on Their Favorites List 

You have the opportunity to be placed on your church communities favorites list. 

WOW. What an honor that would be! 

If your content is important to them and continually valuable, your community will add you to their favorites and when they check in on their Favorites List or their Main Feed they will be more likely to see your church's content. 

Make sure to post content that is worthy of them coming back to over and over again!

Just like adding a Call To Action to Save or Share a post, ask your community to add your church to their favorites list. Make sure to add value before asking and don’t overdo it of course but you MUST ask. People won’t take action, unless you ask and give them a reason to add you.

One word of caution, people may mute/unfollow you if they have this option turned on and you waste their time with bad or irrelevant content because they will be seeing your posts more.

#2 Post When Your Followers Are Most Active 

Your followers Following Feed is in chronological order from the time posted, which means you’ll want to post when they are the most active.

Be diligent in testing what time is best for your audience based on your insights and stick to that time. 

This is not one size fits all, so you’ll need to test this for your specific audience.

For more tips on Instagram Strategy, check out 5 Easy Tips to Boost Your Church's Instagram Engagement Strategy.

Chronological Instagram Feed: 3 Types of Content Your Church Must Create

Now people have 3 options for how they will organize their Instagram Feed. Each Instagram Feed has a different group of people with different needs. 

You need to POLL your audience and see what Feed they prefer, which will give you some insight into what content to create more of. 

But as a percentage of your audience will prefer each Feed type, you need to create a variety of content that will do well within each Feed.

Here’s a cheat sheet for you of what types of content to create depending on which feed a person uses most.

Main Feed: 

This is the widest part of your marketing funnel. These are NEW people who may not know about your church. 

• Content for new people with the goal of increasing awareness of your church.
• Examples: Entertaining content, Educational Content, and Collaboration Posts 

Following Feed: 

One step down on your marketing funnel is the Following Feed. These are people who know about your church in some capacity. Maybe they are a part of your church, visit once in a while, or saw your church online and decided to follow but don’t go to your church.

• Content that builds trust and equity with the people who already follow you.
• Examples: Behind the scenes content that helps people get to know the people inside your church and encouraging or inspirational content that helps people’s lives like testimonies

Favorites Feed: 

These are people who consider themselves a member of your church, who are most likely already a believer and who want to be involved and keep in touch with what your community is doing.

• Content that inspires people to take action and that continues to grow and improve their lives in some way
• Examples: Invitations to further engage outside of Instagram 

Conclusion

Now you know everything a church needs to know about the new chronological Instagram feed options. To wrap this up, here’s what we covered: 

1. Chronological Instagram Feed: What Are Following and Favorites 
2. Chronological Instagram Feed: Will Our Church Reach More or Less People 
3. Chronological Instagram Feed: How to Adjust Your Church’s Social Media Strategy
4. Chronological Instagram Feed: 3 Types of Content Your Church Must Create

If you need more help coming up with post ideas check out these posts: 

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