If Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app, then what is it?

Future. TikTok has surpassed Instagram in terms of Gen-Z users. The blowback has produced a revolution at Instagram, as Facebook’s photo sharing app seems to be reengineering itself to be more like TikTok. But can Instagram be anything other than a photo sharing app?

Insta-old
Reports show both Snapchat and TikTok have become Gen-Z’s preferred social media platforms. The result is a decline in Instagram’s appeal to young creators and their fans. Instagram is getting old… and it knows it.

Tick tock…
Facebook is building an “Instagram for kids,” partially to attract younger users. They’re also trying to attract members of the flourishing creator economy on TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.

• Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said 24-hours ago: “We’re trying to build new experiences primarily in four areas: The first is creators… the second is video.”

Facebook’s TikTok clone?

Instagram no longer wants to be a “square photo-sharing app,” which is how Mosseri described it. It wants to host subscriber-only content and experimental video features, like full-screen, recommended videos. But “it’s vague as to how Instagram plans on doing that,” writes Mitchell Clark of The Verge.

It does seem like Facebook wants to create its TikTok clone within Instagram — which rolled out Reels last August. But Reels never went viral. So although it didn’t flop, it also didn’t change the fact that Instagram is still just a “square photo-sharing app” for most of its users.

The clock is ticking on IG’s appeal with Gen-Z.