Instagram Account Push Notifications

When Should You Really Use Them?

One of the hot items since the announcement of the Instagram algorithm, is account post push notifications. There has been much fear and uneasiness of the algorithm, that it’s going to be like Facebook algorithm, which is notorious for not allowing you to see all of your friends/family/page posts. This fear of missing out posts, helped to spread the viral post of turning on account post push notifications, on March 29, 2016.

The theory behind the viral post, was that if you turned on account post push notifications for all accounts, you would never miss a post. Well, now that the algorithm is rolling out to all accounts, we know the Instagram algorithm is nothing like Facebook’s. (I’ve talked about the Instagram algorithm and my first week observations of being on it, in previous blog post, click to read up on it.)

The problem with the viral push notifications post, was that many accounts, including big brands, didn’t/don’t understand how they really work and this has as consequence, to jump on the viral bandwagon of asking their followers to turn on post push notifications.

So, how do account push notifications really work? Here’s how they really work. When you go to an account, hit the 3 dot menu icon in top right corner and select, “Turn On Post Notifications.” Once you turn it on, every time that account posts, you will get a push notification on your phone.

Alrighty folks, here is where things went wrong. Imagine, doing this for 10 accounts and these accounts post, oh let’s say 3 times a day. You are now looking at 30 push notifications in one day. I don’t know about y’all, but that’s a lot of notifications. Also, when you click on the push notifications at your phone, it only takes you to the top, the most recent one. Which means, if you have been away from Instagram for a few hours and 5 accounts have posted something, those notifications are grouped as one notification. So, when you finally have the time and click on the notification, it takes you to the most recent post of that group. To see the other four accounts’ posts, you have to scroll your newsfeed to see them.

Here’s the major consequence that people and even big brands didn’t factor, when they jumped on the viral bandwagon and started asking their followers to turn on account push notifications. What will their followers reactions be, once they start getting too many account post notifications? Will it be, go back to those accounts and turn off post notifications? Or would it be to simply unfollow those accounts out of pure annoyance? Don’t know about y’all but the latter is a scary result to me as a social media marketer, because I don’t want to annoy or piss off my followers/fanbase.

With all of this being said, should you ever use account post push notifications? The short answer is, yes! You want to use them selectively, for a few of your favorite accounts, that may not post more than three times a week. I use them on a few accounts that post at most a few times a week and at odd times, so I never miss a post from them.

Unfortunately, now that the algorithm is rolling out, I sadly predict another round of turn on account post push notifications. Sorry to end on a sad note, but now after reading this, you know all about account post push notifications and how to use them properly.