SOCIAL
Instagram Scales Back In-Stream Shopping Elements as it Re-Examines its Approach

Try as social platforms might, they just haven’t been able to make ‘fetch’ happen.
‘Fetch’ in this latest context being the online shopping trends that have become all-consuming in China, which western social platforms have been working to jam into their apps too, as a means to make their platforms even more addictive, while also facilitating more revenue-generating activity.
But despite a COVID-led jump in overall eCommerce activity, no one seems to care too much about the latest shopping tools on TikTok or Instagram – which has now led to IG scaling back its in-stream shopping program, and potentially abandoning the concept entirely.
As reported by The Information:
“Instagram is planning to drastically scale back its shopping features, the company told Instagram staffers on Tuesday, as it shifts the focus of its e-commerce efforts to those that directly drive advertising. The retreat shows how Meta Platforms is moving away from some long-term projects as it focuses on building its short-form video business.”
The Information reports that the current Instagram ‘Shop’ tab will eventually disappear from the app, with the company shifting to a ‘simpler and less personalized version’ of its in-stream product display.
Which is a significant shift away from in-stream commerce, which, at one stage at least, was a key focus for Meta’s ongoing product development and revenue tools.
But evidently, the demand just isn’t there – again, try as they might, western platforms simply can’t re-create Chinese market trends in every region.
Which Meta would know, given that it also tried the same with messaging, and converting Messenger into an all-encompassing platform back in 2016.
Following the lead of Chinese messaging apps like WeChat, which have become essential connective tools for Chinese users, Meta had hoped that by introducing Messenger Bots, that would enable businesses to create their own interactive chatbots within its platform, as opposed to having to build their own, dedicated apps, and drive users to download them instead. In theory, that would have the double benefit of helping businesses reach users in the apps that they’re already using, at much lower development costs, while it would also help to make Messenger a more critical utility, in a broad range of contexts.
Except, nobody cared about Messenger bots.
Meta pushed them as an option for some time, but eventually, it accepted that no one really wanted to use Messenger for much else outside of basic messaging, and in 2018, it launched a scaled-back, streamlined version of Messenger, after admitting that the app had become ‘too cluttered’ with add-on features.
Which, of course, included bots, which are now almost impossible to find in the app.
Still, that experience clearly didn’t dampen Meta’s hopes of riding the eCommerce boom into the next stage of in-stream shopping, and with Chinese shoppers flocking to live-stream commerce in particular, Meta smelled opportunity.
It added a ‘Shop’ element in Explore in July 2020, then expanded that to its own dedicated Shop tab in the app in November that year.
At that time, eCommerce sales were skyrocketing, at one point making up the equivalent of 10 years of online sales progress in just a 3-month period, with the global lockdowns forcing everyone to shop online, and become more accustomed to the convenience of in-app shopping.
Which most analysts had expected would be a sustained trend. eCommerce sales had been steadily rising for years anyway, the pandemic merely forced more stragglers to actually try it out, and the pervading view was that once most people had experienced in-app shopping, and the various benefits that it facilitates, that it would become the new normal, accelerating the decline of in-person buying.
Except, it didn’t. As the pandemic threat has eased, and physical stores have re-opened, eCommerce trends have fallen back into line with where they were previously, while overall, social media users haven’t shown an increased proclivity for shopping in-stream, despite having many more options to do so.
Again, unlike Chinese consumers, who have embraced these new forms of connection, western audiences just haven’t been as enamored by such – which is bad news for Instagram, which had hoped to use in-stream commerce as a key lever for re-directing funds to creators in the app. But it’s likely even worse news for TikTok, which has been reliant on eCommerce as a key driver of revenue share for creators in the Chinese version of the app.
TikTok, you would assume, had hoped to replicate that business model in other regions. But at this stage, it doesn’t seem like social shopping is going to become the major trend that some had foreseen, with Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and now Instagram all seeing big declines in shopping interest and activity within their apps.
Instagram, of course, is also still trying to work out what it is, and what it will be in the current state of the social media market. After replicating Stories with great success, and slowing the growth of Snapchat in the process, it’s since turned its attention to short-form video, and negating the popularity of TikTok. And while Reels has proven popular in pure engagement stats (Reels consumption now makes up 20% of all the time spend on IG), users have bristled at Instagram’s repeated efforts to show them more Reels, and more content from users that they don’t follow in the app.
Part of the problem here is that Instagram’s trying to reinvent how its app works entirely, as it chases the TikTok dragon. TikTok has always focused on the top content, from anyone, as opposed to pushing you to follow specific people and profiles, which instead puts the reliance on its algorithms to identify the content that you’re likely to be interested in.
Instagram has traditionally prompted you to curate your experience, which we’ve all done – but now it’s looking to interrupt that with this new content approach.
That shift has been unwelcome for many users, and I’m not sure that IG will ever be able to successfully negotiate such a fundamental change, while add-on elements like shopping have also become more of a distraction, likely impacting overall take-up.
In essence, Instagram itself seems unsure what it’s supposed to do next, and what‘s the next stage in its progression.
But clearly, it’s now conceding that shopping isn’t it.
There are various implications stemming from this, but the bottom line is that western platforms can’t look to Chinese market trends as a guiding light for development. Different markets, different people, different trends that are not alike, and while the experiments make sense, going all-in on the next China-based trend probably isn’t the best strategy.
It’s also not great news for the many retailers who’ve signed up for Facebook and Instagram Shops, and what this could mean for their future reach and connection opportunities as a result.
SOCIAL
YouTube Ad Revenue Forecast To Rise 4%, Hit $30.4B, In 2023 05/30/2023

Advertising revenue across all
YouTube platforms, including YouTube TV, should see growth of 4% this year, to $30.4 billion and growth of 10.3% to $33.5 billion, in 2024, according to new WARC projections.
While relatively
modest, 2023’s growth will represent a turnaround from Q4 2022, when YouTube’s ad revenue dropped …
SOCIAL
LinkedIn Launches New ‘Find Your In’ Ad Campaign

LinkedIn’s launching a new promotional campaign, created by ad agency Droga5, which aims to highlight how you can use the platform to find your ideal career pathway.
The ‘Find Your In’ campaign looks to showcase how LinkedIn can unlock new possibilities, so you can be whatever you imagine, with the help of LinkedIn’s connectivity.
As explained by Droga5:
“It starts with a little girl who finds herself in a place that’s perfectly ordinary: the laundromat. But we quickly learn there’s more here than meets the eye. All it takes is a little bit of inspiration from a LinkedIn alert on a nearby phone to set off an unexpected and extravagant dance with her own potential. The future comes to life, teeming with opportunity and endless options to explore.”
Not sure that I felt inspired, as such, by the clip, but it is catchy, and it could prompt people to take another look at the app, and consider how they can utilize LinkedIn as a guide on their professional journey.
LinkedIn’s been working to maximize discovery, and capitalize on its record high levels of engagement, by better highlighting relevant influencers and niche creators, with a view to helping others discover new connections, and explore their passions in the app.
That, ideally, will help more people establish networks of likeminded professionals, which could indeed facilitate new career opportunities through the same.
The campaign could help to amplify this. The new push will run across TV, web and social media platforms over the coming months.
SOCIAL
Choppy surfing: The Internet initialisms that cause the most confusion

There are currently only three emojis with glasses – Copyright AFP TENGKU Bahar
The use of social media and the web in general is awash with odd sayings and initialisms. Sometimes they leave users a little confused. Social media experts at How Sociable analysed Google searches for common Internet initialisms (How Sociable call these “acronyms” although many do not actually form words).
The company analysed the number of searches for each standalone initialisms combined with ‘what does acronym mean’, ‘acronym meaning’ and ‘what does acronym stand for’ to find which ones confuse people the most. This search was undertaken from a U.K. user perspective.
This revealed that ‘POV’ was found to be the most confusing initialism, with around 100,541 searches per month. The initialism is well-known among writers and photographers to stand for ‘Point Of View’.
Over the past year, use of the initialism has appeared to go viral on TikTok and Instagram posts. While it was originally used by content creators to refer to videos shot from the first-person viewer perspective, the term has since been misappropriated by some creators to refer to any skit centring around a person in an uncomfortable or awkward situation. An example of the initialism used within a caption would be, ‘POV: It’s going out time and your date is late.’
‘SMH’ was found to be the second most confusing initialism, with 69,850 searches per month on average. The term, which stands for ‘Shaking My Head’, is commonly used online in situations where someone is disappointed or frustrated with the conversation or another person.
‘SMH’ often features in forums where emojis or other icons are not deployed, such as Reddit, or during online gaming chats on Twitch or Roblox. For iPhone and Android users, typing this acronym over text prompts the Face Palm emoji, which shows a person covering their face in disappointment.
Coming in as the third most confusing initialism with 36,881 total searches per month is ‘NSFW’. This can mean either ‘Not Safe For Work’ or ‘Not Suitable For Work’ and is used online to indicate text or imagery that is explicit in nature or something that would be considered embarrassing or inappropriate to see or read in public.
The 20 most Googled initialism in the UK are:
Acronym | Meaning | UK Average Monthly Search Volume |
POV | “Point of View” | 100,541.67 |
SMH | “Shaking My Head” | 69,850.00 |
NSFW | “Not Safe For Work” | 36,881.67 |
LMAO | “Laughing My Ass Off” | 24,804.17 |
TLDR | “Too Long; Didn’t Read” | 21,534.17 |
IMO | “In My Opinion” | 20,423.33 |
AWOL | “Absent Without Leave” | 20,141.67 |
DM | “Direct Message” | 19,075.00 |
TBH | “To Be Honest” | 16,773.33 |
BTW | “By The Way” | 16,667.50 |
BAE | “Before Anyone Else” | 13,956.67 |
TMI | “Too Much Information” | 12,809.17 |
AFK | “Away From Keyboard” | 11,971.67 |
FYI | “For Your Information” | 11,774.17 |
IRL | “In Real Life” | 11,236.67 |
LOL | “Laugh Out Loud” | 11,118.33 |
TTYL | “Talk To You Later” | 11,011.67 |
YOLO | “You Only Live Once” | 10,962.50 |
LMK | “Let Me Know” | 10,897.50 |
IDK | “I Don’t Know” | 10,697.50 |
Looking at the table, ‘LMAO’ is the fourth most confusing online initialism with 24,804 searches per month on average. The term, which is short for ‘Laughing my ass off’ is typically used online in response to amusing content or situations.
The fifth most confusing online acronym in the UK is ‘TLDR’ with 21,534 searches per month on average. Meaning ‘Too long; Didn’t Read,’ the term is typically used to preface a simple summary of a longer piece.
-
SEO4 days ago
Event Link Building: A Beginner’s Guide
-
SEO4 days ago
How To Use Search Console Bulk Data Export
-
SEARCHENGINES4 days ago
Google Search Suggestions For Your Search
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Google Search Algorithm Ranking Volatility May 22 & 23
-
SEARCHENGINES5 days ago
Google Job Search Bug
-
SEO5 days ago
Optimizing News Sites Using Google Search Console Reports
-
PPC7 days ago
6 Proven Strategies to Reach Your Audience
-
SOCIAL5 days ago
YouTube’s Retiring YouTube Stories Next Month