Raise your hand if you’re not a fan of Instagram’s new branding.

My hand is raised, however I wanted to do a bit of research, and find out WHY Instagram have changed their branding so dramatically, and what their reasoning is behind this.

The biggest issue I have with Instagram’s new branding is exactly that; it’s new. Most people dislike change, and I loved their branding with the older looking camera, and the filters that can give you a vintage style photo. Their new branding is somewhat futuristic, which has caused quite a storm in the world of social media.

Amobee Brand Intelligence measured the discussions surrounding Instagram’s new branding/colours on the day it was released and found that a huge 55% of users were talking negatively about the new changes, 33% were neutral and a disappointing 14% found the new changes a positive move for Instagram.

Whilst there is no solution apart from accepting the changes, I did want to find out Instagram’s reasoning behind their dramatic brand and colour change. Instagram said the following;

“Our new logo is inspired by the previous app icon, the new one represents a simpler camera and the rainbow lives on in gradient form. We’ve made improvements to how the Instagram app looks on the inside as well. The simpler design puts more focus on your photos and videos without changing how you navigate the app. The Instagram community has evolved over the past five years from a place to share filtered photos to so much more — a global community of interests sharing more than 80 million photos and videos every day. Our updated look reflects how vibrant and diverse your storytelling has become.”

What Else Is New?

Being rolled out this week is Instagram’s new analytics tool. Instagram’s management tool; Later.com (once known as Latergramme) has offered a select few users an inside look at Instagram’s brand profiles with a “contact” button, allowing users to directly email a business, or get directions to their store.

We will also see brand new analytics options for Instagram, this includes the above, as well as a host of new insights and tools to give businesses the data they need to improve their Instagram marketing.

Instagram analytics will appear on the profile page section of an instagram profile in the top bar next to the settings option. See below for a visual.

Once inside analytics, you will see your Instagram insights. You will be able to see all information regarding where your followers are geographically based and what times your audience are on Instagram. Knowing this will allow you to better organise your Instagram marketing, reaching your audience at the most optimum time.

You will also have access to analytics that provide a gender, and age breakdown of your audience as well as data on how many impressions each of your posts generate.

This is a great step for Instagram, and one which has been long-awaited in my opinion. Welcome to the social media monopoly board; Instagram!

What do you think about the latest changes to Instagram?