Here’s an example of how a single social networking action can produce drastically different results on two different social networks.
Imagine you’re scrolling through your Instagram feed and you come across a photo of your friend on the beach. Aw, she deserves a beach vacation, she’s been working so hard lately! So, you double tap and like her photo on Instagram. Your like is lost in a sea of other likes.
Well, let’s say you had cross-posting to Facebook turned on for all your Instagram activity. Now, all of your Facebook friends and let’s face it, mostly acquaintances and even less, have a fresh, singular story in their news feeds about how you liked a photo of a tanned, buxom woman in a bikini.
Awkward? No, and yes, depending on the network involved.
This scenario, while common I’m sure over the past couple of years, will never happen again. Instagram’s new app update kills this link between Instagram activity and automatically sharing to Facebook.
“Updated Facebook share settings: Continue sharing your Instagram photos and videos on Facebook. But Instagram likes and activity will no longer be shared on Facebook,” say the latest app update notes.
So, your Facebook friends will no longer get the news that you just followed “CaliHOTbutts69” on Instagram.
But you’ll still be able to share your Instagram photos directly to Facebook, if you’re so inclined.
At first glance, it appears that Facebook (who owns Instagram) is doing something odd by removing a layer of seamless sharing, which is basically free (cross) promotion. But let’s face it–nobody really liked their likes and other random Instagram activity being directly ported to Facebook. It’s a dumb feature. Now, Instagram users are free to like as many photos as they please without the fear of looking like a weirdo stalker on Facebook. Sure, you could’ve turned off this feature manually, but judging by my Facebook feed, there were more than a few Instagram users who had no idea that their totally appropriate Instagram likes were popping up on the much less-appropriate Facebook news feed.
Image via Jen Selter, Instagram