A look behind Instagram’s code has revealed some gamechanging unpublished features. The imagesharing social network will soon be bringing analytics to businesses profiles - but it turns out that may not be the only feature social media marketers can look forward to…
The potential changes were discovered by Elliott Murray, head of innovation at Social Chain, when he decompiled code from the latest version of the app. The recent update was clearly a prelude to the network swaying towards more monetisable features in line with their growing user base among business users, and was met with widespread criticism (we, however, rather liked it).
It is then somewhat unsurprising that when Murray looked behind Insta’s code he found four different boolean variables that give an awesome insight into future features. Boolean data is a data type that has two values, commonly true and false, which can control flow of different actions. As of yet, these new Instagram features haven’t been activated.
Murray documented his findings on a post to Medium, each of which can be found below…
1. can_boost_post: This will be a common statement for any Facebook business users. This variable suggests that soon Instagram will be offering the same option a paid boost that will allow their content to reach more users.
2. can_see_organic_insights: Instagram scheduling app Later recently leaked a selection of screenshots of what Instagram’s upcoming analytics will look like. As there is a specific label for ‘organic’ insights, this could suggest that regular users will be able to view the analytics interface alongside businesses paying for ads.
3. can_convert _to_business: Much like Facebook, this variable suggests that the social network will soon be differentiating between users and business pages. This should come as no surprise to social marketers when you consider what the update meant for the network. Whether that migration will be voluntary or mandatory is yet unclear.
4. show_insights_terms: Insights terms include reach, views, engagement rate, impressions and other such examples of specific analytical data. Clearly the network want to give strategists exactly what they want – access to some serious data.
