Instagram doubled their retention by prioritizing friends

In their early days, Instagram treated all followers the same. This worked great for new users because they could follow and keep up-to-date with many celebrities. But, in 2016, IG noticed many people would leave the app after 7-8 months. This happened because when new users started posting photos of their own nobody would react to them. It felt like posting in an echo chamber.

IG fixed it in 2017 by prioritizing posts from friends and ensuring new users connected to a few friends early on. It helped users get reactions from their friends and feel validated, and led to a 2x retention.