How to grow on Instagram (according to Instagram) in 2024

I don't know if you guys have noticed but Instagram have been spilling some tea recently they have been sharing a lot of content where they spill all the secrets to how you can grow on Instagram according to Instagram now to save you from having to go through all of this content they've been sharing myself and my team have cated the most gamechanging advice that Instagram has shared into this one video so let's get going all right let's kick off with the big one the algorithm now the head of Instagram Adam mouri shared a video recently

where he explained that shares were actually one of the most valuable signals that you can send to Instagram's algorithm one of the most important signals we use in ranking is sends per reach so out of all the people who saw your real or your photo how many of them sent it to a friend in a DM now if you didn't know already Instagram uses an algorithm to power its platform there are signals that we can send to Instagram's algorithm to try and get it to realize that our content is great when we send enough of

these signals Instagram's algorithm will pick up on our content and we'll push it out to more people and that's basically how people go viral on Instagram what Adam Missouri is saying in this video is that shares so when people share your content is actually one of the most important signals you can send which means if we create content which is designed to get our audience to share it with more people we are more likely to hit the algorithm and potentially go viral this is quite a big deal guys they've never shared that with us before

and maybe that's because this is a recent change or maybe it's always been the case we don't know point is start to create content that is designed to be shared and you will probably see your content perform better let's stay on the theme of the algorithm because there have been a few additional nuggets of information that I just want to share here Instagram have recently confirmed that when you share a piece of content the algorithm evaluates that piece of content on its own we primarily evaluate each post on its own merits just because a post

underperforms doesn't mean future posts are going to see reduced reach or distribution the exception to this is if of course your content is being restricted for some reason and you can check this by checking your account status it will tell you if your content is being restricted if it is being restricted it's because you've broken some form of community guidelines so you want to stop doing that and you might even want to appeal their decision which you can do inside the app if your content isn't being restricted though then you can consider every new post

as a new opportunity to reach new people they have come out and said that shadow Banning is not real they've said this before and people don't believe them but hey that's what they've said again along similar lines Instagram have recently confirmed that if you edit a piece of content that piece of content will not be ranked by the algorithm we don't rank a piece of content because you've made changes to it like editing the caption so what this means is if you upload a piece of content and then you change the caption for example Instagram

will not review that piece of content as if it's new and give it a new ranking it won't look at that and think oh my God this caption is so much better we're going to make it blow up it's not going to do that it's also not going to restrict the performance of your content either so there was a myth a while ago that like said if you edit your caption then your content won't be recommended Instagram have said that this is not the case if you edit your caption nothing much will happen other than

the fact that your audience will view a different caption Instagram have also said that your content could potentially reach new people for weeks and weeks to come now it's true most things you put post are going to get most of their reach in let's call it 2 days but some things are more Evergreen in nature and a lot of what people consume on Instagram is from accounts they don't follow we call those recommendations and most recommendations are actually more than 2 days old so keep an eye on engagement on those play counts like counts Etc

not only over those first two days but over the first week two or even three previously Instagram was the type of platform where it was very shortterm in terms of the performance of your content it was like you shared a post it would reach people for a few days and then it would kind of fall off the face of the Earth but what it's now saying is that actually Evergreen content which is basically content which remains relevant for months and years to come so it's the opposite of like topical or seasonal content they're basically saying

that Evergreen content can continue to reach new people for weeks and weeks to come so try to avoid deleting your content because you never know how it might perform in the long run and also keep an eye on your Insight so that you can see if your content is starting to blow up and potentially reach a new audience last piece of advice on the algorithm which I think is worth noting from Instagram is they have said that it's important to experiment and get creative with your content and also to try to avoid letting yourself get

bogged down with the algorithm too much because it might impact your creativity want Instagram to be a place where creatives can feel comfortable experimenting and expressing themselves yeah and just a personal note on this I know this whole video is about what Instagram is saying so I'm really trying to just like focus on that but I do think this piece of advice touches on something really important which is that just because your content is performing well right now and is hitting the algorithm doesn't mean that it's going to consistently perform well in the future if

you don't evolve and experiment with your types of content the algorithm is constantly changing your audience is constantly changing so it is important to experiment something that I often forget as well that I have to remind myself all right moving on from the algorithm let's talk about hashtags I cannot believe it's 2024 and we're having a conversation about hashtags hashtags have not been a big important conversation topic for a really long time on Instagram the reason why is because Instagram introduced Instagram search and that became the new way to find new content previously the way

you would find new content would be either the explore page or searching a hashtag but now it's the explore page or it's search so hashtags became less relevant but let's discuss what Instagram has to say about how hashtags work this year and Beyond so the head of Instagram Adam Missouri has said repeatedly now do hashtags improve visibility and you said no I just like screenshoted that now what he's made clear is that hashtags can help other people find your content when they're looking for a specific type of content if you're using the hashtag hash puy

cuz I got a puppy on my lap then there is a chance that people looking for puppy content might find your content easier because you've used that hashtag however Instagram has said that it won't necessarily increase your reach it's a bit of like um is it an oxymoron I don't know it's a bit of an interesting thing to say there because on the one hand you're saying if there are a group of people looking for puppy content they might find your content easier if you've used the hashtag but on the other hand you're saying that

you're not going to reach more people but surely if more people are finding your content with the hashtag then that does mean you're reaching more people I don't know we're trying not to focus on my thoughts here we're focusing on what Instagram's saying they also said that you shouldn't use a lot of hashtags to maximize your reach and that the quality of your hashtags is much more important we kind of know this already guys you should try to be very intentional with the hashtags you include and focus only on the ones that are relevant to

the content you're publishing all right so let's talk about the actual content that you're sharing and some tips tricks strategies that Instagram have said will help you grow first off they've said that content which evokes strong emotions like excitement or fear tends to perform well across the board they've also said that Instagram Reals in addition to other content which is niched down or focuses on a specific community so basically has a really clear audience for example content which is designed for football fans or which focus on Furniture Design that kind of stuff like very specific

often performs well too the reason for this is that it resonates more deeply with its desired audience and it encourages more private sharing versus public sharing and the important thing to note about what I said at the top of this video about how Shares are super important they haven't said that a type of sharing is more important than the other so you're really just trying to get someone to share full stop whether it's shared privately via DMS or shared publicly on their stories it doesn't matter you just want people to share your content let's talk

about Instagram's features and how we should actually be using them again according to Instagram first off one thing that I learned about Instagram is that they're rolling out features constantly and it's in your best interest to use them all we have said this before and now Instagram are saying it to use it experiment with it the example that they actually used was this new feature which is called close friends lives it's basically your ability to go live but only for your close friends by the way I have a whole video on Instagram features which I'm

pretty sure should be live by the time you're watching this so I'm going to link to it up here that's the example that they use and they said you should try all these new features because your content is more likely to be seen a little tidbit from me I know we're not focusing on my tips I'm so sorry but I just want to throw this in there a good example of a newish feature that if you use right now is actively helping you reach more people is the add your sticker on Instagram stories it's I

know it's not completely new it's been around for a little while but if you use the add your sticker on your stories your entire series of stories from that day will be seen by more people try it thank me in the comments cuz I'm telling you it works they also mention notes notes is a new feature it's like a little status they actually compare it to an MSN status which is interesting because notes is targeting a younger generation who I don't think knows what MSN is but it's like a little status that you can add

to your profile they've made it quite clear that they're pushing this feature however notes are not good for you reaching a new audience they're actually about engaging your existing audience and starting conversation ations with your existing community so keep that in mind when you're using notes Instagram also shared an interesting little tidbit about carousels carousels give you multiple chances to show up in people's feeds because we might show the first post in the carousel to someone and if they don't swipe to the second or the third we might show it again automatically swiped to the

second or to the third post so if you put yourself in your audience's shoes you've probably noticed this before you'll be scrolling and see a carousel not engage of it and carry on scrolling the next time you open Instagram you might see that same Carousel but a different frame so you'll see the second slide or the third slide Instagram has done that on purpose to give you another opportunity to engage with that Carousel this does not mean that you should only be sharing carousels or that if you share carousels your audience are guaranteed to see

them more frequently that's not what I'm saying it's just an interesting tidbit to be aware of Instagram has also said that it's a good idea to focus on reals they've said that over 50% of engagement on Instagram comes from people watching your reals they believe this is the case because reals provide a great way for you to connect with your audience because they can hear you they can see you so they're getting this full experience they also said that a target for reals is to share 10 a month a Target is probably around 10 a

month which is interesting I've never heard them come out and give like a specific number or quantity of rules to share they've said 10 a month so do with that information what you will and that is what Instagram has been saying about how you can grow on their platform wasn't that interesting I found this whole exercise very enlightening shout out to Haley and my team for collecting a lot of that information I'd love to hear which one of those pieces of ADV that I shared in this video resonates the most with you or surprises you

the most let me know in the comments if you feel like hanging around I recommend watching this video it's all about the recent changes that have been made to Instagram's algorithm a very important video to watch if you are interested in using Instagram in any way now and in the future thank you so much for watching as always I can't wait to see you my next video