Instagram’s CEO Leaks How The Algorithm Changed

Key Takeaways

If you have trouble reaching people with your Instagram, you just can't grow, you're not crazy and it's not because your account is too small. No, because recently Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, went on a bunch of podcasts and accidentally confirmed how the algorithm really works and what has changed. And honestly, some of them did surprise me. So, I actually went on a data deep dive into the top-performing Reels and Carousels across my clients and I found four major shifts or changes that explain exactly why most accounts are stuck right now and what to do differently to grow fast. And the first one is where it already gets interesting because right now, most people are optimizing for totally the wrong audience cuz they think they need to create content for their followers cuz that's what everybody's talking about. But here's what actually happens when you do optimize for your followers. And this is what Mosseri actually explained in one of these podcasts. When you post on Instagram, the algorithm now, first of all, tests your content with a small group of people first. Some of them are your followers, obviously, but some of them are total strangers. Now, if you optimize for your followers and they really like it, but the strangers don't really like it, the post starts to fiddle out fizzle out and fiddle out and you're not going to get a lot of views because the algorithm thinks, "Well, this is only for people already know this creator, whereas strangers don't really react to that. So, let me just cut non-follower reach." Now, if conversely strangers start to react way more than your followers do by watching longer, sharing it, commenting on it, this thing suddenly starts to keep expanding and he actually explained it there's different tiers, basically what we've been talking about for years cuz I've been tracking this thing religiously like a crazy person. But basically, it compares and tests your content with other posts that were posted that day and it's just going to keep running until they hit the ceiling and some other piece of content wins, basically. So, point being, if you really want to make it on Instagram, every post, Reel, or Carousel that you make needs to be built for a stranger who has zero reason to care about you, right? Who does not know anything about you. So, forget your followers. Kind of counterintuitive, but that's just the way the game works. So, your framing and everything that we talk about has to be instantly relevant for somebody who has no idea about you. And honestly, sometimes when people come to work with me, we take a look at that, that's usually the biggest problem anyway and there's basically just some small fixes that you need to create in order to make this relevant for a stranger and things start to happen. Literally, this last week we had two people blow up in the cohort in the second week because they they made that one change. And by the way, I actually made a free tool for you that tells you if your hook, for example, is built for strangers or just your followers and it tells you what you need to change. It's down below in the description. Grab it while you still can. I'm going to take this off I'm pretty soon. But the second big point here is something that's going to make a lot of you feel a lot of relief, hopefully, cuz it's about consistency and how often you need to post for the algorithm to be like, "Yes, I'm I'm okay with you." And if you've ever felt guilty about not posting three times this week or five times this week and if you feel like you're falling behind or the algorithm starts to punish you because you take a few days off, well, that whole guilt seems to almost entirely manufactured because he essentially said that posting three to five times a week is not some magic requirement for you to grow a lot. And uh actually looking at the data of my own clients, across the board, this is 100% true because there is no single posting cadence that determines whether you blow up. Because remember, the algorithm just cares about finding and you putting the right content in front of strangers. That's all that matters. And one great post can actually outperform weeks of consistent average and low effort posts, basically, because if a Reel keeps getting strong signals from strangers, Instagram is actually going to keep pushing it, sometimes even for months. I've actually got Reels that still bring in views and lots of leads 6 7 8 months later because they actually hit a core problem my audience is always searching for, like a major pain point, and [snorts] that's why it just keeps being pushed out. So, instead of going crazy and obsessing over posting exactly three times a week and getting paralyzed because oh, it's just two times this week, actually start to obsess over putting an effort into your content, right? Creating evergreen content, content that a total stranger would still save and share no matter when they saw it. Which leads me right into the third point because uh yeah, once you actually understand that and stop stressing about how often you should post, the real question actually becomes, "How can I make my Reel get pushed out for months? How can I create this higher effort evergreenish content?" And Mosseri actually answered this specifically as well and it kind of is a little bit of an algorithm change if we compare it to just uh 2 years ago when everyone was like, "You know, you need to optimize your content for getting saves." Everyone was get going crazy about this. But he basically said that Instagram keeps expanding posts that keep producing strong signals, especially from strangers, right? You notice we have a whole common thread here. Strangers are more important than your followers, which also means your followers are not really that important anymore. Basically, what we've been talking about for a year. Now, the most three important signals for this whole thing to keep getting pushed out and I've seen this in my own data, especially tracking thousands of Reels. First of all, it's watch time, right? How long people actually watch your stuff. Session time, how long people actually watch multiple Reels or Carousels on your profile. Then shares and the M threads coming from a Reel and likes because nobody seems to like things anymore. So, if somebody likes, this is actually a very very good signal nowadays. So, for example, here I actually have a Reel that's around 7 months old and it still gets around 500 to 1,000 views a day and lots of leads, lots of comments, as you can see from my internal data right here. Not because it's a trendy or any of that crap, but because it actually hits a core pain point that drives all of these signals. And everybody who's serious about Instagram kind of has heard about hashtags at some point. So, they see this and I say hashtags are dead. And then I show them what's actually more important and I'll give them some extra resources. So, this is just bound to stay relevant for a long time. So, whenever you create content right now, always ask yourself, "Would a stranger, first of all, be interested and second of all, like this and keep watching and then also share this to someone? If not, you might want to go back and reiterate." Thanks. Now, the next part might actually surprise you because I'm sure you've heard people say and talk about the best time to post is right before your audience is most active. And there's people out there that say, "Yeah, these are the best posting times to go viral." Yeah, it's not how it works because if you remember what we just said, if a Reel is actually good, like really good, Instagram will push it for days, weeks, even months after you post it. Because seems like nowadays the algorithm doesn't reward when you post because obviously it doesn't care about you, right? So, it can't care about when you post because it actually rewards just the person scrolling, the consumer, and it thinks about, "Okay, this person is online right now. What is relevant content I could show to this person?" So, basically, don't stress over when you post at all, right? If content is good, it will find its way. And it kind of ties in with all the points, with all of the sort of changes that we talked about today. And I've actually also seen this in all my data. Sometimes when you post, a Reel does seemingly almost nothing for 2 to 3 days, underperforming, and only then it starts moving. And I'm sure you've had this before if you post a lot. I've actually had some Reels be seemingly dead for 2 to 3 weeks and then become some of my top performers. Actually, the one that I just showed you was underperforming for 3 weeks. So, post whenever you can, roughly whatever if it makes you feel good, post at your time and then only start looking at your insights and evaluate Reel after 7 to 14 days and not 7 to 14 minutes, right? It's not going to do a thing. But here's the thing, because what if your content is good? Cuz I know you guys are all creating awesome content, but after 2 to 3 weeks, still nothing happens and it keeps underperforming. Well, there's also a reason for that and there's a way out of that because Mosseri also talked about this whole thing that most people actually missed. Because your content is not being judged against some fixed standard. You need to hit a certain amount of likes or comments within an hour and only then you graduate into the next tier. It's actually totally different because it's being weighted against everything else Instagram is pushing out that exact same day. So, if you have just chosen a bad day, right? Or a big creator drops something crazy that everyone's going insane about, your Reel is going to die, honestly, just because of bad luck and because of that and not because the content is bad. So, if you really and to be honest with yourself, if you think your content is genuinely good and it didn't get traction, simply repost it without changing a thing after 2 to 3 weeks, right? We've actually had people get five to 10 times the amount of views from just doing that. That being said, before you actually go and repost everything now, please don't do that. Don't just blindly repost anything because you really need to make sure the content itself is actually worth reposting, it's actually good. Because if the packaging is off, the hook and things like that, posting it again will actually make things worse. So, take a look at this video next and I'll show you exactly how to create your content so that strangers actually stop, watch, and share it, which apparently is the only thing that matters anyway nowadays.