Looking to grow your IG following in 2025?
This might help.
Last week, podcaster Brock Johnson spoke with Instagram chief Adam Mosseri about the latest platform updates, the algorithm, usage trends, and more, as he sought to provide some answers to the most common questions posed by IG creators.
And Mosseri provided some interesting notes. Nothing groundbreaking, and mostly the type of insight and advice that Mosseri has shared before. But some interesting points nonetheless.
First off, Mosseri discussed Instagram usage trends, and the shift to AI-recommended content in the main feed.
As per Mosseri:
“If you look at how people share on Instagram, creators aside, there are more photos and videos not including text shared in DMs than there are in Stories every day, and there are way more photos and videos shared into Stories than into feed every day. So yes, feed is for average folk to share photos or videos that they’re really proud of, but it’s a very small percentage of average folk who actually post to feed on a given day, whereas for creators, it’s much higher, so it’s becoming much more of a public domain, whereas stories and DMs are much more about where your friends are.”
So as Mosseri has noted in the past, the main feed is now not being used by regular users anywhere near as much, which is why Instagram is leaning on recommended content, in order to keep the main feed relevant.
And Mosseri also notes that creators now get more reach in the main feed:
“Stories are awesome, but your average creator reaches way more people in feed. Recommendations was a way to maintain and grow feed as an important part of Instagram, and we try to do so in a way where it would help people discover creators and other accounts that they would love, but might not even know existed. So you’ve seen that play out, and I’ve pushed really hard to make sure people could see the difference between their “connected” and “unconnected” reach.”
Usage trends have essentially deprioritized the main feed for more users, but for creators, it remains a key tool for getting more reach to more users. But for direct engagement among regular users who are communicating with each other, Stories and DMs now see far more activity.
Mosseri also discussed algorithm changes, and how often they occur:
“Small changes go out every day. It’s very rare that there’s a massive change in how we do something, it’s much more common that we’re just trying to get a little bit better one day at a time [and] if you see a huge swing in what’s going on, it probably isn’t that there was a huge change in how we rank content, it’s probably more that there was a huge change in the world. [For example] it might be Mother’s Day and everybody’s posting pictures of their moms [or] if you have predominantly young people who follow you, and schools out, you see time spent on social media is going to grow on the holidays, same thing if people are off work, they’re going to spend more time online, so if there’s a big swing on a given day, it’s probably more likely the world changed.”
Bit of a patronizing explanation to justify reach swings, that you need to be aware that other things are going on, but Mosseri’s point is that IG doesn’t update its algorithm in a major way that often. So if your reach drops, that’s probably not the reason.
Mosseri also discussed Instagram’s efforts to improve exposure for creators and content on Google and other search engines, as well as improving your content search options on Instagram itself. Mosseri says that the technology that IG uses to analyze content, including video and captions, is getting much better, and will drive better results in the near future. Which is interesting, because TikTok’s visual recognition tools are clearly a lot better than Instagram’s on this front, which is arguably why TikTok’s algorithm is so much more addictive.
Maybe, IG will eventually be able to better compete in this respect.
Speaking of TikTok, He also shared this interesting comparison between the two apps:
“We’re not trying to optimize for time. This is a common misconception, [that] platforms just want you to spend more time, [but] that’s not quite the case for us. I think if you look at Netflix, from what I can tell, they optimize for time, YouTube time, TikTok time, plus some other things around originality and breaking content. We are a place to be entertained [and] to entertain yourself, and find stuff to explore your interests, but we’re also a place to connect with your friends. And if we just optimize for time, what would happen is you would just show longer and longer, and more and more videos, but then for every five minute video you watch, that’s maybe 50 things you didn’t see from other other people, including your friends, so we’re much more in the short video focus.”
So Mosseri’s trying to suggest that the social aspects of IG are much more of a lure than they are on TikTok, and as such, it’s trying to show you more things that you’ll be interested in based on friends and such, as opposed to just keeping you glued to the app.
I don’t know that this is true, as Instagram would love to have the addictiveness of TikTok, but it’s interesting that Mosseri’s trying to separate the two apps by suggesting that friend connection is an equally relevant focus.
I mean, the fact that 50% of the content displayed in your main feed is from accounts you don’t follow belies that (though as Mosseri notes, that was a necessary change), but it’s also inarguable that friend connection is a more significant consideration on IG than TikTok.
I don’t think it’s a key differentiator, but it’s interesting framing either way.
Mosseri also commented on the suggestion that being more active when you’re posting in the app can drive more reach, noting that it could have an impact, in that if you’re engaging with people at the same time as you share your latest update, that may drive more people to your profile in response to your outreach, but there is no direct correlation in its system.
Mosseri also explained “shadowbans,” noting that IG does penalize some content, but it lets creators know about those penalties as much as possible, except in extreme cases. As such, this is not a shadownban” as many view it.
Also, hashtags:
“Hashtags are no longer a primary way to increase your reach on Instagram. They don’t significantly increase your reach on Instagram, contrary to popular belief.”
Mosseri also discusses branded content partnerships, its upcoming “Blend” feature, and a range of other creator myths and questions.
Some interesting notes, you can check out the full interview here.
