This Is What Instagram Says To Do For Big Reach

Instead of guessing how to appeal to the algorithm, why don’t we just listen to what Instagram said directly?

So if you want to know how to increase Instagram reach, read on as we cover 7 things Instagram said you can do to grow your reach on the platform.

How To Increase Reach On Instagram

1. Create Engaging Content

If you want to know how to increase Instagram reach, of course, content should be your top priority.

We feel like that’s an obvious statement, so the real question is what kind of content is engaging?

Instagram says, “This includes content you created yourself or content that hasn’t been posted on Instagram before.

There are a variety of formats for you to consider when making content:

Video, photos and text. However you want to create, we have a format for you.

And Pro tip: listen up guys this is important, Keep your reels short. IN ORDER TO BE RECOMMENDED, they must be 90 SECONDS OR LESS.”

And 90 seconds is a minute and a half, so we feel like they’re being generous with the word “short” there.

But the important part to note is that if your content is LONGER than 90 seconds, Instagram is not going to organically recommend it.

And we need all the organic reach we can get, right? Don’t want to give Instagram any more reasons to thwart our growth.

If you want to learn more about using Instagram Reels for your brand, read this post next.

2. Collaborate With Other Creators

“If you’re working with another creator, use our Collabs feature to create a single post that is shared to both of your followers…

…or use Enhanced Tags to include their public or self-identified profile category.

These posts can be recommended in places like the Reels tab, Explore and Feed.”

So here’s an example of what one of those posts can look like.

Actress Reese Witherspoon has her own bookclub called Reese’s Bookclub, which of course has its own Instagram account.

In these posts at the top of the month where she’s announcing the bookclub pick, you can see it’s being posted by Reese Witherspoon AND Reese’s Bookclub.

So this reel will appear on both feeds.

So if you are kind of the face of your brand and have a strong personal Instagram, you could collab with your brand’s Instagram the same way Reese did.  

Or if you’re working with influencers, you’ll also want to use this feature so that your brand post shows up on your feed AND their feed.

And if you’ve selected a strategic influencer to work with…

…having your post on their feed should mean it’s being shown to their large audience of targeted followers who have the potential to be your customers.

So if you want to know how to increase reach on Instagram, another universal truth that we think comes into play here is that…

…Instagram always pushes content that uses its new features. 

That’s because it wants users to use the new features; the collabs feature is no different. And if you want to create an effective influencer marketing strategy, then read this post next.

3. Get Discovered Via Search

“Followers and non-followers can find you when they search for things on Instagram. Make sure you include relevant keywords in your content, your caption, your bio and your hashtags.”

We’ve said this before but Instagram doubles as a search engine and a social media platform. Therefore, you want to optimize your posts for search queries.

Using social media hashtags doesn’t hold as much weight as it used to.

And that’s why it’s important to think about the keywords you put in your content as well like Instagram mentioned.

If you own a coffee shop, and someone is typing in Atlanta coffee shop into Instagram…

…you want your account to appear! So make sure you optimize your bio and posts for your offerings.

4. Use The Favorites Feature

“We’ve added features and controls like Close Friends, Favorites and Following so fans can further customize their experience.

Encourage your top fans to add you to their Favorites- that way your content will show up higher in their feeds.”

Used to, if you were DMing someone on Instagram, it told the algorithm that they really wanted to see that account’s content at the top of their feed as much as possible.

Being added to someone’s Favorites is the new version of that.

You can either ask and encourage people to add you to their Favorites list.

Or, you can create content so good that you just ARE one of their favorites, and therefore they organically add you to their Favorites list. We say we aim for both.

5. Monitor Your Insights

If you want to know how to increase Instagram reach, “Check your insights to monitor trends and content performance.

Within Insights, you can break down Accounts reached by followers and non-followers so you can see how much of your reach is coming from people who don’t already follow you-

and track that over time by changing the time frame selected. Look for patterns and keep tabs on which pieces of content are getting more reach to help inform your content strategy.”

So, another thing we’ve said before is that informed decisions lead to big results. Monitoring your Instagram Analytics regularly will help you with that.

A lot of clients that come to us for help have an unfortunate history of making their marketing decisions up to this point based on what they FEEL will work.

If you’re just posting things that you think “will do okay or that you feel like” your audience will like- that’s not good!

You don’t want to guess that your audience will like the content, you want to KNOW!

And we’ll say if you’ve really been struggling with this piece of your social media marketing, or any piece of it…

…and you’d rather just have a reliable Instagram marketing agency come in, revamp your marketing, and start bringing in real results for you? Aka sales?

We do that for small businesses every day. So if you’d like a free, custom marketing proposal and quote, schedule a meeting with our team today.

6. Check Your Account Status

“See if your account or your account’s content is eligible to be recommended to non-followers in Account Status.

If you see that you’re not eligible to be recommended…

…you can understand which content or components of your profile may violate Community Guidelines or Recommendation Guidelines.

Then you can fix it by editing or deleting content; or request our review team to take another look.”

So, obviously, that’s not the most fun to hear.

Instagram’s community guidelines are all good and well, but the problem is that the app has been known to misread or misjudge certain posts that didn’t violate their guidelines at all.

Innocent posts so to speak are getting treated like they violated Instagram’s rules.

So if you’ve been getting terrible reach and you don’t know why, check your Account Status just to make sure everything is good there.

If it’s not, and you feel like it should be, request a re-review. That should be a good place to start if you want to know how to increase reach on Instagram.

7. Post Original Content And Avoid Reposted Content

“As we recommend more content on Instagram, it’s important the credit, distribution, growth and monetization go to the original creator, and we’re continuing to work towards this.

We’re less likely to recommend reposts of a reel that’s already on Instagram…

…content with noticeable watermarks or accounts that regularly collect and reshare others’ content on their feed.

Pro tip: use the remix tool instead to put your own spin on a popular reel.”

So- a lot to unpack there. First of all, Instagram is clearly saying, quit copying and posting the same stuff over and over! It’s not going to make you go viral.

They want more of and are going to support original content.

And we’ve known about the watermark thing for a while- Instagram doesn’t want to support TikTok, which has the classic TiKTok watermark logo on all its videos.

So Instagram will kill your reach if they see a watermark on your content.

Instagram wants original content from you, but if you DO want to get some reach and views from someone’s viral content, they’re saying to just remix it.

Because then it at least becomes its own original video again because it includes your reaction or response to the original content.

And that wraps up this post on how to increase reach on Instagram!