Back in the day, social media feeds used to sort content from newest to oldest, chronologically. There wasn’t a way anyone could jump up into the view and no worry of content becoming invisible to your followers.
Now, though, we live in an era of constant fight for attention. Social media platforms are oversaturated with content and have more users than ever before. Posting on social media as a company is more like a competition, with rules slightly changing each year if not more often. Algorithms are the name of the game.
Algorithms organize content on your followers’ feeds based on predetermined factors favoring and opposing certain content types and qualities. For example, some of the biggest algorithm changes include the introduction of Instagram reels which became one of the staples of successful strategies on the platform. Because of changes like these, one day your content might be in front of thousands of people, and another day — be banished into obscurity.
Why is it important to keep up with Instagram and other social media algorithms?
The least obvious thing is your motivation and inspiration. Imagine that you make content without paying attention to the algorithms and it doesn’t achieve the necessary reach and attention. Of course, you simply burn out and are no longer motivated to work further. That’s why for your work as a social media manager to benefit the client and be enjoyable for you, you need to understand the algorithms. But other important reasons are:
I have been working with social networks for 8 years now!
Yes, yes, I am that “dinosaur” who promoted business pages when there were no stories, reels, infopreneurs, or a bunch of online courses! So, all the tips I’ll share are based purely on personal experience and no theory.
It so happened that Instagram became the main promotion platform for me and for Selzy. That’s why we’ll focus on Instagram strategies and examples. However, although the specifics are different, these tips will be useful regardless of the social media platform.
Changes in social media algorithms are not only periodic, they also often bring quite a stir in content visibility and reach. To stay in the loop, I follow expert blogs, press releases, and official updates from Facebook, Instagram, and X (Twitter).
For example, in August 2024, Instagram’s head Adam Mosseri announced that the platform would make “views” the primary metric for evaluating content performance across all formats, including Reels, Stories, and posts. That’s why now my team and I focus heavily on creating Reels and tracking view counts.
Since then, Selzy has fully transitioned to Reels-only content on Instagram:
We shifted our focus to Reels because they can capture users’ attention within the first three seconds, and this is huge if you’re trying to increase views. Mosseri also shared that watching videos takes up half of the time people spend on Instagram (I believe this is heavily influenced by TikTok). This is the second reason for Selzy’s pivot to Reels — we want to maximize engagement and visibility.
A platform update like this one can totally upend your strategy, but unless you make the adjustments, your content won’t be effective anymore. So keep up with the social media news and updates.
Algorithms often favor content that drives active user engagement. That’s why you should follow trends: to understand what social media audiences engage with the most.
Trends are different from one social media platform to another and from region to region. Both the content type and its presentation can be totally different. For example, as we mentioned, English-speaking markets rely heavily on Reels. Meanwhile in Central Asia, the preferred format is carousel posts with text on each slide.
Selzy works with several different markets including Brazil and Central Asia, so I pay attention to international trends and prepare different strategies for different audiences.
To understand trends, you need to become observant. This is a skill that allows any marketer to gauge what’s happening on the internet in an instant. To avoid spending hours scrolling online (because let’s be honest, work is work, but you still need to filter out information and remember about your mental well-being), I follow pages that provide summaries of the latest trends. You can usually find them under names like “Internet Media” or subscribe to niche pages that focus specifically on internet trends.
Just like always, when algorithms change — especially when they change — you need to keep your regular posting and be consistent. The algorithm recognizes you as an active poster when you do it consistently.
Besides appeasing the algorithms, there’s also a psychological factor at play. When people repeatedly see your content in their recommendations, they may think, “This creator keeps showing up; maybe I should follow them!”
The other component of it is timing, though. Just in January 2025, Adam Mosseri stressed how everyone should post content when their audience is most active. You can get the widest reach possible if you analyze your audience’s activity patterns and post at peak engagement times. To get the data, I use Instagram Insights and TikTok Analytics to see when Selzy’s followers are online.
How to check when your audience is most active? You can easily find this information in the Instagram Insights section (but only if your account is switched to a business profile). Simply go to the Followers tab, and at the very bottom, you’ll see the Most Active Times section. This will help you determine the best time to post, so your content reaches the maximum number of your followers.
By the way, Adam Mosseri himself recommends posting one hour before your audience’s peak activity to maximize engagement. Give it a try!
Even if you’ve found a way to bend the algorithms to your will, experimenting with different content formats can only improve the situation. If you’ve determined that Reels work best for your audience, try figuring out what type of Reels will resonate most.
There are 3 main content formats to choose from: educational, entertaining, and lifestyle-focused. Educational content is the source of knowledge and value for your audience, so people will likely share or save these posts. They may even apply it in their real life! On the opposite side of the spectrum, entertaining content is usually short, light, and has a touch of humor. Last but not least, lifestyle content works best for personal accounts or when a business owner wants to brand themselves, as a person.
Testing various content styles helps identify what truly engages your audience. However, if you start with expert-driven content but suddenly switch to entertainment-focused posts, don’t be surprised if your reach declines. The algorithm has already identified an audience interested in educational content and that’s who it targets with your posts. If these people then suddenly see a different type of content, they may not engage as actively causing your reach to drop.
I used to make TikTok videos for alcohol brands, and my content was based on expertise. After I stopped working with these brands, they switched to posting funny videos, and their reach dropped. The reason for this is that the algorithm previously optimized itself to show this profile’s content to an audience interested in expert content, and that’s what the people expected. Changing to a completely different style was a mistake, and that led to a noticeable decline in views.
Likes, comments, and shares heavily influence how algorithms rank content. That’s why I frequently use engagement-driven content. For example, lead-magnets with CTAs like “Comment to receive a freebie.” A freebie in question can be access to an online course, a checklist, or a guide, so it’s a versatile engagement tactic. This strategy raises loyalty — your followers see that they often get something valuable after subscribing to your page — and also helps the content rank higher in users’ feeds.
Here’s an example of the type of content we create, where we ask viewers to leave a comment in exchange for a gift (here, it’s a checklist). We do this 4-5 times a month, and it “trains” our audience to interact more with our posts.
Social media platforms constantly introduce new features. Common parts of social media like Stories, Reels, and live broadcasts were all once new. Maybe something else is right around the corner! It’s hard to know everything in advance, but whenever changes hit, I make sure to adopt the new tools early. They can increase reach and attract new audiences, as platforms tend to promote content using their latest features.
Also, don’t overlook cross-posting. A short video created for Instagram can also be shared on TikTok and YouTube Shorts. Of course, ideally, you need to create unique content for each platform, but cross-posting is an easy way to test which formats perform best on different platforms. Sometimes, content that doesn’t gain traction on Instagram might perform exceptionally well on TikTok or vice versa.
For example, we used cross-posting to test whether a specific video format performs better in the Shorts algorithm than in Reels. So, we ran an experiment: we posted the same content on both YouTube and Instagram. The exact same video performed significantly better on Shorts than on Reels. And that gave us the insight we need to understand which content type is better for which social media platform.
Many remote workers and freelance social media marketers struggle with creative burnout or a lack of fresh perspectives, especially if they don’t have colleagues to brainstorm with. When you work from the office, you can almost literally exchange energy, learn from each other, and inspire each other. That’s why education matters, for remote and independent marketers like me in particular. Courses and conferences feed my creative energy, give me new perspectives, and are also great for networking. Otherwise, you risk being stuck in an echo chamber and stagnating.
I don’t just watch YouTube videos about trends and algorithms, I also invest in consultations with experts. This was the biggest help to my professional growth, refined my strategy, and brought great results. Recently, I’ve taken a course on Instagram sales funnels for my work. I can now create funnels that make users coming from ads engage with our content, watch stories, gradually warm up, and eventually sign up for the service. Education is so important because it expands understanding and makes work that much more effective.
Yes, I get it, sometimes you just want to ignore all these algorithm changes and keep doing things the way you always have. But, like it or not, that’s not how it works anymore. We have to adapt. Think of it as a game! You just need to level up and unlock new achievements. And in this case, that means getting more reach, more likes, and more followers. Our brains naturally resist change, and that’s totally normal. But once you get into it, you won’t want to stop. And before you know it, you will conquer any current and future social network algorithms!
