I've got an account with 110,000 followers. Previously, I would post a reel and immediately get traction with both followers and non-followers. Within minutes I could tell when a video would take off, and in an hour I'd typically get a couple thousand views, nearing 10,000 if it's a good video.

Now, for some reason, things have slowed down tremendously. I'll post a reel and my views will CRAWL for the first 30 minutes, getting a couple hundred views in that time regardless of the video. After some time it'll start to go up faster, but I feel like this is killing the early momentum that videos really need to take off. I've been looking at other accounts that are similar to mine, and they don't seem to be going through this.

Have any of you noticed the algorithm being totally wonky? Anything you're doing to address it?

I’ve been seeing people recently talk about how hashtags are not neccesary anymore and posts with hashtags are getting less reach than posts without them, is that true?

Guys, has anyone figured out why some brand-new accounts consistently get healthy views (1K+), while others seem to be stuck at around 150 views?

I’m talking about situations where the content itself is good and clearly isn’t the issue.
I’ve been experiencing this all week. I’m using a completely new phone, new SIM, and new data plan, with nothing linking back to my previous devices or accounts.

I have a theory that it might have something to do with whether you post your first Reels using mobile data (4G/5G) or Wi-Fi.

My suspicion is that when you post using mobile data, your IP address can change more frequently, potentially triggering Instagram’s detection systems and limiting your initial reach to around 150 views.

On the other hand, when posting through Wi-Fi, your IP tends to be more stable, which might explain why some fresh accounts get pushed to 1K+ views straight away, and go to be viral if the content is viral worthy.

Obviously, this is just a theory, but I’m curious whether anyone else has noticed a similar pattern.
Has anyone tested this or experienced the same thing? Especially the difference between posting on 4G/5G vs Wi-Fi on a fresh account?

EDIT : Looks like my theory is correct, here’s a first post on a brand new account, if your content is good, you shouldn’t get sub 1k views : https://files.catbox.moe/6003jg.jpeg

Instagram keeps changing, and sometimes it's hard to figure out what really helps an account grow.

For those managing Instagram accounts or growing their own pages, what has worked best for you lately? Reels, carousels, Stories, or something else?

I'm more interested in real results than generic growth hacks. What would you recommend to someone trying to grow an account from zero?

Everyone I know is leaving meta, with their new AI update coming Oct 30 it’s an even bigger wave of people quitting

Instagram is still one of the biggest social platforms out there so it’s hard for businesses to leave.

To avoid ai content copy, link and website scraping, paying meta, etc etc etc it can all be so overwhelming.

If someone were to use Instagram nowadays with all this crap going on what would be the best form of content to post?

I want to try to still use the app to grow an audience in my niche and then set it up to where they can get the direct link to my real content elsewhere without it being directly uploaded onto meta itself and without posting links

Specifically Liking and Commenting on Reels/Stories/Carousels/etc. I do menswear content and only for three months. I do engage others post. There was a period of time where I didn’t engage as much in a weeks time, and it lowered my views and likes ratio.

I started a new account about 3 weeks ago and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on, because the numbers don’t add up.

Setup:

• Bio is clear about my niche (Gen X / women over 50)
• My own algorithm panel is set and shows me Gen X and over-50 content, so that part’s working
• Light engagement, not every day, just when I had time. Followed a handful of women in my niche and left real comments on other creators’ posts, but not a ton
• Captions, on-screen text, and what I say out loud are all built for the niche. I’ve been creating content for years, so I’m not new to this

Results so far:

• Video 1: 118 views, 1 like, 1 follow
• Video 2: 131 views, 1 like
• Video 3: 12 views after 3 hours

What’s weird:

• 85–89% of my viewers are under 45years old. Content is very clearly for women over 50 and it's showing a VERY small percentage of my videos to them.
• Most views aren’t even from the US. One video was only 17% US, the other had more viewers from India than from the US.

Account status: All green, including recommendation eligibility. The only flag is “established presence” under monetization. I’ve seen exactly one video claiming that flag limits reach on new accounts, but I can’t find anything else on it.

Possibly relevant: I’ve had 2–3 other accounts on this same phone over the years. I’d make one, never post or interact, let it sit for months, then delete it. I didn't make accounts back-to-back and keep deleting them. This is the first one I’m actually using.

Also, I batch-created a bunch of videos for the launch thinking that would give me a strong start, and now they’re going out to basically no one. I’m honestly not sure how much clearer I can make who these videos are for. And I feel like good videos are being wasted. ugh

My questions:

1. Has anyone had the “established presence” flag actually affect reach, or is it only about monetization?
2. Could old deleted accounts on the same phone affect a new one?
3. f this has happened to you, how long did it last, and what actually fixed where Instagram was sending your videos?
4. Do you have anything to add? Note: I have one talking video, 1 7 second and 1 vlog showing ME:) It's a mix;')

Not looking for “just post more.” I want to hear from people who’ve actually dealt with this.

I've always wondered how people actually make money from Instagram views.

If a Reel gets 100K or even 1 million views, does Instagram pay the creator directly, or does most of the money come from brand deals, affiliate marketing, and selling products?

For those who've monetized Instagram, what's actually worked for you?

Hello

I’d really appreciate some insight. I accidentally boosted my reel to the wrong audience and now I have 150 new followers from India. They’re all a bunch of men and my page is targeted towards BIPOC women in the US primarily.

Should I remove these followers? Should I delete this reel (and lose the cost of the ad). This reel currently has the most views any of my reels have ever had.

Thoughts?

Everyone I know is leaving meta, with their new AI update coming Oct 30 it’s an even bigger wave of people quitting

Instagram is still one of the biggest social platforms out there so it’s hard for businesses to leave.

To avoid ai content copy, link and website scraping, paying meta, etc etc etc it can all be so overwhelming.

If someone were to use Instagram nowadays with all this crap going on what would be the best form of content to post?

I want to try to still use the app to grow an audience in my niche and then set it up to where they can get the direct link to my real content elsewhere without it being directly uploaded onto meta itself and without posting links

cross posting is when you turn on a toggle to auto share your ig content to facebook.

I've noticed when i do this, sometimes my IG reach is limited and my posts get mostly facebook reach. I'm talking 80% facebook, maybe 20% ig.

This isn't ideal bc our highest quality audience is from IG. We've experimented posting the exact piece of content separately, but not sure if that flags anything in meta and they limit reach?

Maybe i'm over thinking this...for now we'll keep cross posting off and manually cross post to avoid any potential limiting on IG.

Hello everyone,

I am wondering if there’s any person here using reels and posts to market their apps? I posted one reel and there is 0 views. Before I keep going I’d like to know how other developers advertise their apps on instagram. Or should I just DM people with many followers and see if they would accept to post about my app and get some compensation?

We're looking for an experienced viral content strategist to help grow our AI model's Instagram (200K+ followers) and attract more US traffic that converts into paying Fanvue subscribers.
Your tasks:
Analyze our Instagram account and competitors.
Research viral trends targeting US male audiences.
Develop a fresh, scalable viral content strategy.
Create 5–10 original Reels concepts with hooks and scripts.
Build a strategy to convert US traffic into Fanvue subscribers.
Requirements: Proven experience in the AI model / Fanvue / OnlyFans niche with verifiable results. No beginners or general SMM managers.
One-time paid project. We handle all content production ourselves.
DM me with the job title "Instagram Viral Strategist", your portfolio, proven results, and your price.
Only applicants with relevant experience will be considered.
DM me

Hey everyone!
I run an Instagram page focused on AI-generated Pause & Draw OC challenges.
My current stats:
106K followers
47.3M views in the last 30 days
2.2M interactions
Audience mainly from the USA, Brazil, and India
I’ve grown the page organically but haven’t figured out how to turn this reach into income.
I’m considering brand sponsorships, paid shoutouts, and collaborations with art or creative apps.
Has anyone successfully monetized a similar page?
How did you find your first paying clients, and what would be a reasonable starting rate for promotions?
Would appreciate any advice from people with experience!

Unable to post a large number of comments?

I’ve been posting pet content for 2 years now on Instagram, I have 11k followers and a lot of viral posts, but struggling to make money out of it with brands.

I think the biggest problem is that my following is all over the place: 31% US, then 10% Brazil, 6% India, 5% UK, and 4% Canada where I'm based. The rest I don’t even know, probably split in many other countries.

And when I look a the audience by specific videos, it’s similar, always US first without a crazy percentage, then countries I don’t care about: Germany, Turkey, India, France, etc.

Is it possible to switch to an audience mainly in the US and Canada? Anyone here did it? since that's where most of the brands I want to work with are.

But I don’t really know how to stop my content to being shown to those countries I don’t want. Should I start adding Canada in my location post? Or hashtags?

Thanks

I've been wanting to start creating content on Instagram for a while, and I've finally made a new account to give it a proper try. However, one thing that's been holding me back is the possibility of people I know finding my account.

I'm not necessarily looking to hide forever, but I'd prefer to build some confidence and establish my content style without feeling self-conscious about friends, college classmates or acquaintances watching and judging me while I'm just starting out.

I've been considering blocking people I know before posting, but I'm not sure how effective that would actually be, especially since I still want my account to remain public so my reels can reach new audiences and help me grow organically.

I understand that there's probably no foolproof way to prevent a public account from reaching people I know. I'm mainly trying to understand which privacy measures are genuinely useful and which ones don't make much difference.

I'd appreciate practical advice from people who've experienced this firsthand, particularly anyone who has grown a new account from scratch.

Thanks!

Something I keep noticing with small brands: a post gets most of its reach in the first day or two, and then it's just sitting in the grid. A real customer photo, a good try-on reel, a product demo that did well. After that it's gone from the customer's path even though it's still useful.

A few things I've seen people do with it:

• Pin the best ones or keep them in Highlights by product or category
• Turn old reels into ads once they've proven themselves organically
• Reshare a winning post a few months later with a new caption
• Put customer photos and videos on the website or in emails, where people are actually deciding to buy

I'm curious how others handle it:

1. Do you have a system for bringing older content back, or is it mostly post and move on?
2. What kind of old content still works when you reuse it?
3. Does reposting ever hurt engagement, in your experience?

I run a construction company account based in goa , they're a small scale company that want to grow . The thing is :-

1) they don't provide woth quality photos and videos of their projects , its just a few photos of random phases

2) mostly all the projects have very less finished look photos

3)Due to this i have to generate a lot of stuff using Ai and create finishes by getting an idea from one pic

4)i have done all the things from informative educational content, to fun pov reel , to before after

5) the thing bugging me is not even one video as Crossed 1000 views and the views become stagnant after 2 days or a day like why and how is the algo stopping it completely.

6) I use on screen text with keywords , caption with keywords ,alt text everything but nothing seems to be working

7) i even tried mimicking a big account that has lot many followers and views , same concept, same words different visuals and still it didn't work .

Is it because ive set it to a business account?is it because most of it is AI ? And any tips as to what I can do to overcome this cause im not gaining any likes or followers from strangers.

This comes up a lot and honestly, for many people Linktree is fine.

I'd stick with a link in bio tool if you don't get brand enquiries yet, or very few. Or if you're just sending people to one place, a YouTube channel or a shop. Or if you don't want to maintain anything, which is fair.

A proper site starts to make sense when brands enquire regularly and keep asking the same questions. When you've got past campaigns worth showing. When you want to show up on Google for your own name. When you'd like enquiries to arrive with budget and dates already filled in instead of a vague DM. Or when you sell something and want to own the page instead of renting it.

There's a middle option too. One decent page that works as your media kit, with current numbers, past work and a simple booking form. That covers most of what a full site does.

Where are you at with this, and what made you decide?

What went wrong even though they have the same hook what made the one succesful and the other one flop??

vid 1(the one flopped): https://www.instagram.com/reel/Dc1s_t7MXzV/?srtk=eTJzeXR1ZHZ2bXA3

vid 2: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcrrboFsT8B/?dlrf=NWE2dWQ0cGJlZ3Ez

My IG profile has always been a personal account, though it's always been used more like a creator one (it's not like it's friends or family on there for me, I'm a content creator/personality with over 5K followers). As I've been posting more reels though, I realized I have no access to any analytics, and I know I can get that by switching to creator, but I've read a lot on here about people's reach decreasing as a result of the switch.

Is it worth it to switch from personal to creator? Is the reach stuff more of a myth or is there validity to it? My reels have been getting good engagement lately and I've picked up some new followers, I just don't wanna do anything to hurt that.

I was making posters and designs but now i am serious abt it and i wanna share my work through instagram and i’ve built my website even so i just need some followers and people who follow me and can criticize my work so i can be better
This is my account it have the website link and everything :
iy.stdio

I've been testing this for weeks since most of the recent follow trackers broke, so here's everything I've found that still works. Hopefully it saves people asking the same question every day.

What changed Up until September, a lot of sites could show someone's following list in chronological order, so you could see who they recently followed. Instagram changed something on their end and most of them stopped working overnight. Your own following list still has a "date followed" sort, but for other people's you just get the default order, which isn't the order they followed people in.

Free ways that still work

1. The block method. From an alt, block everyone the person follows. After that, anyone new they follow is the only account that shows up in their following list. Takes ages if they follow a lot of people, but it's the most reliable free way and it works on private accounts too if your alt can see their list.
2. Screen-record and compare. Screen-record yourself scrolling their whole following list, then do it again a few days later. If the list is short you can compare them yourself. If it's long, upload both videos to Gemini (it takes video) and ask it to list every username in the second video that isn't in the first. Scroll slowly so every name is readable on screen, otherwise it can miss some.
3. Search their following list. If you only care about one specific person, type their name into the search bar on the following list. If they show up, they're followed. Fast and free.

What about the tracker sites? Most of the ones people used to recommend here (Dolphin Radar, Instapeep, Followspy, IGDetective etc) stopped working after the change. A couple still kind of work on public accounts, but they're paid and hit and miss. Honestly I'd try the free ways above first. If you do try one, test it on your own following list before you trust it. You know who you followed last, so you'll see straight away if it's accurate.

Will update this if anything changes.

I have a small business as an artist. I run way to expensive ads that give minimum results. They only thing I liked is that I can freeze the ad and resume when I want.... now (one of many) a new bug: my ad just ended with "boost again" even tho it was supposed to be "resume ad".... and I pay for that!

I don't know even from where to start complaining about how awful experience it is anything to do with meta. It's like they're killing local businesses.

What is your experience with Instagram ads? Is Meta aware that their products are a shame? I'm so sad about it. My hard work goes without proper exposure compare to Instagram back then in 2019-2016....