How to get more Instagram reach, according to Adam Mosseri

Welcome to Make It Go Viral, the weekly newsletter from Pennant Digital social media director Anna Fogel. If this edition equipped you with some new ideas to share with your boss when they ask why reach is declining on IG, please share it with someone you love.

Adam Mosseri’s face has been appearing in my feed more and more over the last few months. Whether the Head of Instagram is sharing a general Meta update, unveiling a new feature for one of the platforms, or sharing tips and tricks to improve performance, there’s one common thread among his comments section and that is users grumbling about reach.?

From “Just another sweet sweet day where you ignore the massive issues with reach everyone is upset about ??” to “Or you could just bring the old instagram back and give us the reach we used to have and worked so hard for…” to my personal favorite “Fix reach amigo,” the comments are consistent and relentless.?

Instagram is never going back to the way it used to be, unfortunately, but in between some new rollouts nobody asked for, Mosseri is trying to share tips for creators to get back to their reach numbers of yesteryear. Here are the most important and actionable items:?

October 17th, 2024 - Post more carousels to increase reach?

Takeaway: With multiple slides, you’re increasing the opportunity for interactions, which means higher reach. And if someone doesn’t swipe the first time they see a carousel, Instagram will give it a second chance, automatically moving to the second slide for users.?

Action: Content should feel cohesive but if each slide can stand on its own, that’s even better for sharing purposes. It’s also worth thinking about how your second slide would appear independently. If you make it as compelling as a title slide, you’re likely to get more engagement when it’s shown again in users’ feeds.?

(Plus, carousels and photos with music are now also eligible to appear in the Reels tab, which feels like a reach cheat code)

October 1st, 2024 - Best practices for creators?

Takeaway: Meta created an in-app guidebook for creators focusing on Creation, Engagement, Reach, Monetization, and Guidelines.?

Action: Somewhat personalized, but fairly generic at the same time (ex: Your recent reels got 17M views. Keep working to improve your reach by consistently creating reels you think your audience will want to engage with). Set a calendar reminder to check this dashboard for changes every couple weeks.

October 4th, 2024 - The first 3 seconds of a reel are hugely important?

Takeaway: Users are flooded with content every time they open the app, so it’s on you to capture their attention in the first few seconds of a reel.?

Action: Mosseri recommends using text in reels because a lot of viewers actually have their sound off to start. This also sets expectations and give users an idea of what they’re about to watch.?

September 27th, 2024 - Remove any watermarks on videos

Takeaway: It’s completely fine to edit videos in third-party apps (or even re-purpose videos from other apps like TikTok), but be sure to remove watermarks or else risk a lower reach.?

Action: For those who love editing in CapCut, this is your official excuse to not change a thing.?

September 9th, 2024 - The importance (or lack thereof) of cover photos for reels

Takeaway: Do cover photos matter for reels? Yes. Are they the difference between a great reel and a dud? No. The cover photo will only be shown on someone’s profile or on the Explore tab, but most of the reach for an account comes from the feed or recommendations.?

Action: It’s important to choose or create a cover photo that makes it clear what the video is about, but in the grand scheme of reach, they aren’t going to sway things too greatly.?

ICYMI:

• The long and the short of it: Shorts up to 3 minutes long have started rolling out on YouTube, but it could take a few weeks for these longer videos to start showing up in your Shorts tab.?
• You can scroll, but you can’t hide: Threads is adding an activity status that will let you see when someone on the platform is online.?
• A library, but with a lot more memes. Instagram is reportedly working on a social library that would house posts and reels you’ve shared and received in messages.??
• X announced that public posts will now be viewable to people you’ve blocked – but they won’t be able to engage with the posts.

LIKE/RETWEET/SHARE/ETC

Last week, a story went viral after songwriter Evan Bogart revealed there are numerous popular song titles from the 1980s hidden in the second verse of Rihanna’s 2006 hit ‘SOS.’ The revelation was made on the most recent episode of Daniel Wall 's ‘Behind the Wall’ podcast. The story blew up with Rolling Stone, Complex, Buzzfeed, and so many more publications aggregating the clip, but here’s how Daniel Wall’s team kickstarted the frenzy with excellent social posts:

• A widely unknown music “secret,” a huge name in Rihanna, and a little dash of nostalgia. This story was begging for millions of views and to be packaged nicely. Daniel Wall accomplished both of those as the TikTok racked up 23 million views.?
• If Daniel Wall didn’t turn this into a viral social clip, someone else would have. They got to own the moment by presenting it in a clean and engaging 37-second video.?
• The music video pop-ins merged with the song titles and Bogart’s storytelling elevates the whole thing from a cool soundbite to a totally dynamic story with a clear beginning and ending.
• “When I wrote it I had no idea what I was doing” and then immediately transitioning to the ‘SOS’ video is an incredibly strong hook. Mr. Mosseri would be proud of those first 3 seconds.?
• Nothing supercharges a podcast's discoverability like a well-executed social cutdown. By creating an incredibly shareable clip, they opened the doors to a whole new audience.?

Make it work for you: It’s all about the shares. No matter the content, shares are still king and if you can make things that people are going to want to share with their friends, good things will happen.?

When it comes to excellent social posts to highlight, we’re spoiled with riches on Instagram, TikTok, and even X. Facebook, however, is a different story. The platform is in the midst of an identity crisis and many pages are still figuring out how to get the most of their followings – especially because links are not what they used to be. Enter: Goodreads . Here’s how ‘the world’s largest community of book lovers’ has found a cozy corner of FB to occupy.?

• Community is everything to Goodreads, and their Facebook presence reflects that. They post a text question about once a day with the goal of generating thoughtful conversation and the results are impressive.?

• Goodreads’ FB strategy keeps their users at the forefront. Every one of their followers might not like the same books, but they do all love talking about books and every text prompt is written with that notion in mind.?

• They also post links, images, and videos on the page to keep a healthy content mix, but it is the text posts that drive the most significant engagement.

• The page has over a million followers and this is a great way to not only reward that community, but also give them a reason to stick around. So many legacy FB pages have built up these massive followings, but aren’t sure how to maximize engagement anymore. Goodreads has nicely pivoted and found a warm and inviting strategy that is effective.??

Make it work for you: Leverage what your audience is passionate about by giving them an excuse to discuss it. These may seem like simple questions, but there’s nothing wrong with simple when it brings in thousands of comments per day.

Post of the week

On a scale of 1 to this SNL TikTok sketch, how chronically online are you? Post of the week bonus points for SNL also rolling out each individual skit as its own TikTok.