instagram recently updated their
algorithm and if you don't pivot and
adjust your marketing strategy you're
going to take a massive hit both to the
amount of people that your content is
going to get in front of as well as the
number of new followers you're going to
be able to attract in fact one of the
biggest reasons that people complain
about seeing their reach and engagement
and followers on instagram declining and
going down is simply because they don't
understand the few simple things that
i'm going to be sharing with you here in
this video and failing to make these
changes makes it nearly impossible to
grow or have any kind of success on
instagram at all so let me show you how
it's done starting by first covering the
only two kinds of content you should be
posting on instagram right now reels and
carousels here's the deal instagram has
one goal and one goal only i mean sure
their official mission statement is to
capture and share the world's moments
but the real goal is far more practical
and capitalistic that is to make money
no surprise there i hope after all
that's the goal of every business and
the way that instagram makes money is
through advertising which means they
need two things to succeed first they
need advertisers people willing to pay
money to put their ads in front of
people and next they need people to show
those ads too and that's the key to this
whole thing the better a job that
instagram can do to keep more people on
the platform for longer the more ads
they can show and the more money they
can make and this is why reels and
carousels are the only two kinds of
content you should be creating right now
because reels and carousels have the
highest engagement time which gives
instagram more time to serve more people
more ads on the flip side the reason
that single image posts on your feed are
so difficult to succeed with right now
is because they simply don't take that
long for a viewer to consume there's one
exception to this that just got
announced so if you still want to post
single images this may be your golden
opportunity but i'll talk more about
that at the end for now just know that
instagram has updated their algorithm
and is giving more weight to reels and
to carousels so by creating this kind of
content you're helping them and in
return they'll help you by showing it to
even more people and if i had to pick a
winner between reels and carousels i'd
have to pick reels every single time not
only because they're going to keep
people more engaged but also because
they're video and instagram has said
repeatedly now that they're no longer a
photo sharing app the future for
instagram is video but today i actually
want to talk a bit more about video and
i want to start by saying we're no
longer a photo sharing app or a square
photo sharing app so now that we've got
that settled let me show you a few ways
to optimize your new reels content for
this updated algorithm and it all starts
by first understanding an important
metric that instagram is looking for in
your reels and how you can perfectly
engineer your content to go viral the
first thing that instagram wants to see
in your reels is watch time and
specifically 100 watch time and that
makes sense i mean after all what
platform wouldn't want a viewer to watch
100 of the content put in front of them
but what's interesting is how much
weight they appear to be giving this
metric especially when compared to other
often equally important video metrics so
let me break that down you see when it
comes to analyzing a piece of video
content the algorithms typically look at
a few different metrics among them are
views watch time and average view
duration or avd now they all kind of
sound the same but they're actually
pretty different and they're important
to understand not only today to help you
have greater success on the platform but
also when things change in the future
because they definitely will so you can
be positioned in the best possible way
to capitalize on whatever new metric
they're optimizing for so here's the
basics real quick views are simple they
really are just how many views a video
gets sometimes these autoplay like in
the case of reels when you swipe through
them and sometimes they require clicking
to play like most youtube videos on the
home page next is watch time this is the
total amount of time someone spends
watching a video measured in minutes and
seconds so a 10 second reel can never
have more than a 10 second watch time
then you have average view duration also
known as avd this is the total watch
time of your video divided by the total
number of video plays including replays
essentially it's trying to see how much
of your video someone watched before
scrolling onto the next one 100 means
they watched the whole thing and 10
means they skipped off pretty quick
which isn't a good sign now this could
change in the future but at least for
now it appears that instagram is
favoring shorter videos with 100 average
view duration over longer videos with
only 20 or 30 average view duration in
other words this is more of a hack than
a long-term strategy because things
could and probably will change in the
future but at least for now it's worth
testing reels that are shorter in length
around say five to 10 seconds and the
goal with these shorter reels is to get
them to loop or in other words to have
people watch them again and again and
again so here's how to do that the most
important part of any video or post or
piece of content is the hook the big
idea the thing that captures their
attention and triggers their curiosity
for your reels you obviously want to
make sure that the video itself is hooky
enough meaning it's interesting
entertaining educational or relevant to
the people that you're trying to get in
front of but you also want to put your
hook in the first line of your caption
because one of the biggest goals of your
caption is to get them to spend enough
time reading it so your video can play
and loop automatically in the background
it's kind of sneaky but it works and
honestly it's not really that sneaky
after all as long as you're providing
good value and actually helping someone
well the more time they spend with you
the better in turn instagram will see
that people are looping your video and
watching it again and again and again
which is a powerful viral signal that'll
indicate that they need to share it out
and show it to even more people but
there's another trick you can do as well
if you want to push the limits a little
bit and try out longer reels of 20
seconds 30 seconds maybe even 60 seconds
and that's to ramp up a little known
something called the rate of revelation
one of the best ways to hook people fast
and keep them engaged throughout your
content whether it's a blog post a
podcast or a video is by increasing the
pacing of it and the overall speed that
you're delivering insights the fancy
term for this is called rate of
revelation which is how fast you're
delivering new insights content with a
slow rate of revelation takes forever to
get into it seems to drag on for hours
and hours without presenting anything
new and it makes you feel like you're
stuck in one of those awkward
conversations with one of those people
that just doesn't seem to be getting the
hint a fast rate of revelation on the
other hand means non-stop value a
constant and steady stream of new and
exciting information all delivered at a
rate that's almost too fast to keep up
with and that requires them to watch it
over and over again just to make sure
they didn't miss anything and on that
note remember earlier when i said
there's one exception to this that just
got announced so if you still want to
post single images this may be your
golden opportunity but i'll talk more
about that at the end well my friend
that time has come so here's what's
going on instagram has just announced
that they're about to test out a
different way of displaying images on
their platform specifically that they're
going to be testing tall images so 9x16
or vertical like a real but image form
not video where both photos and videos
take up more of your screen now these
are early days so this may stick around
or it may not but the big takeaway is
that any time a platform like instagram
launches or rolls out a new feature well
they give that new feature a little
extra push or big extra push and they do
this to encourage enough new people to
actually try it out and to make sure
that enough people see it so they can
get some relevant and valid feedback
this means there may be an opportunity
here to do a bit of a land grab and to
take away some market share from slower
people who are yet to figure this out or
to adopt it into their strategy of
course the best way to make sure that
you're taking advantage of this
opportunity as well as all of the other
ones that instagram has to offer is to
make sure that you've got a solid
instagram marketing strategy in place
and this is why the next thing you're
going to want to do is check out the
video i've got linked up right here on
my best instagram marketing strategy so
make sure to check it out now and i'll
see in the next video now the way to
develop a brand plan for instagram is to
follow the three c's of consistency
clarity and congruence so let me explain
those now consistency simply means that
you're consistent with your content as
well as with your engagement on the
platform so are you regularly posting
content and are you