Is Instagram Sabotaging Your Reach?
Staying on top of Instagram’s updates is essential for maximising performance and making the most of your strategies. Instagram recently introduced three significant updates that could impact how you manage your audience, analyse your performance, and engage with your followers. Here’s a breakdown.
Easier Removal of Inactive Profiles
Have you ever wondered how inactive followers impact your metrics? Instagram is now making it easier to identify and remove these profiles. When you navigate to your "Followers" list, you'll notice a new category that flags deactivated accounts and profiles under review.
Why should you care?
Inactive accounts can skew your engagement rates, as these are often calculated by dividing interactions by your total followers. While Instagram is shifting towards “views” as a primary performance metric, engagement remains a vital KPI for many brands.
If your ad campaigns rely on audiences similar to your current followers, inactive accounts could lead to less effective targeting. Removing these profiles ensures you’re reaching an active and relevant audience.
A New Home for Stories Highlights
Story Highlights are moving! Instagram is rolling out a dedicated tab for your Highlights, signified by a rounded heart icon.
What’s changing?
Instead of the Highlights bubbles appearing above your profile grid, they’ll now have their own tab within your profile.
Each Highlight will display as a vertical thumbnail, making it easier for users to navigate your Stories.
Although the exact placement within the feed isn’t fully clarified, this change could give Highlights greater visibility and help showcase your brand’s evergreen content more effectively.
No, Instagram Doesn’t Downrank Sponsored Content
If you’ve hesitated to tag content as “sponsored” out of fear of reduced reach, Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, has set the record straight:
“We don’t downrank posts that you mark as sponsored. It helps us understand Instagram to know what is sponsored, but it’s important for creators to mark things as sponsored without fear of downranking so that they can comply with local laws all around the world.”
So why does it sometimes feel like sponsored posts perform worse?
It could be due to user behaviour. Seeing a “Sponsored” tag might make some users less likely to engage, creating a perception of reduced reach.
This isn't a penalty from Instagram - it’s a side effect of how audiences interact with promotional content.
For marketers, the takeaway is clear: By staying ahead of these changes - whether it’s cleaning up your follower list or rethinking your Story Highlights strategy - you’ll be better equipped to make the most of Instagram’s evolving features once they roll-out.
