Without further ado, let’s get into it. Here are 4 main factors that decide how fast you grow on Instagram according to Mosseri.

A crucial factor to your growth is reach. That is how many impressions your content gets. But it’s only a means to an end, it's not an end in and of itself.

If you want to grow on Instagram, you should be very aware of what underpins your reach. Which type of shares are preeminent out of all the impressions your post gets?

1. Connected shares - shares by accounts that follow you.

2. Non-connected shares - shares by accounts that do not follow you.

As you already might expect, shares by accounts that do not follow you are more valuable for the algorithm.

A good way to increase this metric is adding a call to action to share your post or gamify sharing. Simple, but smart hack to remember.

Instagram divides accounts by their type: creator or business. Creator accounts are personal, business accounts belong to corporations.

The preferred account type to grow on Instagram is creator. Instagram leans heavily towards solo creators, and they’re not hiding it. Why? They believe creators to bring more authentic value by producing original content. Compared to business accounts that have an unfair advantage in terms of resources and are biased towards their own product or service.

If you’re a brand, this should make you rethink your content and social media strategy. Evaluate what type of content you should post from the business account and what you should leave to influencer partnerships. It’s worth considering whether you should build a personal brand to better grow on Instagram.

If you really want to grow on Instagram, you should pay attention to this. Instagram differentiates content by originality: creator vs aggregator content. Creators are the source of created content and aggregators are the ones who share others’ original content.  

In terms of the algorithm, the content priority is as follows:

1. original - content created solely by you;

2. mixed original - you take someone else’s content and add your touch. e.g. use a green screen and put an overlay on it;

3. non-original - shared, not created content; you take someone else’s content and add nothing to it.

How do they define what’s original? Originality is determined based on the content ID system - each post or reel is given an ID. When the post or reel is shared, it’s still connected to the original content ID.

My take: things might get tricky when an aggregator creates their own original content by taking bits and pieces from yours, without sharing it directly from the source. The ID is now different, but the actual content is the same. In that case, the ID system falls flat on its back, being unable to track original content.

Post replacement value is, in fact, one of the most important factors to determine how fast you grow on Instagram. It’s calculated based on your content type described in the previous chapter.

The more original your content is, the higher its replacement value. What does that mean? The algorithm continuously suggests content to different accounts. If you create original content, i.e. from scratch, your posts are more likely to get suggested to new accounts.

Let’s take sports highlights as an example.

• Account A - athlete’s personal account
• Account B - highlights’ aggregator account

Account A aka the athlete posts a reel about scoring a crazy goal in football. Account B shares it in their feed alongside other football highlights. When the algorithm makes suggestions to accounts who are interested in football highlights, account A is preferred. Why? It’s a personal account that creates original content. Fair and square.

Instagram has made efforts to develop a revenue sharing programme just like YouTube or TikTok. But there are several pitfalls slowing down its roll-out.

First of all, it’s tough to predict the content replacement value. That’s not a standalone factor, but is revealed as content gets shared in the network. It’s dynamic and doesn’t only rely on the creator itself, but in relation to what’s created by others on the platform.

Here’s an example. The creator makes 10 posts and reaches 500,000 accounts. On paper, this is clear. Now, what if 25% of the reach comes from replaced content? That is, not from organic reach the posts get, but from being replaced in someone’s feed as suggested content?

The value created for Instagram is different depending on how replaceable your content is. And they haven’t yet figured out how to monetise this.

What it looks like from the outside, though, is that the algorithm has so many complexity levels that Instagram aren’t able to keep up with it. Feels like the algorithm has already outsmarted them.

Secondly, what’s stopping the launch of the revenue sharing programme is stability. They want to be sure it will be sustainable in the long run.

Instagram is in a different position than competitors. For example, YouTube is a subsidiary of Google, which is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. It’s a huge ecosystem and YouTube is not the main revenue driver inside the group, Google is. Google Ads make up nearly 80% of Alphabet’s revenue.

Inside the Meta group, Facebook and Instagram are main revenue sources to fund other subsidiaries. That’s why there’s a higher business risk involved.

Since Instagram don’t want to send mixed signals to creators, they’ve been holding back the revenue sharing programme. Props to them for that.

If you found this content useful, you should check out my post about the best content marketing strategies to earn audience attention.

If you want to grow your brand with some simple hacks anyone can do, let me know. Get a head start, because many tech companies are missing out on this!

Are you ready to shift gears? I’d be happy to help you out with creative input for your content and social media marketing.