Instagram success in 2024: The ultimate guide based on Adam Mosseri's insights

Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, regularly shares valuable tips and insights on how the platform works on Instagram. This blog post summarises his key advice and gives you a complete guide to Instagram success in 2024.

I. The basics of your Instagram success:

• Engagement over followers: Mosseri keeps stressing that your engagement rate (likes, comments, shares, saves, sends) matters more than your raw follower count. A high engagement rate shows that your content lands with your target audience and creates real interest. Focus on quality interaction, not quantity growth. One engaged follower is worth more than a hundred passive followers.

• Define your goals and use features: Before you use different Instagram features, define your marketing goals clearly. What do you want to achieve with Instagram? Increase brand awareness? Raise revenue? Generate leads? Once your goals are clear, you can use the right features with purpose. Avoid unnecessary features that only distract you and pull you away from your core strategy. Focus on the tools that will help you succeed most effectively.

• Understand your target audience: Your success depends heavily on understanding your target audience in depth. Who are your ideal customers? What are their interests? What problems do you solve for them? Create buyer personas to get a clear picture of your audience. Create content that fits both your marketing goals and the needs and interests of your followers. This overlap is the key to organic growth and successful customer engagement.

• Measure success over the long term: Do not track the success of your posts only over the first two days. Track them for at least one week, ideally two or three. Some content only develops later into evergreen content that generates engagement over a longer period. Analyse the data over a longer time frame to get a fuller picture of your campaign’s success.

• Active community interaction: Respond to comments within the first week to drive engagement and build a strong community. Show your followers that you value their views and interact with them actively. This builds loyalty and trust. Do not only respond to positive feedback. Respond to constructive criticism as well.

• Sustainability over quantity: Posting more often increases your reach, but avoid an unsustainable pace. Find a rhythm that is sustainable for you in the long term and allows you to create high-quality content without burning out. Quality over quantity should always come first.

• Continuous testing (A/B testing): There is no one-size-fits-all solution for Instagram success. Test different content formats, strategies and approaches (A/B testing) and analyse the results systematically. Document your findings and adjust your strategy based on the data. Learn from mistakes and keep refining your approach.

• Reset recommendations (as a last resort): Instagram recommendations can sometimes drift in unwanted directions. As a last option, you can reset your recommendations to start again. This will, however, delete all the data already collected about your interests. Instagram then has to learn your interests from scratch, which will take some time. Use this option only if other strategies no longer work.

II. Optimise your Reels:

• The crucial hook (first 3 seconds): The first three seconds of your Reel are decisive for winning users’ attention. These seconds decide whether a user keeps watching or scrolls to the next post. Use text to get your core message across quickly and clearly. Create expectations that spark curiosity and encourage people to keep watching. Test different hook methods to find out what works best for your audience.

• Test Reel function: Use the test Reel function to analyse the performance of your Reels before publishing. This helps you spot potential problems early and optimise the Reel before it is shown to a wider audience. It reduces risk and helps you use resources efficiently.

• Video quality: Upload videos in high quality (at least 720p, 30 FPS). Good quality improves the viewer experience, although the content comes first. High-quality videos signal professionalism and increase your brand’s credibility.

• Use audio: Add audio to your Reels to make the content more engaging. Audio increases immersion and can positively influence reach, as half of Instagram users scroll with sound on. Choose music or sound effects that fit your brand and your content.

• Create content worth sharing: Develop content that encourages users to share it with their friends (sends). This is an important signal for the algorithm. Content that triggers emotion (humour, inspiration, surprise) is more likely to be shared.

• Use momentum: After a viral video, post again fairly quickly to use the momentum and maximise the increased attention. Use the extra visibility to promote more content and grow your reach further.

• Your own branding: Watermarks of your own logo do not hurt your reach. However, avoid watermarks from third-party apps (for example, the TikTok logo), as these can be rated negatively and reduce the authenticity of your content.

III. Optimise your images and carousels:

• Carousels for greater reach: Carousels offer several media items and therefore increase the chances of being shown in users’ feeds on multiple levels. This creates more opportunities for interaction and increases the likelihood that users will spend longer engaging with your content.

• Use music: Add music to your images and carousels to increase appeal and boost reach. Music makes content more memorable and emotional.

• New creative tools: Use the new creative tools, such as improved text tools and stickers, to enhance the visual impact of your images and carousels. This increases appeal and the likelihood that users will interact with your posts.

• Automatic letterboxing: Instagram is testing automatic letterboxing for carousels with different aspect ratios. In future, this could improve compatibility and reduce effort by making sure all images in the carousel are displayed evenly.

• Cover images: Although cover photos have a limited impact on reach, you should still choose an appealing cover image that represents the post well and sparks users’ curiosity. A good cover image increases the click-through rate.

IV. Instagram Insights and analysis:

• New metrics: Instagram is changing the Insights label from "plays" to "views" for all content types. Adjust your analysis and pay attention to the new metrics to assess your content’s success more comprehensively.

• Sends as a key metric: Track not only views, but also the number of sends (how often your content was sent to friends). This is an important indicator of success and viral spread. Sends show that your content is good enough for users to share with others.

V. Working with the Instagram algorithm:

• Prioritise originality: Instagram prioritises original content and prefers original posts over aggregated content. Focus on creating unique content that reflects your expertise and your personal style. Do not copy other people’s content.

• Aggregators in focus: Instagram will reduce recommendations from aggregators. Focus on creating your own content and avoid simply reposting other people’s content.

• Reach factors: Not every follower sees every one of your posts. This is due to various factors (for example, not logging in, scrolling behaviour, the algorithm, safety measures, loss of interest). The algorithm shows your content to users it believes are most likely to be interested in it.

• Shares before saves: The algorithm values shares higher than saves. Encourage social interaction and sharing of your content. Create content that prompts people to share it, for example through humour, inspiration or valuable information.

VI. Your Instagram Stories and other features:

• Stories for customer retention: Use Stories to build relationships with your followers and reduce unfollows. Authentic insights and behind-the-scenes content work particularly well. Stories create a personal connection with your target audience and strengthen brand loyalty.

• Stories cannot be edited: Instagram is currently not planning to make Stories editable. Plan your Stories carefully.

• Highlight order: The option to adjust the order of highlights is being considered. This will give you more control over how your brand message is presented on your profile.

• Channels for exclusive content: Use channels to build an exclusive community and maintain closer relationships with your most loyal followers. Offer exclusive content, discounts or early access to new products or services to strengthen member retention.

• DM filters for efficient communication: Use the new filters for direct messages (DMs) to manage important requests from other creators, businesses and followers effectively and use your time efficiently.

• New DM features: Use the new DM features, such as editing messages and pinning threads. This improves communication with your customers and allows requests to be handled more efficiently.

• Hidden gems: Use hidden features such as polls in captions, subscription stickers and notification stickers to increase interaction.

VII. Further important notes:

• Instagram does not downgrade posts marked as sponsored. Make sure your sponsored posts are labelled correctly.

• Considered comment interaction: Join the comments, but if there are many comments, wait about an hour to soften aggressive replies. Respond professionally and thoughtfully.

• Sustainable posting pace: Find a sustainable posting rhythm that works for you. Quality matters more than quantity. Consistent, high-quality content is more likely to be valued by your followers than irregular, low-quality content.

This comprehensive guide, based on Adam Mosseri’s insights, gives you a solid foundation for building a successful Instagram strategy. I wrote it with help from Gemini, as Mosseri’s Reels add up to more than an hour of video material. 

Remember that the algorithm is dynamic and will continue to evolve over time. Continuous learning and adaptation are the key to your long-term success. The best step is to follow Adam Mosseri on Instagram yourself: https://www.instagram.com/mosseri/