r/socialmedia

I’m suprised when I speak with social media managers and they don’t realize that Instagram actually runs several algorithms.

That’s why specific advices don’t work equally for everyone. It’s also the reason why one post does well and another is just meh.

Instagram runs multiple AI-powered ranking system, each tailored to a different part of the app.

Feed, Reels, Stories, Explore, and Search each work differently, and your content can perform differently in each one. Most people treat Instagram as one system when it’s really several.

Feed asks would this person care?

Reels asks would they watch this all the way through?

Explore asks would they trust us if we put this in front of them cold?

For feed, the signal it weighs most heavily are saves and comments. Relationship depth matters more than follower count as well.

For Reels, the most important signal for distribution is sends via DM. Reels look at how long you watched, rewatches and engagement with the post.

For Stories the important signals are replies, taps, close friends behavior and recent interactions. That’s why stories with questions or polls often do very well.

Instagram is one of the biggest tools today to build a business. You get the most out of it when you learn stuff like this.

Open to answering questions.

I work in social analytics and the more time i spend in this space the more confused i get.

Businesses are spending genuinely insane amounts on creating and monitoring content, and the tools we're all using to measure any of it are still clunky, shallow, and weirdly expensive.

Half of them are just dashboards on top of dashboards.

Am i missing something? if you're a brand or agency spending real money here, what are you actually getting out of your analytics stack? and is anyone measuring anything beyond reach, engagement and follower count in a way that actually informs decisions?

Not pitching anything. just increasingly suspicious the emperor has no clothes and if I'm wayy off on my own initiatives.

Every major tool (Manychat, Chatfuel, etc.) is clearly built for agencies or brands with budgets. Comment to DM is a basic feature.why does it cost $15-20 per month minimum to set one up?

Is there a segment of tools built for smaller creators or businesses that I'm missing?

Some of the things I wish I could see happen in social media tool demos are what happens when you have client edits, approval chains, late feedback, reporting requests, and timelines youre trying to stick to but always ahve to adjust because the clients never stick to the schedule no matter how many times you bump them... and I just noticed Vista Social is offering free setup for Hootsuite users with receipts. Still dont know if its going to make my life easier or not. I cant be the only one dealing with a mess like this. Who has used both?

Idek why it’s an app anymore. It’s fuckin disgusting. No matter who you report the same shit always finds its way back. People making spam accts that they keep replacing. Like IP ban man. Or take the whole platform down. Social media is becoming so gross.

Can someone explain how the Instagram and TikTok algorithm works? For example my friend is new on the platform, posting stuff. And in YouTube his videos get 500 view (0 likes or comments) on Instagram almost nothing and the same with TikTok’s. We tried to understand what we can change so ppl like the content. But we are a bit frustrated because the videos on YouTube telling you nothing.

Is there any way to make some money very quickly I am in a dept of 7000 as you know. and I need to repay it as soon as possible or I will be in trouble. Is there any way to make this kind of money in 2 to 3 days maximum seven days. In fact, I also have some skill in video teaching. I can also give my portfolio below if anyone has made or know the method to make some money. Please do comment.

Am I the only one thinking that something completely blew up the algorithm? I have been posting into a black hole unless it is an edited post. Static posts and carousels have been reaching much less than what we reached back in January. How about you all?

Hi folks, 

I am reaching out to the community to see if anyone has solved the pain points I faced with short form content creation ? 

For context, I am not a full time content creator so I obviously do not know the full landscape of capabilities / workflows which exist today. I tried content creation to market my previous start up, but it just took way too much time out of my day and even then I couldn’t get high-quality results. I talked to the creators in my circle, did some research, explored tools but somehow they all faced the same issues mostly. 

I want to automate these pain points, but before I spend a lot of time in doing so, I want to check if the wider community knows of any solutions to them. 

The key things I struggled with are:

1. Scrubbing through a large number of raw footages to find the key moments. There are tools like capcut, captions, davinci which claim to do this automatically, but somehow that didn’t work for me as they chose irrelevant clips. 

2. even after I identify the key moments, there is a lot of effort needed to tweak scenes, arrange them, add effects, pacing etc. 

3. There are tons of decisions I am required to make, but I didn’t know which combinations make a high quality output. For example, I didn’t know when to use fade in, or cuts, or shake effects, and which combinations is good vs average. 

4. It takes a lot of time to refine, and a lot of back and forth to land cuts in sync with music track.

I am a 22 year old male who does powerlifting trying to become a fitness content creator in the United States. I was just wondering if anyone had any tips because I can edit and create but I can’t find out who I am and what I wanna show the world and many people say that’s what’s holding me back. I also wanna collab with people to show my personality more but not many people wanna collab or are above the level im at any advice.

I’m a faceless tiktok creator with close to 150k followers. I pull in consistent views monthly, always a couple million. How much should I be charging brands? Usually it’s about $300 but I’ve been charging that since I was like on half the amount of followers so I think it definitely needs to be increased. What do you guys think it should be?

hi guys, im getting views but followers are not increasing at all. Client is getting super irritated because they only care about follower count right now.

the niche is B2B ERP software, so growth feels very slow compared to other industries.

We are getting:

• decent reach

• some engagement

• website clicks

• even inquiries sometimes

But followers barely move.

Anyone here who has grown B2B/ERP/SaaS pages before?

What actually worked for you?

Founder content?

Carousels?

Personal branding?

Short videos?

Industry hot takes?

Case studies?

Would appreciate real advice because normal “post consistently” tips are not helping much.

asking for a friend....

Hi everyone, I’d love a quick outside perspective on my IG account.

I started the account in October. Early on, my content would often get 1,000+ views, but for the last while it has been stuck around 200 and 300 views per post.

The drop seemed to happen after I paid for verification and boosted a few event ads, but I’m not sure if that’s connected or just timing.

For context:

* I post original content only
* I stay within a very specific niche
* I alternate between reels and carousels about twice a week
* Some carousels get saves, but reach and follower growth are very low

I recently ran a giveaway with a Michelin star restaurant, and even that barely got follows/tags

When I run paid ads, I can get 10,000+ views, but very few follows or ticket conversions.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is a content issue, positioning issue, targeting issue, account issue, or just normal IG behaviour right now.

I also had Claude and ChatGPT do an audit and both said that the page looked beautiful and so did the content. I’m so at a loss to what’s going on

Has anyone experienced something similar, especially after boosting posts or getting verified?

What would you check first if you were auditing the account?

Hi, I'm working on a project about how social media affects our attention span. So my group came up with this idea to do a parallel between before and after social media to show a clear difference. So I wanted to know from people who have lived through both phases. What do you think changed the most in your daily life, or anything that feels different? Like for my generation, life without social media seems impossible. We are used to having all the information in one tap. Hell, even for my research, I am taking an easy way out by asking you guys. So how did the transition happen? What do u miss the most about those days? And how did this social media change your life?

I’m a senior at a big university that’s graduating in December 2027.

I’ve been applying for internships throughout my junior year with no luck so far. I’m an Advertising major with a dual minor in Social Media Analytics and Digital Media. I am working with my Social Media team for my university newspaper. I’ve been taking relevant classes and trying to expand my skillset.

However, I’m still not able to get an internship due to the competitiveness of the market, even on campus. Despite my praises that I get each interview and putting my absolute best foot forward, it’s still not enough. I have a portfolio and even class projects with real clients to showcase my competencies.

This is the only career I can see myself doing. I want to be the very best that I can be. I want to work for an agency/company in a my cities of choice while being able to pay rent, feed myself and buy things that interest me while having a good work life balance. Ever since I took my first advertising class, it hooked me and I want a career in the field. I want to do everything I can to be as successful as possible, please tell me things I must do.

Skills I have foundation in:
Popular social media platforms, content planning, creating ad campaigns, creating creative decks, Google Analytics, Looker Studio ( Now Data Studio )

Skills that I’m planning on learning:
Fluency in Adobe photoshop, creative design, social media analytic programs, art

One of our clients has recently given us access to his TikTok but only through the TikTok Business Manager. Is there any way for us to actually post content to the account or is this strictly just for managing ads and promoting videos? I've seen some things that say to use like a third party platform or something to be able to post through the manager access? He doesn't wanna give us direct access to the page so I'm not sure how we would go about posting content.

I am 23M and I have thought about getting into content creation but I do not know where I should start. To rephrase this I know that to do content creation I need to start but I don't know what I should start with or do with my content creation.

I am somebody who goes to the gym a lot and I have developed a deep interest and passion for fitness and I have thought about being some kind of fitness influencer. I already have a personal account and I sometimes post gym selfies and fitness related things to my instagram stories, should I however make a separate account if I decide to post fitness content. I have thought about getting into modeling and combining modeling and fitness together.

On the other hand I am also somebody who is passionate about the arts. I have been playing musical instruments since I was seven years old. During my time in college I earned a bachelor's degree in film with a minor in creative writing. I also love to write stories and I have been writing a book since I was in high school, and that has currently been my main focus. I feel like however, if I want to get into content creation I should pick a niche and stick with it, unless there is a way I could somehow combine all of these things. Since I like film I have thought about starting a channel where I post movie or book reviews. I am having a hard time deciding however, what I should start with. What would you suggest to me?

I’m researching how brands and teams actually use social listening tools beyond basic sentiment tracking and dashboards.

Would love to hear real examples where insights from tools like Brandwatch, Sprout Social, Meltwater, Talkwalker, Sprinklr, etc. directly influenced business outcomes.

Some archetypes of insights I found online are as below:

• Detecting a crisis before it became mainstream
• Launching or improving a product feature based on online conversations
• Competitor intelligence that changed strategy
• Identifying churn or customer frustration patterns early

Would love to know if you or your company had any AHA moments from the listening tools