How has Instagram changed its algorithm to favor small creators and original content?

Instagram has made a massive shift toward showing content from creators you don’t follow to people who would be interested in it. Previously, only your followers saw your posts, and reaching more people required paid ads. Now, even with just a handful of followers, Instagram will show your content to non-followers who the algorithm believes will appreciate your work based on their interests and behavior. Even more importantly, Instagram now uses “direct replace” technology: if your original content gets reshared by a larger account and starts going viral, Instagram will detect you’re the original creator and redirect that viral traffic back to your account instead of giving all the engagement to the resharer. This is revolutionary because it means small creators get credit and benefit from their viral content rather than having larger accounts capture all the attention.

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Asked by a creator trying to understand platform changes · Answered by Patrick Shanahan · art-marketing-podcast · 2024-05-10