How to Grow on Instagram in 2025: What the Algorithm Really Wants (and What It Means for Brands)

Instagram’s CEO recently shared a fresh set of algorithm tips—and for once, they’re not just vague platitudes about being “authentic.” These are actual insights into how Instagram works now, in 2025. If you're running a brand account and wondering why reach is down, engagement is flat, or nothing seems to stick anymore, this one’s for you.

And if you're using Yolodex—or any tool that helps you understand who your customers are and what actually drives influence—these tips become even more powerful. Because Instagram in 2025 isn't just rewarding good content. It's rewarding the right content, from the right people, for the right audience.

Let’s get into it.

1. Stories won’t get you discovered. But they will stop the unfollows.

Instagram Stories won’t grow your account. That’s not a bug—it’s the design. According to Mosseri, Stories aren’t for acquisition, they’re for retention. If you stop posting them, people stop seeing you. If people stop seeing you, they stop caring. Then they unfollow.

If you think of your brand like a funnel, Stories are the bottom. They don’t attract new people—they remind the ones you already have that you’re worth sticking around for.

2. Overpolished content is killing your engagement.

Unless you’re doing luxury, high-gloss content is now a liability. Instagram is deprioritizing anything that feels like an ad. If it looks like it was made by an agency with a ring light budget and a creative director named Lars, it’s getting skipped.

Instead, relatable beats refined. Messy performs. Direct-to-camera wins. Especially if the person posting it looks like someone your audience knows—or wants to know.

If you’re a brand using Yolodex to identify who your most influential customers are, this is gold. Let them create. They already know how to talk to your next 1,000 customers better than you do.

3. Carousels still work. But most brands are wasting them.

Yes, carousels still outperform single-image posts. But the CEO revealed something new: if a user skips your carousel, Instagram might reshow it later—starting from slide two.

Which means your second slide needs to be just as strong as your first.

Think of it like a second hook. Or a twist in a story. If you’re just using it to repeat your headline, you’ve missed the opportunity. Great carousels reward curiosity. They don’t just stack photos. They unfold something.

4. Hashtags are out. Your content already says what it is.

Hashtags used to be discovery tools. Now they’re mostly decorative. Mosseri confirmed that Instagram’s AI already understands your content without them. It knows what’s in your video. It knows what you’re talking about.

If you’re still building your posts around the “perfect hashtag set,” you’re stuck in 2019. Focus on what your audience sees, not what the metadata says.

And again—this is where customer understanding comes in. If you know who is engaging with you, you don’t need to cast a wide net. You just need to speak directly to the right few.

5. Shares matter more than saves.

Here’s the real currency now: DM sends. If someone shares your post with a friend, the algorithm pays attention. Shares signal relevance. And relevance gets reach.

This changes how you write. It’s no longer enough to be informative. You have to be relatable. You have to make people say “oh my god, this is you” and hit send.

This is also where customer insight compounds. Yolodex helps brands understand what kinds of posts resonate with different types of customers—and who’s most likely to start those share chains. If you’re optimizing for word of mouth, it starts here.

6. Watermarks are a growth killer.

TikTok logo in the corner? CapCut watermark? You’ve already lost. Instagram deprioritizes anything that looks like it was made for a different platform.

This seems petty, but it matters. The same content, posted clean, gets better reach.

Your own branding is fine. Just don’t make it feel like a repost. Or worse, an afterthought.

7. Post again—quickly—after a viral hit.

One of the most tactical insights Mosseri shared: if a post takes off, follow it up fast. You have a 24–48 hour window where the algorithm is giving you more attention. Ride the wave.

If you’re a brand, this means having a bench of good content ready. Don’t scramble to make something new. Have the next thing prepped.

Momentum matters more than most people realize. So does planning.

8. Watch your niche like a hawk.

Feeling stuck? Don’t brainstorm. Scroll.

The CEO’s advice: consume more content in your niche. Not to copy, but to see what’s working. This is especially useful if you’re using Yolodex to map out your space—creators, customers, competitors. You don’t need to guess what good looks like. You can just watch it happen in real time.

And if someone in your customer base is already making content that hits? Partner with them. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Just give it a push.

9. You don’t need to post every day. But you do need to be consistent.

Instagram’s own data shows that 2–3 high-quality posts per week outperform daily spam. The key is consistency, not volume.

This is liberating for small teams—and very compatible with a content strategy built around real customer insight. If you know who you’re speaking to, you can say more with less.

10. Your Reel’s first three seconds decide everything.

Bold text. Instant motion. A strong hook. That’s what Mosseri says makes the difference between a Reel that gets watched and one that gets skipped.

Don’t waste time building up to the point. Start with it.

And again, the best-performing Reels usually don’t come from brand teams. They come from creators who understand the tone, pacing, and reference points that feel native to the platform.

Yolodex identifies those people—your existing customers who already know how to speak Instagram’s language.

The Big Picture: Instagram Is Getting Smarter. Are You?

Instagram is no longer just a platform. It’s a recommendation engine with a social interface. It rewards content that resonates. Not content that looks good. Not content that checks boxes. Content that gets watched, shared, and rewatched.

If you’re serious about growth in 2025, this means two things:

1. You need better inputs—insights into what your audience responds to, and who they trust.

2. You need better distribution—content made by (or with) the people who already influence your customers.

That’s what Yolodex helps with. It helps you understand who your customers are, their interests, what they post, and how to turn that into content that spreads.

So when Instagram changes the rules, you're not guessing how to keep up - because you're already ahead.