The Instagram Playbook for 2025 & 2026

Andréa Jones [00:00:00]:
If you ever open Instagram and feel like, man, I was just figuring this out and it changed again, then this episode is for you. I want to talk about Instagram here now and today in October 2025, as a lead in to my absolutely free Instagram boot camp I'm hosting very shortly. I will talk about that at the end of the episode. But for now, let's dive in to building a intentional, sustainable Instagram strategy that we can actually do. But first, a word from our sponsor. Riverside is the all in one podcast recording and editing tool that I use for this right here show. I use it to edit not only the audio in the video, it is like Chef's kiss, magical, making the entire process so, so easy. Plus, I love their magic AI clips.

Andréa Jones [00:00:50]:
Their little AI robot in the background pulls out the most impactful moments of the episodes without me having to comb through and do it. My resizes them for social media. So those vertical videos you see on TikTok and Reels, those all come from Magic AI inside of Riverside. It's literally one click. It spits out 10 clips. I pick the best one and away I go. Saves me so much time. If you want to get on the Riverside train, check it out today.

Andréa Jones [00:01:16]:
The links in the show notes, and make sure to use my code DREA D R E A at checkout to get 15 off your membership. I have a lot of notes for this episode, y', all, so I'm going to be checking the facts as I go through, because a lot is happening on these Instagram streets and it is probably the number one platform that I get questions about. And so I'm excited for this episode and for the bootcamp to kind of break it all down. But let's talk about the Instagram landscape here now, today in October 2025. So Meta, which is the company that owns Instagram, also owns Facebook and threads and WhatsApp is kind of shifting their algorithm and they're. They've labeled their different algorithms as AI systems, really leaning into the AI model. But when they say an AI system, they're talking about the algorithm. Mr.

Andréa Jones [00:02:04]:
Al, the little robot behind the scenes, who is really helping curate the entire experience on Instagram right now. Feed rankings collect about 500 candidate posts and ranks them based on this AI system, the algorithm's prediction, it's looking at things like watch time, profile clicks, comments, reshares, and generally whether people are scrolling on the app. Because keep this in mind, Instagram's value comes from how much time people spend on the app. If people log into the app and then exit immediately. That's no good for Instagram because they need to serve those people advertisements because that's how they make money. You, as a business owner, even if you're not creating advertisements, you're serving content to people on Instagram. And you kind of want to keep in mind that Instagram's goal is to keep people on their app. And they look for things like watch time likes and sends as the top ranking signals whether people are connected or even just interested in your content.

Andréa Jones [00:03:08]:
Now, the two top performing spots for this may surprise you, but they are Instagram reels and Instagram stories. Okay? Instagram reels and Instagram stories. So the algorithm, the reels AI system, looks at things like, are people commenting on your reels? Are they following you from your reels? Are they resharing your reels? The reshare feature being new feature this year. And then for stories, it's looking at the likelihood of someone to open that story, to watch the story and to reply to it, either with an emoji or engage in some way, like sending a dm. Okay, so this algorithm is looking for those signals. So you as a business owner may want to pay attention to those placements. And then there are new features constantly being developed. And these are the ones that Mr.

Andréa Jones [00:03:56]:
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram himself, has acknowledged. One of them being direct messaging. Instagram is looking for people to direct message, specifically DM shares per reach. So how many people did this piece of content reach? And then from that, how many people sent that post to the dms? So direct message, like when I see a video and I share it to my husband's direct message, Instagram goes, ooh, this is important. Let me show it to more people. To a lesser extent, there are some things that also contribute to this. Most of this is what I call dark social broadcast channels and community direct messages. So group chats essentially are on the rise.

Andréa Jones [00:04:39]:
Um, and this is something that Instagram is pushing. It's mostly to the younger generation. So if you're listening or watching this video and you're like, andrea, I will never join a broadcast channel or a group chat. This is not for you. The younger generation, okay? Gen Z and Gen A, they love a good group chat moment, and they're actually spending more of their time on the quote, unquote, dark souls roll versus posting in their feed and posting reels, they actually think that's cringe. I don't agree with them, but that's what they think. Lastly, Instagram's latest Instagram Edits. It launched in April of 20, direct competitor to Cap Cut.

Andréa Jones [00:05:18]:
We're seeing that these video editing tools, like the editing app, is helping people stay within the meta ecosystem. So again, you're going to be rewarded if you use these features specifically. 10 second videos right now is a tactic that is working. It is a tactic. Okay, if creating videos as part of your overall strategy, test out a 10 second reel. If 10 second reels or reels in general weren't even a part of your strategy, this may not be a tactic for you. But just be warned that Instagram is making a lot of changes right now. And the overarching note that you need to take away as a business owner is that if these new features align with your strategy, test them out because Instagram is rewarding them.

Andréa Jones [00:06:06]:
For example, there's this new friends map or Friends feed where you can opt in to to share your recent location with your friends. Me personally will never be doing that. That sounds like an invasion of my privacy. However, it could be a fun thing for you to do if that's maybe a private account. I don't know. Something about it just makes me feel a little hesitant. But that's an example of a feature that Instagram rewards, one that I hate. Sorry, this turned negative really quick is the ultra wide reels.

Andréa Jones [00:06:39]:
Have y' all seen these? They're 5,000 by 1,000. So they're like you're looking through like, what's that? What's that Star Trek guy who has the. Who has the glasses feels like you're looking through his glasses. The blind one. Anyways, they're experimenting with this format and it. A whole bunch of people posted all at once. And then I haven't seen a single post since. And it's only been like what, a week and a half? That's a great example of like, if it fits, you jump on the trend.

Andréa Jones [00:07:09]:
But personally I didn't like it. Now here's some shifts that I do like is that they're constantly upgrading their algorithmic experience. And this is based on cultural shifts, which I'll get to in a second. But they're testing out things like topic tuning or letting people kind of opt in and out of topics that are related to them. This very much reminds me of back in the day where you could go to like a Tumblr or something and pick your topics and then start seeing things in that topic. Instagram's testing that out. What that tells me is they're leaning even farther into discoverability content. Okay, this is great.

Andréa Jones [00:07:48]:
News. As a business owner or a brand, you don't need to have a mass following in order to get attention on your content. As long as the topic is aligned with someone else's interest in that topic, there's a high percentage chance that Instagram's gonna try to serve that content to that person. Okay. So it really helps you as a business owner to have a more smarter algorithmic experience. Kind of leaning more into the AI side of things. Meta AI is becoming integrated in everything. You may have noticed this where you can use meta AI to kind of get summaries of the sentiment of your comment section, where they're starting to bring that into DMS as well.

Andréa Jones [00:08:30]:
They're helping you as the creator, brainstorm caption ideas, generate hashtags, come up with real ideas, all within the meta AI chat. I'm like chat adding with something like a chatgpt just built into meta. Again, this is Meta's and Instagram's goal to get more people on the app. Okay. Now part of this too is a cultural shift and I find this part way more interesting because all of the algorithmic changes are really just echoes of what, you know, the geniuses behind Instagram, its algorithm are studying in order to deliver more content and again, keep people on their app. The first one is short form video. Micro video content is still dominating because their stat, and this is by Meta. Meta reported that 60% of the time spent on Facebook and Instagram is video.

Andréa Jones [00:09:24]:
60%. 6, 0. That means more and more people are consuming video content. This is an echo of the TikTok effect. When you're watching these videos on Facebook or Instagram or wherever, we're naturally scrolling and scrolling and consuming more content than if it was static. It. It kind of ties into our human psychology. We like to see the motion of it all.

Andréa Jones [00:09:45]:
And so if you haven't integrated video into your strategy in some way, I would highly suggest looking at that. There's also culturally a rise in more authentic content, which is interesting for Instagram. So Instagram is notoriously the, you know, aesthetic platform, right? There's a certain kind of perfection that Instagram is known for, but consumers are moving away from, we want the reality TV version. In fact, there's a whole movement right now called de influencing, where people usually average everyday people who are also secretly influencers. But I won't get into that tinfoil hat conversation. Are de influencing you? So content creators are discouraging unnecessary purchases. They're buying things and then telling you what they don't like about them. It is the antithesis of influencer marketing.

Andréa Jones [00:10:34]:
It's just influencer marketing in another way, if we're going to be technically correct. But what all of this is telling, telling you as the business owner is that the more authentic your content, the better. I also think this is the anti AI of it all, where, you know, suddenly everyone's content is looking and sounding the same because they put something generic into ChatGPT and consumers. U.S. on the other side of the screen, we're like, we want to see someone stumble over their words because that's not AI. You know, we want to see a caption with a typo in it. The second piece to this is we're kind of getting a little bit tired of seeing perfectly styled influencer lives, like the perfect house with the perfect kids and the car and the vacations. And so what we're seeing as well is the rise of micro influencers, the soft life influencers, the average everyday influencers who showing you their normal lives and how they're romanticizing their lives.

Andréa Jones [00:11:30]:
In fact, there's a stat from up the link in the show notes that says demand for user generated content UGC it grew by 55.8% in 2024. So brands are now partnering with micro and Nano influencers for authenticity and cost effectiveness. So the big brands are also like, we're on a budget. All right, next cultural shift we're seeing is social uses SEO. And I actually think the very definition of social media is changing. And I'll talk about this in like overall in my predictions episode. But for Instagram specific, they're leaning into this social search of it all. So it's not new news that a platform like TikTok has been known for search, especially with the younger generations.

Andréa Jones [00:12:18]:
If they're looking for a new restaurant to try and they live in Toronto, they may go to TikTok first and type in restaurants near me or restaurants in Toronto and try to see some videos of places they want to discover. Well, now that's coming to Instagram as well. In my opinion. Instagram's trying very hard. This is their little brother syndrome. They're trying very hard to compete with this, but they're not quite there yet and hopefully they'll make it there soon. Some of the changes that we're seeing is your actual captions need to have keywords in them. I do not believe in keyword stuffing.

Andréa Jones [00:12:50]:
I know some people are using that and even now my opinions on hashtags are changing, which I'll talk more about in my predictions episode. But what I need you to know is that the caption of your video, the content of your video, and your actual bio all a help in your discoverability. So Instagram's constantly trying to match your people to your content. Lastly, we're seeing an increase in what I think is a really good move for Instagram, which is regulation and safety. In 2025. There's been a lot of scrutiny on social platforms. Other countries like Australia has put a ban on social media for people under ages 16, for instance. And even Europe is investigating meta's impact on youth mental health.

Andréa Jones [00:13:34]:
I think this is a really important transition to have on social media to protect our youth, protect the young people. However, if that is your primary demographic, you may need to switch gears. For example, one of the content creators who I love to follow is Ms. Rachel, mostly because my kids watch her. Her content is geared toward the parents of those kids. It's almost like a reminder to us that she's a human and that she creates content. And maybe perhaps we want to share that content with our children as well. All right, let's take a look into the predictions of it all.

Andréa Jones [00:14:08]:
But before I get into that, I will say if you're looking at this and you're like, I need to revamp my Instagram or I know I could be doing better, or I need to start, please come in and join me in the Instagram bootcamp. It's happening October 13th through the 16th with a special bonus member only day on the 17th. But the free event is available for everyone. You can find it@onlinedre.com Bootcamp and y' all know I love a good mindful approach to all of this. All right, let's talk about predictions. First, prediction for Instagram for 2026 is the way the algorithm is going to evolve even further. And I have four kind of ideas behind the algorithmic say that 10 times fast Al the rig bic. I can't even say it, y' all.

Andréa Jones [00:14:51]:
How the algorithm is going to evolve. The first one is it's become even more personalized. And I actually think they're going to take these personalized feeds and make them even better. So this reminds me of Twitter lists back in the day. I feel like we're going to have different lists for different parts of our personalities. So for instance, my main be Spicy romance feed, and then it may be the business feed, and then maybe it's like the local feed. Like local to me. I would love to see this because I actually think it will increase the time I spend on Instagram.

Andréa Jones [00:15:26]:
Because I actually have separate accounts for, like, my romance side and my personal side. If there is a way I could kind of merge the two without fully merging the two, I feel like I would really enjoy that. And I think according to their goal, I think it would increase watch time on the app. The second thing, which I don't really know how they're going to do this yet, but I think the they're going to add in the metric of sharing to the DMS as a discovery tool. So, for example, if I send a video to my husband in the DMs, I feel like Instagram has the opportunity to take that data and maybe take that post and put it in, you know, at the top of the DMs and say, like, here's a link that's frequently shared to the DMs that I think you would like. Adam Aseri did say that DM shares is going to be a metric that they're going to separate out from shares, which I would love to see. Because right now, shares includes sharing to stories, sharing to DMs, and even taking the link and texting it to someone. I would love to see that broken down.

Andréa Jones [00:16:24]:
So I think it's going to be interesting if they do that in the future. Next, algorithmic. See, I can't say that word, y'. All. The way the algorithm is going to evolve are saved. So with saves specifically, they've already said the algorithm loves saved content, but I think it's going to become even more of a Pinterest style experience where you can then share your saved collections. They've tried this in the past, if y' all remember, they tried this in the past and then took it away. I feel like they're going to bring it back, but in a way that's even more intentional and create more of a collaborative experience.

Andréa Jones [00:17:00]:
For example, I know I can share something with someone and we can have like a saved shared collection. I think it'd be interesting to create that as a community experience. And then lastly, more choice over what's in your algorithm. You can already do this a little bit, but since they've hinted at adding separate feeds for separate topics, I would love to be able to go through my feed and say, I'm not interested in this anymore. Don't show it to me ever again. Without just completely, completely unfollowing someone or moving the topic completely. Okay. So, for example, my kids, it kind of feels like the algorithm's always a step behind me with how my kids are growing and developing.

Andréa Jones [00:17:40]:
And I Would love to be able to jump ahead a little bit and say, okay, I've got a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Start showing me content for like what 4 and 5 look like because you're still showing me baby content and sometimes I still even get like pregnancy content and I don't need that anymore. And so I would love to be able to tell the algorithm that specific feedback and so be curious to see how that shows up. So that's the first prediction. Second prediction is more formats. Now listen, I'm going to say this with love because I, I do like Instagram. However, it's confusing. It's confusing with how strict they are with their formats and how you can post.

Andréa Jones [00:18:18]:
I would love for it to be more like Facebook or even threads where a post is a post. Okay, like you don't have. So take Threads, Threads, a great example of this. There's no stories, there's no like separate feed for reels or videos. A post is a post. Okay, I would love for Instagram to go back to that where what you post is what you post. It doesn't matter if it's a disappearing story, if it's a carousel, if it's a real. This placement, that placement, all of it should be discoverable, in my humble opinion.

Andréa Jones [00:18:50]:
And I would love to have that experience on Instagram, have hybrid like a combination of all of those things available in the same spot because it is very confusing the way that they have it set up right now. I think this also gives them an opportunity to have a hybrid approach to how they create content. For example, when you're scrolling through something like TikTok, you see lives in the feed right now that doesn't happen on Instagram. The live is like a bubble that looks like a story. And. And again, I think it's a confusing user experience. But we shall see. I also think with the way that they're announcing this new AR virtual reality, like the Ray Ban meta glasses thing, I feel like they're going to really force that on us.

Andréa Jones [00:19:39]:
I think it's great. I think it's great for like the upper echelon of people, but for the rest of us, I don't know about it. I'm a little bit uncertain about how that will impact us as business owners. But I can already tell you that content creators are going to gobble this up, brands are going to eat this up and so we may start seeing different types of content produced that's more virtual reality or alternate reality based. That being said, I think it would Be very cool if as a creator I could create almost like a Pokemon Go style video where I could like have it be a virtual reality experience for my people. Like it'd be really cool if they could like point their phone at their desk and then there's me like popping up and giving them advice through their phone camera and it looks like I'm there with them. I think that'd be cool. If you're listening Meta, go ahead and steal my idea.

Andréa Jones [00:20:35]:
I don't care. I think that'd be great. All right, so we've got the algorithm, we've got creative content styles. Now let's talk about messaging and dark social as I call it. So right now, again, I think Instagram is very confusing and so my goal for them is like, hey, let's make this a more like an easier user experience. Like who's the UX lead director of UX over there? That being said, if they unify the feed and have just like one type of post, that would be great. But I still would like to keep the private space. It's the dark social and just keep it all one thing.

Andréa Jones [00:21:08]:
It's either a chat, it's all called a chat. It could be with one person, it could be with multiple people. Multiple people can talk or the one person can talk and we all just subscribe to it. But you have different names for those. We have have dms, we have group chat and then we have broadcast feeds. I don't necessarily know if we need those different names. I feel like when you're starting a chat you could just select the options and away we go. That's my, my two cents on it all.

Andréa Jones [00:21:37]:
But I do see the advantage for certain things like subscriptions where people can subscribe and pay for exclusive content. I think that could be interesting and I would love like more analytics around some of that. Right now it's just really lacking, especially compared to other platforms like Twitch or YouTube. Lastly, I think meta as a conglomerate has a lot of messaging involved and I wouldn't actually be too sad if some of this disappeared like threads. DMS became a thing this year, but I don't know if that's needed. I would just go DM them on Instagram. It's like another place to check. The same thing with Facebook.

Andréa Jones [00:22:16]:
Their messages app is separate. They technically own WhatsApp. It's a lot of direct messaging involved and I would love to be able to unify that in some way. Meta, but you know, that's just a bonus tip. Last prediction for Instagram is They're going to go even further into Instagram E commerce. So I think this is again their little brother syndrome when it comes to TikTok shop, which is absolutely blown up. I was listening to a podcast the other day and they were talking about how they just keep buying things from TikTok shop and they're like obsessed with everything they see. I think this is such an interesting cultural shift.

Andréa Jones [00:22:52]:
It feels very QVC and I've seen a few of the live streams and things. Now unfortunately I'm in Canada so it's not available to me. However, I've observed it and it's fascinating to me and I think Instagram has a huge opportunity to go this direction and it feels like right now an add on feature instead of a primary feature. And so I would love for them to take this idea of social shopping and I think what they should do is have in app app checkouts and make the whole experience frictionless. Make it very easy to buy through Meta Pay or Apple Pay or Android Pay and even start suggesting products based on how we interact on the app. Again, for product based brands, I think this is amazing. And then I also think it'd be a lot easier for, as I mentioned earlier, UGC Micro Influencer content. It can be a lot easier for kind of automating this whole process for them when they post to just link to your shop right within their post, but they still get credit for it.

Andréa Jones [00:23:55]:
All of that information is available, but technologically it's still clunky. Like if you're a influencer promoting a product, it's still very, it's not a seamless experience for someone to purchase that product just by looking at your video. There's still multiple clicks and I think this will work whether the product is physical or digital. Like I would love to be able to sell one of my digital products, for instance. But the path to that just isn't seamless within Instagram's experience. All right, so what does this mean for you as a business owner? Overall, I want you to prioritize shared ability. People should be able to share your content very easily and it should make sense and stand on its own. Whenever I'm auditing someone's account, that's the biggest piece that I see missing when it comes to the actual content itself is you're assuming someone knows who you are, what you're all about and why you're here posting this video.

Andréa Jones [00:24:51]:
And we should be able to gather some of that from the video itself. And in fact, the video should not feel like an inside joke or insular language. Unless you're, you know, speaking to your community specifically, it shouldn't have too much jargon about what you do. Like, the video should stand on its own. So, for instance, we're not going to say hi, Happy Tuesday. Welcome back to my Instagram reel. I know all of you have been asking. No, you've already lost me.

Andréa Jones [00:25:18]:
If this is the first time I'm watching your video, I don't know who you are, I don't know what you're all about. So I don't know what we've all been asking. So start with the hook and make sure that the first, especially the first 10 seconds of your video makes perfect sense to a complete stranger. So, so prioritize shareability. The next one is optimize for watch time. We don't want people to just share it. We want them to complete. So completion complete the video complete scrolling through all of the carousel posts.

Andréa Jones [00:25:49]:
So use your time wisely. I often get asked, like, how long should our videos be? Industry standard is most people like a video 60 seconds or less, even go even shorter if you can. Okay, like me, I'm a talker. I sometimes struggle with that. But it really doesn't matter the length of your video. It matters how long people watch it, how many times did they watch it, and especially if they rewatch it, you get rewarded for that. So this is where the hack, the tactic of the 1 second videos come from. You have to be careful with this because people will like not watch you ever again if they're annoyed with you.

Andréa Jones [00:26:23]:
So we don't want to annoy them with some stupid, silly little tactic. But a short video that forces you to rewatch it could be one that works well for you. Continue to stay authentic, but use video editing tools to help you with this. Instagram Edits has been my recommendation. I didn't like it at first. I was a cop. Cut girly through and through. But y', all, they made some amazing improvements this year.

Andréa Jones [00:26:46]:
And for my consulting calls that I've been doing recently, I've been recommending Instagram Edits. It's free one and Instagram promotes it. Most of my people are on Instagram, so sharing to Instagram is very easy. But I really wish they would make collaborative editing experience. When I create a video on edits and then I have to send it to my client and they request an like a change or something, I can only do it on my device and not theirs. I really wish, Matt, if you're listening, that you fix that but otherwise, I am loving the experience on the edits app. So use that, but don't lose your authenticity. Still be a real person.

Andréa Jones [00:27:21]:
Don't edit out every single breath, every single stutter, every single anything. We still want want to see you. We still want this marketing strategy to be a reflection of what it's like to work with you. Next suggestion is lean into dark social. Some people don't like this. We strive for the public metrics, the followers, the comments, the likes. But those dark social metrics, the ones that aren't visible to anyone else but us, are the most important ones according to Instagram themselves. I'm talking about watch time, I'm talking about shares, I'm talking about saves.

Andréa Jones [00:27:56]:
I'm talking about the things that no one else sees but you. DMS especially. Okay, so what I, what I do, for instance, on this right here podcast, is if this episode resonated with you, send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to hear your thoughts. 9 times out of 10, I'm sending a voice DM back too. I just got one last week. Totally made my week. And we had a little chit chat back and forth.

Andréa Jones [00:28:17]:
It was a lot of fun. And Instagram likes that metric and will show your post to more people because you're playing their game. Okay, I want to wrap this all up with two things. One is to maintain your mindfulness and your boundaries. I gave a lot of information in this podcast episode, but remember that Instagram at its core is very complex. You don't need to do all of the things every single day. Build a cadence that works for you. You can set your own frequency.

Andréa Jones [00:28:48]:
So when I say be consistent, I don't mean post every day. I mean set your frequency and stick with it. For some people, it's cyclical. I have some people who post spring and fall and they take breaks summer and winter. Some of you are like me, where you post during the week and you take breaks on the weekend. Some of you are once a week kind of person, and that's all you can do. Whatever you can do, set that up for yourself and then track meaningful metrics. I want you to look beyond follower count.

Andréa Jones [00:29:19]:
I know it's so easy to look at that I don't even really want you to look at likes and comments too. Too still is one indicator of success. But there's so much data behind what makes a post successful. And we've heard on this podcast, we've seen the data from Instagram that they're not even looking at likes and Comments. They're looking at shares and saves. Okay, so that's what we want to measure as well. And stay. Stay nimble, stay adaptable.

Andréa Jones [00:29:47]:
There's going to be a lot of changes coming up. I don't want us to have a mindset of, like, rigidity, like, like, this is our plan. We're sticking to the plan, and we're not changing the plan. I feel like that's where we get a little disappointed in things. I want us to have an experimental, playful mindset. We're figuring it out. We're kids in the sandbox. We build up the castle.

Andréa Jones [00:30:08]:
Go, hey, that's cool. If another kid smashes our castle, sure, we're sad for a second. We don't let that stop us from ever building a castle again. So, leading into the future, I invite you again to join me for the Bootcamp. We're going to talk about defining your foundation on Instagram. I talk about my three W's, what do you sell, who is for, why it's matter, and how to integrate that into your Instagram bio so that your people see you and know that you're their people. We talk about developing messaging that really ties in to those transformative stories that help people connect with you, especially if they don't know you at all. We create a atmosphere of shareability by having these conversation starters and encouraging direct messages.

Andréa Jones [00:30:52]:
And then I have a whole plan for attracting new people into your ecosystem and designing, really, a social media sales funnel that works and getting people from strangers to buyers to advocates. And I teach it all for free in my Instagram bootcamp. Come on in and join me. This is my fifth year doing it. I'm so excited. I love this kind of stuff. You can find it@onlinedrea.com Bootcamp and the link will be in the show notes as well. I will see you all next week with another podcast episode.

Andréa Jones [00:31:23]:
That's all for this week. Bye for now.