Hot take: Instagram's new Reels update actually killed my reach overnight

I swear I woke up last Tuesday and my engagement just tanked for no reason. I've been posting 3-4 times a week for the last 9 months and slowly building up to around 500 views per Reel, which I was happy with. Then BAM, my last 2 videos barely hit 80 views each. I checked my settings, looked at the algorithm tips everyone gives, but nothing changed. Turns out after some digging on a creator forum, Instagram rolled out a new update that prioritizes original audio and longer clips over the trending sounds I was using. My whole strategy was built around jumping on viral audio ASAP, and now that's basically useless. Anyone else get hit by this out of nowhere and find a way to bounce back?

2 comments

2 Comments

lisaf383d ago

Wait, did you see what happened to my friend Clara who runs a small baking account? She was all about those trending sounds too, used the "corn" remix for her cupcake reel and it blew up to like 2000 views. Then after this update, she posted a cute cake decorating video with the same type of audio and it got maybe 40 views in two days. She ended up swapping to recording her own voiceovers with kitchen sounds in the background, talking about the recipe step by step. It took about a week but her views crawled back up to around 150, so maybe try ditching the viral clips and just use your own voice or random background noise.

jakel363d ago

Honestly yeah, that tracks. Ditch the viral stuff and just talk normal.