Instagram’s ‘best practices’ tell creators how they should post

Instagram is more explicitly telling content creators, businesses, and other users how they should be posting to the platform via a new feature called "best practices."

The best practices hub is available for professional accounts on Instagram and is accessible through the professional dashboard. The feature is marketed as an educational tool to help creators make engaging content, and the hub includes tips for making, sharing, and monetizing their videos and photos.

Some of the tips are fairly generic social media strategies, like "track long-term follower growth" and "consistently post more." Others are more specific and could signal Instagram's corporate priorities: a tip on my account, for example, tells me that Reels that are longer than 90 seconds won't be recommended to new users, thus stifling discovery. This emphasis on truly short shortform content is consistent with what Instagram head Adam Mosseri has said in the past.

On the one hand, it's perhaps helpful for creators to hear directly from platforms about how they should engage to maximize reach - content creators have lived through more than a decade of trying to crack the code for engagement and outsmart social media algorithms. But it also feels like more access to tips or recommendations creates a carrot-and-stick situation, where creators feel increased pressure to post exactly how a platform wants them to or risk having their content not be seen by audiences. Will making more Reels grow my followers faster, as Instagram's best practices tells me? Probably. It's also not exactly a secret that Instagram wants people posting more shortform videos as it continues to compete with TikTok.

This summer, Instagram told creators that "views" are now the main metric across the platform, saying it was one of the most important signals for creators to understand how well their content is performing. Another key number that feeds into ranking: how often audiences send your content to someone else. "Don't force it," Mosseri warns creators trying to make grabby, shareable content. Just something to keep in mind.