“Why some of my Instagram Reels perform and others tank?”
We heard this so many times before.
I get it.
It’s frustrating to think you finally figured out how to create Instagram Reels that perform, but then you do it again and you get crickets for engagement — it happens to everyone, it happens to us too!
But I will tell you something you may not have heard before:
It's an unrealistic expectation issue and not a "you not getting it right" issue. Yes, it’s NOT your fault. And it’s honestly not the algorithm’s fault either.
I will give you a few mindset shifts when it comes to how you look at your Instagram engagement, whether we are talking about Reels, posts, carousels or any other type of content you put out there.
I hope they help and I ask you to please take them to heart:
1) About showing up consistently
In our members Facebook group, someone was stressed out about their Reels results. They were baffled because they thought they did everything they were supposed to do, yet some Reels performed and some didn’t.
They said it made it hard to show up consistently like this.
So I had to remind them as I will remind you:
You showing up consistently has NOTHING to do with how much engagement you get.
Show up consistently for your brand, whether there is 1 person in front of you asking you a question about your business, 7 people watching one of your lives in real time, 200 people looking at a post in your feed, or 100,000 people watching a Reel that went viral.
Show up consistently in your emails. In your website, in your brand design.
It's not a conditional thing that should depend on engagement. Whatever you show up, do your best within your limits.
2) About some Reels performing well and some getting very low engagement
EXPECT Reels to have inconsistent reach and engagement.
Expect your posts to do fluctuate as well. In a much bigger low to high range than we used to see before on Instagram (landscape changing created this change).
Mine do and everyone else's does too — and keep in mind that some people archive content that doesn’t perform, so if you see a page that only has high engaging content, they may just have done that! That’s why we should never compare. We don’t know the whole story.
It's literally how it works. But somehow everyone expects to "find the magic formula" and then always get the best engagement we ever got. Then when we don't, everyone gets really bummed. I want to avoid you getting bummed everyday, especially when this is exactly how this works. Try to remember that and expect that.
3) A more competitive platform means less engagement for everyone
Engagement will go down as time goes by because of three main reasons:
More accounts are created on Instagram each day
More content gets posted in all accounts, and they are competing with your content in the scroll. I for example didn't get consistent with Reels for a while (blame a toddler who hated sleep!). Today I post around 5-7 reels per week. Last year I posted 1. Imagine more people doing this and how it affects everyone's Reels reach. That's literally how it works as a platform grows or features get older. So expect that.
People tend to follow more people than they used to before. It’s not unusual to see people following over 1,000 accounts! That will make that person’s scroll extremely long and unless they spend all day on Instagram, they will miss a big chunk of content, whether they like them or not.
But there’s a twist: is not really bad news! Here’s why:
With more account and more posts on Instagram today, there are also WAY more opportunities to make sales and get clients from Instagram than there ever were before.
Even for an influencer that get less likes than say 4 years ago, the amount of dollars going into their industry has grown substantially and keeps growing as the years go by. Because all the influencers that only got hit up 4 years ago about "collabs" and getting product for posts, are now making up to thousands of dollars for 1 post or Reel.
So for businesses and creators, Instagram has never been better, even if you’re super stressed out about engagement or followers.
But you have to let go of vanity metrics.
Especially if you’re an Instagram or social media expert and mentor to others.
Speaking of that, this Instagram post I made the other day got 78 likes.
SEVENTY EIGHT, in an audience of 95K people!
But I would never archive it just because it didn't perform.
It's valuable content for my business and I don't condition its existence with engagement.
And more importantly, as an social media expert, it’s very important for me to normalize posts that don’t perform, no matter how much knowledge you have or how big is your account.
xx
Manu
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Manu Muraro is the founder of Your Social Team, an Instagram training membership and content shop to help social media managers and Instagram savvy women entrepreneurs to beat the algorithm and grow their organic engagement (yes, even in 2021).
This year she also launched Your Template Club, a Canva Template subscription to provide social media managers and Instagram savvy business owners with content templates designed for engagement in their inbox.
Born and raised in Brazil, Manu moved to the U.S. in 2000 right out of college to work for Cartoon Network, where she made an award winning career in creative and strategy. In 2017, Manu started Your Social Team with the mission of helping women entrepreneurs and social media managers grow engagement and sales through Instagram without the overwhelm.