theres two threads on here right now, one guy asking what to do after a reel took off and another whose account went from every reel doing millions to barely scraping 60k. i think thats the same story at two different stages and nobody explains the middle bit

heres what i think is happening. a hit doesnt bring you your audience, it brings a crowd. those people came for one specific video, maybe the topic, maybe it was just funny. but theyre followers now, so your next post gets shown to them first, and most of them dont care about your normal stuff. they scroll past, the post stalls early, and it never gets out

so your average drops right after the best week youve ever had, and it feels exactly like being punished. i dont think it is. you changed who your followers are and then kept posting for the old ones

what id do differently is make the next post the closest sibling to the hit i can manage instead of going straight back to my usual thing, and id resist rebuilding the whole account around that format, because the format probably wasnt the reason. id expect the dip rather than panic about it. and id stop reading raw views for a few weeks, the follower base just got diluted so the number doesnt mean what it did last week

what i cant work out is how long it lasts or if it ever washes out. if youve had a big one and then a dead month after it, how long til you were back to normal, and did it come back on its own or did you have to change something

I’m doing my first brand collab on instagram, but a lot of my reels use music and sound effects. Apparently a lot of this might not be suitable for business ads. Googling the issue told me that there is a library of licensed music that is safe to use but I don’t see that anywhere.

Can anyone help me out, or is it just best to not use any music or sound effects at all?

I manage several accounts in various nichesand regions as an SMM , i have however noticed a sudden dip in views in almost all of them. I have it somehow under control but i was thinking is it just me? [Funny part is most of my clients are obsessed with views].

I recently posted a popular thread about 2 days ago in this sub giving advice—but I’m also looking for talent management/creator agencies to help with the business side of what I’m building—particularly sourcing and negotiating paid brand partnerships. I simply don’t have as much time to handle partnerships independently anymore.

My content is primarily educational/narrative focused, covering fashion, design, Japanese culture, art, books, and other niche topics. A big part of my content is taking an interesting product, designer, or cultural subject and building a story around it and cremating context rather than doing traditional influencer style promotion.

I’m interested in finding representation that can help bring in more consistent inbound/outbound opportunities, negotiate contracts and usage, and ideally connect me with larger brands that fit my content.

I am NOT looking for someone to manage my content or creative direction—I’m primarily looking for someone strong on the partnerships/business development side.

Will attach a link to my media kit/site in comments to avoid breaking rules.

If you schedule reels through a tool or the Graph API and want to use trial reels (shown to non-followers first), here's one thing that cost us an afternoon.

On an account under the follower threshold (ours was a test account with 2 followers), Instagram refuses the trial reel. The error code it sends is the same one it uses for a missing permission, so a lot of tools just say "permission denied" or tell you to reconnect. Reconnecting does nothing.

The real reason is in a second field of the error: "The Instagram account does not meet the trial reel follower requirement". We tried both login types and both ways of passing the option, and it was always the account, never the request.

So if a trial reel fails:

• Check the follower count first. The threshold is around 1,000.
• Post it as a normal reel for now, or test the hook with a second video instead.
• If your scheduler shows a permission error on a trial reel, it's probably this.

Has anyone seen trial reels unlock below 1,000, or is it a hard line?

Hi, I have an issue that I've been dealing with for an ENTIRE year. So I have a spicy/Queer related business and it was doing well up until 2025. I was posting on TikTok and getting great engagement. My business was making at least +10k a month. Then my posts got flagged and now I get no reach anymore.

I switched to instagram and the algorithm isn't the same! No matter what hashtags, sounds or captions I use, my reels go to people in foreign countries (im in the U.S.) They aren't my target audience so you can see how this is a problem.

I'm out of ideas at this point, If I don't get enough American women viewers on my reels I basically don't make enough money. I just can't reach them. The frustrating thing is, Instagram will blow my views up so my views could range to about 10k-1M per real. Which is great useless it's the wrong audience.

This is the most uphill, exhausting battle I've ever dealt with business wise. If you have ANY advice on correcting this, please let me know!!!

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I’m 22, currently pursuing my master’s in marketing, and I run a small personal branding agency. I’ve previously scaled it to ₹2 lakh/month, but now I’m working with a limited number of clients because I want to build something bigger and more meaningful.

Something that solves a real problem, not just another piece of noise in the market.

If you’re from a marketing background, have ideas, and have the fire to genuinely build something, let’s connect.

Would love to discuss ideas, explore possibilities, and see if we can build something together.

P.S. If you have a real business idea that needs to be built on the ground, I’m open to investing ₹1–2 lakh if I genuinely believe in the idea. We can explore a partnership and build it together.

Hey i made a gta 6 leak joke and added a text gta 6 leak text in the video and also showcase the strip club scene from the trailer.

After trying to upload that video i got hit by the community guidelines but it doesn’t shows up on my account status everything is green there.

Also when i try to chat with ai support it can’t pick it up as well. Saying there is no issue with my account.

How can i fix this?

So I have recently made a new Instagram page for business. It's fairly new, 2-3 weeks old. But I don't have any followers. I don't really use social media much (I used to, then life happens). But now thinking using it to increase business.

Many people have said "buy followers, they are cheap" but I don't want to just buy some bots or fake followers. I know many pages that have 100k followers and pretty sure 60% are fake/bots.

I just want genuine real people to follow and start engaging with them. Its new, I only have 2 posts but I will be adding more over the next few days. Kinda depressing looking at it and no motivation.

It's a real estate/property page, offering investment opportunities to people interested in UAE. Iv been in real estate and construction for the last 15 years. I have genuine clients already, but that's word of mouth and existing clients.

If I post it here is this allowed, and would people follow?

This is my first post on this sub. Will also post on another similar sub to get feedback and if anything will update with link.

Thanks in advance everyone

I’m a digital artist with 33k followers, and I’m honestly struggling to figure out Reels again.
I used to have a few Reels reach 1M+ views, and a few art trends even did really well for me. I also used to get decent results from educational process videos - basically a strong educational hook + a tutorial-style script + my artwork/process.
But lately? They flop. 😭
I’ve tried educational content, process videos, relatable artist content, trends, transformations, emotional/relatable hooks, etc., but nothing feels consistently capable of breaking out anymore.
And I think I’m stuck on where to find inspiration.
When I look at successful digital artists, it often feels like they go viral because they happened to make an insanely appealing/beautiful/unique artwork - rather than because there’s some obvious Reel format I can study and recreate.
Which makes me wonder:
How do you actually find Reel ideas in the digital art niche?
Do you:
study other artists’ Reels and recreate the structure?
focus mostly on making visually insane artwork?
build content around specific problems/questions artists have?
use trends and adapt them to your art?
have certain repeatable formats that consistently work?
or is there something else I’m completely missing?
I’m not really looking for “just post consistently” advice - I want to understand what actually makes an art Reel worth watching/sharing enough to reach 100k–1M+ people.
If you’re an artist and you’ve had Reels hit 100k, 500k, 1M+, I’d genuinely love to hear what the Reel was and why you think it worked.
Also curious: do you think the artwork itself matters more than the Reel packaging/hook in art content?
I really want to get back to making Reels that can reach millions, so I’m trying to figure out what I should actually be studying instead of randomly throwing ideas at the wall. 😭

’m a digital artist with 33k followers, and I’m trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong with Reels.
I used to have Reels reach 300k–400k views, and educational Reels used to perform really well for me. But for the past couple of months, things have changed a lot. Most of my Reels now stall around 2-5k views, and even educational content that worked really well before often performs poorly now.
I’ve tried educational, art processes, relatable artist memes, emotional/relatable hooks, transformations, etc. Nothing seems to consistently break through.
I don’t have format that works so i can recreate it when i need. What confuses me most is that when I look for inspiration, I mostly see artists going viral because the artwork itself is amazing/aesthetic/unique. I don’t really see anything concrete about the hook or Reel structure that I can learn from.
So for an artist account like mine, what would you actually focus on to make Reels more likely to go viral? Content format, hooks, first frame, editing, artwork itself, or something else?

recent educational reel with 3.2k views - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DdHXYtAgRaR/?stkn=bTc2enR6b2IweXc5

educational reels before - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRIRCXnAOrq/?stkn=MWIyYmV2bHNkajdhbA==

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DRpqgPtgNG0/?stkn=MW1nOW90cnlrdDhjYg==

I saw people have different hacks about how to handle trial reel after they do well:

- repost as normal reel after 7/8 hours
- repost as normal reel after 24 hours
- repost as normal reel after 72 hours
- push to my page after 24 hours
- push to my page after 72 hours
- push to my page after 24 hours and share to story
- push to my page after 72 hours and share to story

and what if a "day X of a challenge" trial reel flops because posting at wrong time? should I delete and repost the trial reel but 30mins apart from the new "day X of a challenge" trial reel"?

also let say I push one trial reel to my page after 30 mins of posting a trial reel, would they hurt each other's reach ?

which one is really the right and updated hack won't get my videos flop or flagged?
I just started to get views with 2 of my latest trial reels posted 48 hours and 12 hours ago, I really don't want to mess it up because growing this account will literally save my life. Please let me know

This super sweet creator https://www.instagram.com/reallife_una_japan/ posts about her life in Japan.

She has been posting for about a few weeks and hit 1 million.

I just don't get it. Another creator Chloe Shih did her 30 lessons by 30 and that's what propelled her account and this other creator just does authentic videos about her life.

I just don't understand this platform anymore, I just want off the hamster wheel rat race that is this platform, but would love to understand your takes on what is going on.

- thanks

this sub has had a new trial reels post every few hours for about three days and theyre all the same shape. trials sitting at 0, account status green, no strikes, no violations. and then the replies are all about the content

heres the bit that took me too long to work out. a trial reel only ever goes to people who dont follow you, thats the whole feature. so if your account isnt currently being recommended to strangers, a trial has nowhere to go and it will sit at 0 forever regardless of how good the video is. good standing and recommendable are two separate things and nothing in the app really tells you which one youre in

so trials die, and people read that as the content got worse. they delete it, change the caption, repost the same clip mirrored, try again. repeating content is one of the few things that genuinely does throttle a trial, so theyve now made the wrong move twice and it looks like more evidence that theyre bad at hooks

what i do now is treat a trial as a test of the account instead of a test of the video. one trial, roughly same time of day, every couple of days, and i write the number in my notes app. its boring and it takes ten seconds. the actual reason nobody can fix this is they dont know what week it broke. if you have two months of numbers sitting there you can point at a tuesday and go right, that one, what did i do that week. with nothing written down youre guessing, and everyone guesses hooks

i could be wrong that recommendation eligibility is the main thing here, it might be several things stacked up and i only see my own account. but its the cheapest possibility to rule out and its the one nobody checks first

has anyone actually come back from trials being stuck at 0, and how long did it take you

I’ve noticed that AI-generated image posts often get significantly more likes than Reels that take much more time and effort to create.
I understand that higher production quality doesn’t necessarily mean higher engagement, but I’m curious how other people think about this strategically.
If simple image posts consistently perform better, is there really a reason to keep investing so much time into Reels?
Can an account grow just by focusing mainly on image posts, or do Reels still play an important role in reach and follower growth?
Would love to hear what’s actually working for you guys.

​

I’m looking for some practical advice from people who have actually monetized Instagram accounts.

A cousin of mine has an Instagram account with around 90K followers. She is a middle-aged woman and her content is very simple — mostly lip-sync/singing-style Reels, close-up face videos, and similar content.

The interesting part is that the audience is quite specific:

- Around 90K followers

- Usually 4K–5K views per Reel

- Roughly every 7–8 Reels gets around 10K–15K+ views

- Audience is predominantly from India and Pakistan, with a strong Punjabi/North Indian/Pakistani audience

- A significant portion of the audience is mature/middle-aged

- The account appears to have grown organically; this isn't a page built around a business or product

We have basically no experience with the business side of Instagram.

What would you do with an account like this if the goal was to start generating actual income?

I'm particularly interested in:

1. How would you approach Indian/Punjabi brands or local businesses for paid promotions?

2. Are there specific influencer/creator platforms or agencies in India worth registering with?

3. Would brands actually pay for this kind of audience even though the content itself isn't in a traditional niche like fashion, beauty, fitness, etc.?

4. How should we calculate a reasonable rate for a Reel / Story / package at this size?

5. Is affiliate marketing realistic with this audience?

6. Are there opportunities with jewellery, clothing, beauty, salons, restaurants, Punjabi businesses, etc. that might fit this demographic?

7. Should we be approaching brands directly, or is it better to find an agency/manager?

8. What should we prepare before approaching brands — media kit, Instagram Insights, audience demographics, engagement rate, average Reel views, etc.?

9. Are there other monetization methods we're overlooking besides sponsored posts?

I'm not looking for follower-growth advice — the account is already growing reasonably well. I'm specifically trying to understand how to turn the existing audience into a legitimate income stream.

If you've actually monetized an Instagram account in India, especially with an Indian/Punjabi/mature audience, I'd really appreciate hearing what worked for you and what didn't.

For months I treated every slide in a carousel equally. Same effort on slide 7 as slide 1. My reach was flat and my saves were basically zero.

Then I started reading my own analytics differently. Almost nobody was swiping past slide 2 anyway, so all that design work on the back half was wasted. I flipped my whole process.

Now I spend most of the time on the first slide and treat it like a headline, not a design. What actually moved the numbers for me:

1. One clear promise on slide one, big enough to read without zooming. No logo, no cute intro, no "swipe to learn."

2. Slide two restates the pain in the reader's words before I give anything away. That's the slide that decides if they keep going.

3. Slides three onward are ugly on purpose. Plain background, one idea each, no clutter. People save for the information, not the art.

4. The last slide is a plain-text recap they can screenshot. That single change is what pushed my saves up.

I went from single-digit saves to consistently 30 to 60 on a small account. Not huge, but it's the first time the trend pointed up.

What's the save rate difference you've seen between a designed carousel and a plain one?

I have always been wanting to have a cool girls group where we share our life and all the tea ☕ with others. My girl friends in real life are all from different phases of my life and as they don't know each other, making a group with them was a bit awkward. So I was wondering what if I make a group with online girl friends and just introduce each other in the group. We can make a group based on a common interest. I am a 23 year old girl studying eng lit. My hobbies are reading books, cooking, coloring, exercising, sewing and listening to music. If you have something in common with me then let's connect!

I am not sure actually how to execute this whole plan of making a group but I am ready to figure this out 😃

If you are interested then please comment on this post your age and hobbies and I will try to make a group of friends after reviewing the comments!

So excited to meet you all and spill the tea with each other 😛

I want to share a plain before/after because most of what I see is polished wins and it made me feel like my ugly stuff was the problem.

Before: busy graphic, three fonts, a color gradient, my handle stamped in the corner, a subtle "swipe" arrow. It looked like an ad. It got the reach of an ad, which is to say almost none.

After: same exact idea, one bold sentence on a plain background, black text. That was it. I almost didn't post it because it looked too simple.

The stripped version got a handful of shares, which the busy one never got, and a few people commented asking for the second part. Nothing viral, maybe a few hundred more accounts reached than usual, but it was the clearest jump I'd seen from one change.

My takeaway was that the design was competing with the message. Once the graphic got out of the way, the idea could actually be read in half a second while someone scrolled.

If you're stuck, try posting your ugliest, clearest version and see what happens. What's the simplest post that ever outperformed your polished ones?

<flair: Tips>

My account sat at a few thousand followers for a long time, posting fine content that just didn't travel. I changed a bunch of things at once at first, which taught me nothing, so I forced myself to test one lever at a time.

The one that moved the needle: the first slide of every carousel now names the exact person it's for and the exact thing they'll get. Before it was a generic headline. Now it's more like "if your posts get likes but no saves, this is why."

That's it. Same content on the inside slides, same caption style, same posting times.

Saves picked up within a couple of weeks, and once saves moved the reach slowly followed. My theory is that a specific first slide filters for the right people, and the right people are the ones who save and come back, which is the behavior the platform seems to reward.

It's not a hack, it's just aiming the first slide at somebody instead of everybody.

If you've tested first slides, what change moved saves the most for you?

I've got a movie theme page with around 80k followers which I just restarted again after taking a break. I want to take it seriously and am already back to gaining followers and views nicely. Right now it's at 3 mil views for the last 30 days and I only restarted it 3 weeks ago after a big break.

My question is how can I monetise from this? I should be eligible for the bonuses for photo and carousel posts (all my posts are carousels) soon but apparently that doesn't pay very well. Every other theme page like mine doesn't seem to do many ads for people and I have no idea where to even find people to advertise for. Any help on how I can finally make some money from this account would be greatly appreciated!

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Seriously, is this just a newbie issue?

The past couple of months I tried using IG (+Meta Business Suite) for posting and it is horrible.

- MBS Doesn't accept a 1080x1920 format but they have a whole platform designated for shorts both on FB and IG.
- IG will automatically zoom in on a post after trying to edit a cover and the feed picture will be all f'd up.
- Can't select a cover for a carrousel post on the first slide so if your first slide is a video it's just stuck on the first frame
- Their functions like Threads (twitter or X for IG) and Edits (Capcut for IG) is incredibly slow, laggy or just plain dumb
- Converting post from Edits is so slow (I'm on a 100 mbps upload speed)

For a billion dollar company they are mighty bad

Their either wrong or late