Are you looking for ways to increase your Instagram reach? In a recent Q&A session on Instagram, IG chief Adam Mosseri shed light on the current algorithm and what it prioritizes for expanding your reach. Here’s what you need to know.

Mosseri emphasized that the most crucial factor for increasing your reach on Instagram is the rate at which users send your content to others. This “send rate” is more important than traditional engagement metrics like watch time, likes, and comments. According to Mosseri:

“More important than watch time or like and comment counts is send rates. Generally, I think the rate is more important than the count. So the number of sends per reach, the number of likes per reach, the number of comments per reach. But sends per reach correlate more, in my experience, with overall reach than anything else, because we are looking to help people discover content they want to connect with friends over, and so sends is a great proxy for that sort of connection over creativity.”

The likelihood of people explicitly sharing your post is now the key focus of the Instagram algorithm. This means that while watch time and other forms of engagement are still important, the rate at which users share your content will have the most significant impact on your reach.