Is Engagement the Most Important Metric on Instagram?

Let’s dive into THE hot topic that's been stirring up the social media world. Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, recently confirmed something many of us suspected—video quality on the platform dips when engagement drops. So, let’s discuss the importance of creating engaging content to keep your video quality high and your reach wide. I'll share some real-life examples of viral reels and why human connection in your content can make a huge difference. 

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Why Instagram prioritizes content with high engagement metrics.
• The importance of creating specific, engaging content for reels.
• Content longevity and how older content with good engagement remains visible.
• Adapting marketing strategies to changing trends while the core message stays the same. 
• Maintaining personal and relatable content to keep the human connection.
• Using specificity to call out your audience instead of creating generic content.

Other episodes you might have missed:

• Episode 005: Create Shareable Content to Increase Your Reach with the 3 S’s
• Episode 010: Turning Testimonials into Engaging Content for More Sales
• Episode 014: Why Creating Specific Content Leads to Higher Engagement
• Episode 019: Convert Viewers to Followers with the “That’s Me” Reel
• Episode 022: Boost Your Instagram Engagement With These Simple Strategies

Links to reels  in this episode:

• Reel 1: Apps and spicy margs
• Reel 2: Orders books to support your career growth
• Reel 3: High protein game day dip
• Reel 4: Steal my dinners for this week

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Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:05]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content, the podcast where I remove the never ending content creation, guesswork and overwhelm so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked. Good Content. Ooh, do we have a juicy episode today! The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, by the time you hear this, it will have been a week since this announcement, a little over. But during his Ask Me Anything series on stories noted that video quality on Instagram goes down once engagement dies down. Now, I did not quote, unquote, weigh in or have a take on it. We've known this, right? We see it just as someone chronically on Instagram for my job and also because I love it. We know this to be true.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:55]:
We know that content that does not perform well, that is not getting like save shares, comments, is going to get, not penalized, I don't want to use the word penalized. I want to be really careful here. One doesn't get pushed out to more people. Here you guys go, right? You're about to put a reel up or a piece of content. It's going to go out to a portion of your audience, maybe it might end up at the reels tab, etc. If people don't start engaging with it, Instagram is going to be like, something's up here. It's not resonating.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:20]:
This is not keeping people on the app. Right? So instead of saying the word penalized is what I will say. It rewards accounts and content with good engagement. Okay, for an analogy, I would almost say I feel like I use the restaurant analogy a lot, but I'm about to go out to dinner, so let's go with it. Like, if you are walking down the street and there's all these restaurants and one has a huge line outside, and then all these others are like dark, no one's in there. Which one are you going to pay attention to more and want to get in line for? Right? It's kind of like that. It's almost like if you. I always say when you're trying to like, picture the algorithm and how it works.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:56]:
So basically these restaurants are the ones everyone's talking about. It's the one that they're sharing, the one that they're putting on. TikTok. That's the reason there's a line out the door. Okay? I just talk in food analogies. That's what I do. So with that said, I did a reel. I just posted it earlier today.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:10]:
And of course people are like, someone's saying it's fake news and someone else is saying this, and their take on it is this. Like, there's no take on it. The facts are they came out and said it. Whether it means two years from now, they reduce the quality of the video or in five days, it doesn't matter. Here's what's up. Ready? Instagram is a business, right? We are its minions in a way. Okay? Our content keeps people on their app so that they make more money in turn. We get clients, we get whatever, whatever.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:38]:
This is a business decision on Instagram's part. This is probably every app. YouTube probably does this. Facebook probably does this. So, like, let's just call it what is. There is nothing to be alarmed about. The reason it's interesting to me and other marketers is because it's like, well, they're being more transparent, which I appreciate. But also, it just shows, again, their most important metric on Instagram will always be engagement.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:59]:
You know, I know that they've said shares are like their kind of biggest power metric, but it doesn't matter. If somebody's getting a ton of likes comments, they're going to keep pushing out. When I am scrolling the reels tab and I like a reel, sometimes I will notice that reel was posted 40 weeks ago, 38 weeks ago. Are you nodding as you're listening? Yes. Right. So again, when the person calling it fake news was like, no, no, no, no. Our content lasts so much longer than it used to. So if one of my reels from 40 weeks ago or longer is still going, the video quality will be high.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:33]:
Engagement. That's the only point of this whole thing. You need to be creating content that is getting engagement, period. And that's why you're listening to this podcast. Okay? So without arguing about. It's not a take. It's not. It's.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:45]:
It's fact of the matter. This is what they all do because it's really expensive for them to stream video. So if a video is not doing well, what are they gonna do? Lower the video quality. Cool. Sorry, I'm not trying to sound snarky. I'm just so over. Whatever. Okay, so with that said, one, we're gonna look at reels that are going viral because again, when everyone's like, my engagements down, my engagements down, I'm like, yeah, so is mine.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:05]:
It's also election season. It's also the holidays. It's also. We're in a new era of marketing. And this is what I just did. A whole reel. I guess we could call it a rant, to be honest of me, very fired up. Because again, I'm.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:16]:
What I'm getting comments on the reel about the announcement from Instagram is. But Shannon, I see people not posting even good content. And so we know it's good. The reason it's good is because it's getting shared. It doesn't have good content. Does not necessarily. And this is where I know when people say it to me, it's not because they don't understand marketing. That's not it at all.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:33]:
It's because they're hearing horrible advice from so many people who haven't been in this field. Even you could be brand new in this. Know exactly what you're talking about. But people that are in this field long enough that they rely on fear and tactics, and I don't do either. So are hooks great for grabbing attention? Are those tactics? Yes. But then there's tactics that are sleazy. You know the difference? We're not. We're gonna say that for another show.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:54]:
I am clearly fired up. I need a glass of wine. Who's joining me? So, long story short, I'm going to go through some viral reels right now because again, not everyone's reach is down. Not everyone's engagement is down. So the point of it was, my rant was saying we have lost humans on social media. It has become robotic, it has become copy paste, carbon copies of everyone's thing. While do I use formulas based on content going viral? You betcha. Does it look exactly like everyone else's? No.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:20]:
I have my own style. All my clients have their own style. And even if it is some boring B roll, which, love me, some boring B roll, it ain't going nowhere. I rely on strong copy. So if you don't have really powerful, awesome video, you better understand copy. And that's why people are in the Reels Lab. I create most of the copy for them, except for like this silly little fill in the blanks that they fill in the name of their product and things like that. Right? Your messaging has to be nailed down, all that stuff.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:45]:
This takes time, getting to know your people. One of the best things I can tell you guys is spend a day pretending you're your person and like write down, like, go through their day and every single thing that they run across something frustrating with, like, gah! And like, how did it feel? And describe it, like, someone actually just wrote me and she was like, can you look at my content? And I took a look and it was about, you know, a mom and being like, hey, you know you don't have to do strenuous exercise for it to be exercise. Great point. Right? Not strong. I said, what are those movements? What? Cause she said something about, like, movements. They can be subtle movements, something like that. So I said, be specific.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:21]:
Does that mean a five minute walk? Does that mean two minutes of doing squats while you're making soup? Do you know what I mean? Like, you guys have got to be specific. Like, we are looking at generic, boring, mediocre content all day long, and it's the stuff not getting engagement. And that Instagram will then push down their feed. Okay, now let's talk about what's doing well. Oh, but sorry, that's what I said in my rant reel. Basically saying, you know, we've lost human. All these gurus, when they came out like six, seven years ago, were almost costing me clients, literally, because they were my clients would come to me and they'd be like, Shannon so and so said this, so and so said that. I'm like, what are y'all talking about? Our numbers are in the green.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:01]:
All the pluses, all the things. So just trust me, okay? A lot of these people aren't navigating a ton of other accounts and other industries. This is why so many people in my industry who I'm obsessed with, all the marketers on Instagram who I'm friends with, and I'm sure there's some I don't even know, right? We teach marketing from a ethical place with proven strategies based on data, and then we are pivoting almost every month because it's changing. But guess what? Your message stays the same. Your paint, your person's pain point typically stays the same. All we're doing is tweaking the message a little bit and using a formula that's working. Okay, so let's talk about what that looks like. Okay, here's one.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:38]:
Going crazy. Celine. A little Celine. Who doesn't love that? It says me when anyone asks if I want apps and spicy marks. Relatable people are probably going, that's not valuable. Yeah, it is. Because it gave me something to share to all my friends. It made me laugh.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:51]:
Right. Okay, again, I know you and I were business owners. Those are typically the types of reels we're creating. Here's another one. Someone who supports you in your career growth so much that they order books on it to learn more and be involved. Oh, this is what I mean. Oh, my God. This is what I mean.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:05]:
This is what I mean by human connection. This real. Holy crap. We're just going to stop here. This is it. It is by a creator named Maria Marzullo. I hope I got that right. She's got about 38,000 followers.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:16]:
She's got 20,000 on TikTok. So again, is this a huge a million person account? No. So even if you have a smaller following, which that is not a small following, by the way, but I'm saying, like, I think people think you have to have a million followers or 500,000 followers to get the algorithm attention. No, no, no. She's got over 500 shares. Let's see how many views it's got. Over 100,000. So it's really good for her account, right? That's viral for her.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:40]:
Almost 5000 likes. Again, it says someone who supports you in your career growth so much they order books on it to learn more and be involved. How freaking cute is that? Go watch it. It's in the show notes. I think it's her husband basically showing that how much he cares about that is what I'm saying when it comes to human connection. And guess what? Right away I am like invested in what? What is she trying to do for her career? Who is this girl? Where does she live? Oh my God. Do you see what I mean? We took the people out of social media and just went value educate, educate, educate. We forgot that we also want to connect on a human level.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:10]:
So that's one. Let me find one more before we go. You guys know I love my food ones pov: You're craving an easy high protein game day dip with 75 grams of protein that tastes incredible. Over 8, 000 likes. Over 4, 000 shares. The Fit Blondie. Do you guys see what I'm saying? Steal my dinners this week.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:31]:
Now obviously this is a content creator, right? But I what I want you to take from this is the way I would pivot this to me. Schedule my clients content with me. Schedule my content with me. Come shoot B roll with me. We are going back to basics. Do you see how the content I see doing so well right now is personal to the person? All right, get in the Reels Lab.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:53]:
Listen to more podcasts. I will not steer you wrong. I love you, friend.