How to grow on Instagram in 2026

Instagram didn’t “break”, it evolved and if your reach has tanked lately, you’re not imagining it.

We unpack what an AI-first, user-first Instagram looks like in 2026 and why so many businesses feel like everything that used to work has fallen off a cliff.

The big reframe: follower count is no longer the main lever. Authority, relevance, and clear signals are.

If you want a cleaner, calmer Instagram growth strategy for 2026 that’s built for search behaviour and AI discovery, hit play, share it with a business mate, and subscribe so you don’t miss what changes next.

Key Takeaways: 

• Why Instagram growth in 2026 looks completely different 
•  How AI-first Instagram algorithms are changing content performance 
• Why follower count matters less than content relevance 
• How to teach Instagram’s algorithm who your content is for 
• Why topic clusters and repetition drive Instagram reach in 2026 
• How social SEO on Instagram improves search and discovery 
• Why keywords in hooks, captions, on-screen text, and comments matter 
• How watch time, completion rate, saves, and shares signal strong Instagram content

Hosted by Cherie Clonan [@cherie_thedigitalpicnic] and co-hosted and produced by Steph Clifford [@stephssocials] 

Follow us on Instagram @theclimbpod_

Check out our agency @thedigitalpicnic > we teach digital marketing, and we can manage yours, too. 

Transcript

Welcome And Why It Changed

Cherie 0:01

Welcome to The Climb, a podcast about the messy, brilliant, relentless journey of building something meaningful. As an introvert who believes in adding value, not noise, every 40-minute conversation is built to respect your time, but also actually teach you something useful.

Steph 0:18

Today we are speaking all about how to grow on Instagram in 2026. Cherie, we recently hosted, I shouldn't say we, you recently hosted two webinars about this topic, and we had over 2,000 attendees. So we thought we might as well make this into a podcast episode for the people who weren't able to attend the webinar. I'm not gonna lie, I've got my notes next to me because there's a lot of questions today, and I want to make sure that we cover as much as we possibly can. So, Cherie, I guess what to you has changed on Instagram or just a very broad overview of why, if people are on Instagram with their business this year, why should they tune into this episode?

Cherie 1:01

I think they need to tune in because every second person in our DMs is saying, has something changed? Because everything that I've been doing is not only not hitting anymore, but it's as if everything that they deem to be successful on Instagram historically has fallen off the cliff. Um, and I validated every single DM and said, your feelings are valid, you your instincts are spot on, you know, it everything has changed on Instagram. Um and we felt it mid-2025 especially, but we knew it was coming. Um, and we'd prepared strategies accordingly. Um but I wasn't quite prepared for how much it would hit our community, you know, and it really did, like it really was the fact that it feels as if it's an entirely different platform at the moment, and so folks should feel validated in that feeling because it actually is. Uh, it's almost unrecognizable. That's how far I'd go. I would go as far as saying it's an unrecognizable platform now.

Steph 1:57

Right. So if people are sitting there going, oh my goodness, I haven't updated my Instagram strategy since 2024, even just 2025, are they behind right now?

Cherie 2:09

I don't think we're ever behind unless we commit to staying in that sort of, you know, spot that's not servicing your strategy well. We're never behind unless we choose to stay somewhere not so great for our strategy. Um, you can always course correct, you know. And for anyone who subscribes to the Am I Behind, um, you're gonna have a really rough time marketing your business online with that kind of mindset because I can remember, I'm not even sure which year this was now, but there was a particular year where I just went to Bali for two weeks for a family holiday. And while I was there, Instagram stories dropped. So on paper, I felt like Inverted Commons behind. Because as an introvert, with at that time, especially, like I didn't lean naturally towards gee, I can't wait to wake up today and film face-to-camera content. Um, and yet that's exactly what was dropping in real time at that moment in Indonesia for me. You know, um, so whenever behind, um, I think the folks who end up behind are the ones who just um accepted everything that's changed and they could see very obviously that they were no longer, you know, pulling the levers that uh actually result in, you know, typical mountains being moved for themselves and their strategy and said, Yeah, let's stay here. Um so as long as you are just dialing into this podcast, for example, you're already ahead. You know, we can always course correct, we can always upskill, and the platforms will change so much that if you subscribed to like, you know, anything like that, you'll always feel behind. It's just not possible, you know, to be five steps ahead of these fast-moving platforms.

Steph 3:43

Amazing. Well, we're gonna dive straight into it. So, what is probably one of the biggest misconceptions that people would have about in how Instagram works?

Cherie 3:52

I think the biggest misconception they have is that they genuinely still think that what used to work still works now. Um, and that's just not true. Uh, the our I don't want to always focus on algorithms, by the way, but I have to for this podcast because there have been some significant algorithmic changes on Instagram that have changed everything, you know, um, to the point where I'm not even designing Instagram strategies for our clients anymore for follower growth. It doesn't matter anymore. You know, it actually really doesn't matter. Like it's nice, it's good for the ego, the soul, the vanity metrics, and so on. And I'll still strive to grow. Trust me, I'm a marketer. I want to grow. But what's more important, honestly, is honoring that AI first algorithm, because that's been the biggest change. It's all AI first and user first, you know. So nowadays people can log in and consume really high quality content that does something for them, you know, on the inside in every right way imaginable, from brands they're not even following. So the follower doesn't matter. They're going to see it anyway if you start designing your Instagram strategy strategy to show up to people who needed to see that content. Um, and so I mean, that alone, like, can you believe that we're at a point where the I can say out loud that the followers don't really matter? Uh, because I couldn't have predicted that five years ago. It was everything, you know. It's pretty exciting to think about what content possibilities can happen off the back of designing content just as much for a non-follower as we are a follower, you know? Uh, so yeah, it's an exciting time to be a content strategist. I'm gonna say that.

Steph 5:29

I love that. Because I feel like sometimes with the changes, people that it's the fear, isn't it? Because it's like, oh, now I have to relearn, start again. But we can reshape that thought to think, well, it's actually a really exciting time to be on this platform.

Cherie 5:43

It's never been more exciting. The algorithm has never been more on your side. Like it's showing so much. You know the stats, Steph. You see all of TDP's insights, we're showing up to more non-followers than we have been followers. I am really excited about how much the content that we're designing is appealing to people who aren't even following us. Um, and we get to over time nurture that experience so that they become followers potentially, or not even at all. We just rely on that algorithm to keep showing up with the stuff that they want to see.

Steph 6:13

I love that. All right, let's delve into the algorithm. So in 2026, um, our job isn't just to beat the algorithm, but to teach it exactly who we're for. So can you unpack that a little bit more?

Cherie 6:27

Yeah. I think it's probably never, it's never been that we should have been out there beating the algorithm. Uh I just don't really ever subscribe to that. But I'm gonna say there's been a long history for myself as a marketer and a content strategist where I definitely knew how to play an algorithm game, you know. So if we're gonna talk beating the algorithm, I'm gonna say I definitely knew how to clock some pretty easy algorithmic wins. Um, not using any of that for evil, but just hopefully good. We work with some really incredible clients, you know. So we've known how to play an algorithm game. And now I think all of that feels redundant, you know? And now we need to sort of consider a much longer-term strategy. There's less of the quick wins that we've all historically loved. Um, and now I think businesses on this platform need to subscribe to playing a longer game, you know, with their growth on Instagram and really back, you know, themselves and sort of get around the fact that they know who they are and they know who they're for and they design topic clusters around that accordingly. If you've spent a long time on this platform trying to be everything to everyone, that never worked historically, but it is redundant now. You will just put yourself out of the game just from an AI-first algorithmic perspective, because if that platform and its AI-first models can't figure out who the flip you are, what you're meant to be, who you're meant to be for, um, they're just not going to even put you in the arena. You know, they they won't take a risk on you for, I guess, just reasons related to diluting the efficacy of your content.

Repetition Teaches The AI

Steph 8:12

Yeah. So that Instagram's AI obviously is a huge change. Uh, practically, how does it learn about what content you're trying to put out there?

Cherie 8:23

Repetition. Um, it learns through repetition and the right signals going off on content that you're sharing. This is a really hard part for people to get around on Instagram in 2026 because we've always been scared of repeating ourselves. We are usually uh for those designing their own content, we're kind of sick of ourselves, you know, because we feel like we're the ones who design all the content. We're worried that everyone sees everything that we're putting out. They don't. It doesn't work like that anyway. Um, and so we hold off on that repetition piece. But those AI first models need really good topics that you speak to repetitively and you just keep exploring them in more and more depth. Um, you come up with new interesting creative and strategic ways to speak to those topic clusters, and then they can get to a point where they feel like they can take a punt on you and putting you forward to non-followers who might have a vested interest in divorce law or um an Airbnb escape in um the, you know, a C-based sort of environment, whatever it might be, they'll take a punt on you and they'll share you to that non-follower contingent because you've shown up and you've done that consistent content that speaks to your topic well, and it's also set off a series of trust signals. So that's just the stuff that we would all know. Trust signals are like your your likes, your comments, your saves, your shares, you know, your videos getting some watch time in plus completion time, you know, your carousels being swiped through, hopefully to the end. Um, all of those things send off big signals to those AI first algorithms that say, not only is this person an authority on the topic of dot dot dot, but they're getting some really decent hits as well. Not virality, just signals, hits, you know, interest.

Steph 10:14

Uh, yeah. So when we are trying to be consistent, I feel like this is a problem that we hear a lot from clients and even like myself working on TDP socials, I know that we feel this sometimes is when you are being so consistent and repetitive, you get a bit bored of your own content, maybe, because you're like, we've said this so many times. So, how do we balance that consistency with creativity?

Cherie 10:39

Yes, that's where you need some time taken out of your month. Say if you're one of those um type A legends who can sort of plan content for yourself one month in advance, for example, I would recommend more than ever now some stare out the window time. You need to build it into ideas machines so that you're not ever falling into that content for content sake trap, you know. And yeah, we've never needed to ideas machine more so that we can present new creative, interesting ways to appeal to the same topic. But then I'm gonna say just make peace with that cringe mountain that has everything to do with this feels so repetitive because I would say Instagram audiences are crave they're craving depth, not breadth. So they want to head over to an account that speaks consistently to one great topic on, you know, this particular piece. And I think anyone who's still struggling in the oh god, it just feels so repetitive, you would only have to look at particular accounts doing repetition really well. So I think of Sof Work Baby. She feels to me like the mother of Gen Z dragons, you know. Um, and she just puts out content after content after content to help Gen Z folk, I don't know, pull off corporate life well or professionalism and so on. She's such a green flag, she's such a safe human, but she's speaking to the same topic. It's so creative, it's so interesting, it's so high value. And as a result, the AI first algorithm and those models in general will always put her towards her perfect demographic. That's why I think she's had the high growth, you know, that um she's had. Uh so give the give the community what they want. It's the depth through repetition, and give the AI first models what they need in order to endorse you and continue to endorse you.

Steph 12:36

And the saying that, you know, if you're sick of talking about that topic, you're only halfway there.

Cherie 12:41

So yes, if you're sick of that particular topic, congratulations. The AI first model is really proud of you. Yeah. Yeah.

Metrics That Prove Content Works

Steph 12:51

When you spoke uh before about key signals with Instagram, so obviously our likes and swiping through carousels. What are those key signals that people should be worried about in terms of when they are looking at their insights of what is actually telling me that this piece of content was a good piece of content?

Cherie 13:09

Yeah. I think given we're in that video first slash carousel first era for especially a platform like Instagram, I would look at um, you know, say in Videoland, I'd I just it's watch time and completion time for me. And so if you're not video confident, I would start out with shorter videos, like 60 seconds or less. Gosh, even 30. Less. 100%. Make it as short as possible because if it's a shorter loop, they're gonna watch it a couple of times and you're gonna get some real early days wins with a longer completion time or definitely longer dwell timeslash, you know, watch time. And you can build that video marketing confidence to build out to longer form videos, but you'd have to really, I'd be wanting some really consistent early days completion time wins before I built out to longer form video. Uh, so that's the sort of metrics that I look at to say this is working and video first land. With carousels, it's the same. I'm looking at, you know, it's watch time, but it's different because it's a carousel. So where are the people dropping off, you know? Um, or now with the new metrics kicking in, um, when did they give that piece of content a like? You know, how far into the carousel was it? If there's a big amount of likes coming in at the end, I'm thrilled with myself. Um, I'm just celebrating myself so hard because most of the uh engagement came at the end of the carousel. So that's Instagram so proud of me, you know. Um, so yeah, I would look at things like that. But then the typical things, not just comments, but are they meaningful? And are you putting meaningful commentary back with your people? Because I'm finding a lot of businesses are just becoming so lazy with community management in that they either don't reply at all, that actually breaks my heart. How one way do you seriously want to be on a social media platform? So get the replies in and then put some effort into the replies if for no other reason, like community matters, and if but if you don't care about that, well, I'm kind of worried for you. Um, but if you don't care about community, at a bare minimum, every reply that comes through from the digital picnic on any of our platforms, but let's speak specifically to Instagram, I am embedding within those replies keywords. I'm optimizing for keywords within my replies so that the algorithm can read more and more, not just in the content, not just in the comments that people are leaving, but how we're replying, what this post speaks to and continues to speak to. So make that commentary meaningful. Uh, and then outside of that, it's the easy ones, your saves, your likes, your shares, just any signal really is a good signal. Um, I just want when that post goes live, for the signals to be signalling. Honestly, I want the platforms to say, hey, this piece of marketing education from the digital picnic today is really worthy of being pushed out to a broader audience because dot dot dot. You know?

Steph 16:08

I'm gonna out myself here. I recently um started posting on my personal brand, and one of the first videos I posted was essentially a daily vlog of working at TEP. But it was just an ASMR style. So I didn't I didn't mention that I it was a day in the life, I didn't uh talk about my role. It was all the algorithm would have heard was just random sounds from my workday. And in the caption, I wrote this, you know, trying to be humorous caption about how I'm grateful for the Westgate Tunnel for carving down my commute time. And the AI comments um thought that my video was Westgate Tunnel hacks. And I showed it to one of my friends who was trying to grow his own social media, and I said, this is a perfect example of what not to do. And I literally work in social and should have been thinking about that when I was creating it, that I need to be embedding those messages through the content, the voiceover, the text on screen, the caption, the comments as replies, not just assuming that AI is going to understand what it is because now my video may be getting seen by Westgate tunnel people. So and that's that's not what the purpose of the content was for. So hopefully that can give people a little bit of an understanding of um the specifics of when you are designing that piece of content, think um about all the places you can implement those details.

Cherie 17:33

We think in optimization all the time now, especially for our clients. Like we're like, all right, what's the intro text on this? What's the intro hook? You know, um, we're so acutely aware of how these platforms read everything from, like you said, your voiceover, they can hear it, they can read it, they can interpret that. Um, on-screen text, the caption, how we're replying. Um, so we are just optimization kings, queens, and people here at the digital picnic because we're, you know, doing that for our clients. Where these days I think our point of difference has become because it's needed to become don't book us if you just want someone to plug in video gaps within your content strategy, because we need to be so much more strategic than that. It's not just video, it's not, we're not just creating um one video. We're out there thinking in optimization from beginning to end, you know, in every sense of the word, right through to social SEO, you know. So that's how proud I feel now of like what this platform is commanding and demanding from its industry professionals that we've just yeah, um, to avoid becoming the Westgate tunnel hack. Um, by the way, I actually loved that caption as a founder because I was like, oh, that's so because your commute is quite the commute, and I'm always relieved that it's six days a month or you know, less sometimes in say December, whatever. Um, but I really thought, wow, that tunnel has just shaved off 30 minutes, I think it is, from your commute. And I felt relieved. I almost wanted to thank the Westgate tunnel for making my life as a founder better.

Steph 19:09

Yeah. Okay, so maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe I sent people in the right direction.

Cherie 19:14

I'm a very niche audience.

Why Ad Hoc Posting Fails

Steph 19:16

A very niche audience of one. Okay, so uh we could kind of touch on it a little bit, but what does happen if our content is too broad and inconsistent? What if all we're talking about is Westgate tunnels and we're not talking about what we actually want to be speaking about?

Cherie 19:30

Yep, this is almost everyone, to be so honest with you. We all go too broad, and I think the reason why, the only reason that I can think of is where ad hocing, our strategy, there are too many people who aren't just sitting at least a week in advance and plugging it all in. And so what you find is you get to, I don't know, 7 p.m. and you're like, I haven't posted. So then they put up this thing and it just it's nothingness. Now, in the past, you might have had some um fluky kind of wins with that, but I'm here to tell you now if you take nothing else from this podcast, ad hoc is not gonna cut it in an AI first algorithm era. We have to at least plan a week in advance. Uh we at TDP go a month in advance. Um, and if we're not doing that, we're missing out on figuring out what authority we're missing out on. So I taught a masterclass recently on AEO, so answer engine optimization. And the answer to AEO success is exactly in the letters AEO. We called it authority everywhere online. And so in the olden days of mapping an Instagram strategy, I would be looking for predictably high-reach posts. I'd be trying to figure out like Nostradamus, where are they, which one's going to pop off? But now I'm looking through a month in advance and I'm saying, what authority have we not lent into? Are we just being fun? Are we leaning into too many viral trends? Are we just being fucking boring? You know, are we playing it safe with our content? Are we not taking risks? Because all of that is what the AI models need to see from a business, and you're not going to grab that when you're ad hocing it. You just won't. You can't. Not when you're like, um, this, and you post it out at, I don't know, 8 p.m. because it's the peak time, but what's the point of peak when it's diluted all of the impact, you know?

Steph 21:30

Yeah. Yeah. Uh quality over quantity, definitely. Okay. So if someone's listening to that and they're going, right, I need to change what I'm doing. How should they be structuring, let's say, their next nine to 12, you know, posts, their next two weeks of content? How do they look at that?

Topic Clusters And Less Is More

Cherie 21:47

Well, I would start the way you've sort of led with that question. I'm always now looking at what do we post last? I look at the last nine. I literally call it the last nine on Instagram. And in the olden days, again, when I say olden days, I'm talking 2025, a little bit of 2024, I would have a different approach to the last nine where I used to really just want to pretend that the last nine posts that the digital picnic has shared to Instagram might be the first and only chance we have of converting a new follower. Now that we're in our followers don't matter as much era, what I'm instead looking at in the last nine that we've posted is how many authority gaps did we leave on the table? You know, where do we miss a chance to be an authority, you know, within our space? And so for anyone listening to this podcast, I want you to go to your last nine to ten posts that you've shared now and just write down the themes that you've spoken to, talked to, you know, within that content and figure out where your authority gaps are. Um, and that could then guide the next two to four weeks for you, you know. So the last nine will guide the next three to four-ish weeks, to be so honest. And um that's how we design our Instagram strategies now this year.

Steph 23:01

So we're gonna move on now to topic clusters. So why are these so critical in 2026 and what are they?

Cherie 23:10

Yeah, okay. Well, we've hit our less is more era, um, which is uh it's a good time, you know. Um, and it's not just about posting less, uh, it's also about it's reducing how much you're speaking to and really landing on, I would say no more than three, at most five things that you regularly want to speak to and nailing them because anything more than five means you are being too much for too many people and not hitting quite literally anything. Um, so I would say, folks, we're guiding folks to walk away, really locking in on the three things that they want to speak to most. If you really need to push out to five, you'd want to make sure that there's a good case study for speaking to anything more than three things within your content strategy on Instagram this year. Um, and and locking in on those until they fatigue out. Because honestly, a topic cluster is just that. It probably suits being spoken to repetitively for whatever period of time. But sometimes we just have to say goodbye to what was historically one of our best content themes, um, hold a bit of a funeral for it, you know, and just say it was a good time, it wasn't the longest time, and now I've got to brainstorm a new sort of thing to speak to. Um, you know, so topic clusters will anchor that strategy for you. And then you've just got to sort of look at what you've got, um, three maximum five, and then generate some really good ideas that consistently speak to those three to five things.

Steph 24:37

And those three to five things, are they able to be quite different from each other? Yep.

Cherie 24:42

Absolutely. So for the digital picnic, it would be around marketing education, um, you know, just more broadly, like thought leadership, but narrowing in on well, what thought leadership? You know, what do we want to stand for? Um, so we look lock in on a leadership-based, you know, topic cluster. Um, and then we even speak a little bit to more of a niche one around neurodivergent leadership. So that's our three. Um, and that's resulted in us as a digital marketing agency, one of a million in Australia, no doubt. Haven't researched no stats to back that up, but just um guessing for comedic purposes, why do we have 60k plus you know followers on Instagram? We don't deserve that. Like it's just a boring digital marketing agency in Melbourne, you know, but but we have what we have because we've always locked in on this before we even knew it was a thing, you know.

Steph 25:30

Yeah. So thinking about keywords as well, how does Instagram, it's a little bit more of a search engine these days than a social media platform. So do you want to tell talk us through that a little bit?

Cherie 25:42

Yeah, you've nailed it, Steph. It's exactly that. Instagram and most platforms are now more of a search engine than anything else. You know, I started seeing that pattern um before it was really official, uh, where I just found that people stopped Googling as much for answers and started going to social media platforms for the answers, you know, and they can because these really clever engineers have designed these phenomenal AI-first, you know, algorithms to do exactly that. Um, and so your Instagram strategy has to change completely, you know, because of that. So uh for us at the digital picnic, we're not just um smashing out content for content's sake, we never have, but especially now we're looking at each little gap in our doc for each client per month, and we're saying, all right, social SEO has never mattered more. We're on a search-based platform now, people are coming here to search. How can we get this content shot to show up to non-followers that are our perfect demographic, you know? Um, and we do that by every kind of optimization available, starting from the simple thing of embedding the right keywords into captionslash video carousel, you know, and so on, but right through to sometimes just more of the sophisticated stuff, you know, to help us get away from, you know, um pieces of content that are like Westgate Tunnel hacks, you know, and we know we've nailed it when that little blue description at the top of any Instagram post that pops up couldn't be better suited to who we'd want finding, you know, this content. Um, and so yeah, that's that's how you nail this, you know, social SEO piece this year. Uh, you optimize literally everything from the content that you're designing, the text that you have in your bio, all video has to be optimized for social SEO. It's got to have that AI first lens applied to quite literally everything. And then just to finish it off and hopefully really bring home how sophisticated it's all becoming. We're playing the longest-term game with our clients' growth where we're like, yeah, but how do we end up in the right search queries slash results, not just within Google? Like, it's we want those um, you know, AI answers that are the first to appear on Google now when anyone searches for anything. All of the content that we're designing day in and day out for our clients leads to that end game.

Steph 28:16

And if you are wondering what uh your audience is searching for, you can go on to websites like Google Trends and there's other ones as well to actually find out, you know, pop in your topic and it will spit out the questions people are literally asking Google. So you can literally grab their question, which is best restaurants in Melbourne, and then you can make your piece of content based off that so that when people are literally putting in those words, your piece of content pops up. So that's a good place to start if you are struggling to know what answers to give. People are asking the questions already, so it's out there.

Cherie 28:54

Yes, and we can never think that we know how people are searching, honestly. Um, we need to go a little bit more mere mortal with what you've just mentioned there, searching for how people search for you, because it's not how you think they're searching for you, I promise.

Steph 29:08

Exactly right. And and it changes depending on what's happening, right? Like what's happening in the world or economy, like so many things impact what people search as well. So always being sure to tap back into what the audience is actually asking for. Um, you do teach and have spoken about um captions a little bit uh throughout today, but that keyword first approach, what does that actually look like in practice when you're sitting down and writing that caption?

Cherie 29:36

Yeah, I mean, and caption is almost the end of it sometimes. So to begin with, it's just well, what is the content doing in the first three seconds? Like the hook, I know people have, you know, spoken about hooks for a really long time and you're thinking that hardly feels 2026-ish. This has been relevant for a lot longer than that. But um, it's still so relevant now and probably more relevant than ever because uh whenever we're we're even out on shoot with clients for their video content, we're just our brains have been rewired. The chemistry is different in there. Like we're just like hook, AI first, social SEO, how do we introduce this video? The first three seconds have to be not only interesting to an audience, but grab an AI first model and their associated sort of um interest at the beginning as well. Um, it's like you said before, like it's the on-screen text uh and then finished out sure with the caption. But I'm a former copywriter. I'm still obviously writing copy, but um I was officially once upon a time a copywriter. My caption writing has changed completely. I actually don't write a single caption that doesn't start with bold, highlighted yellow with the background, it just helps my brain for some reason. But I'm looking at this word that's a keyword, and I'm optimizing the caption entirely around that. I've never done that before. I've never worked in the SEO space. I have, sorry to say this, but literally no desire to. But what I am really interested in is social SEO, you know, and so that's what I feel like a mini SEO specialist every time I'm writing each and every caption, designing every single video, carousel, and so on around keywords.

Steph 31:21

And do you feel like when you are creating with this keyword first approach, that actually does help your Instagram strategy? Of course, we're helping our AI, but we're also getting more clear, I guess, on those topic clusters that we're speaking about. Like it's a win-win scenario.

Cherie 31:35

Yeah, absolutely. Like you've just got to understand. I think for anyone who's ever thought the algorithm is out to get you, this one's on your side and treat it like an intern. You've got to over-explain, you've got to help it help you. You know, um, you can't assume that it knows who the flip you are. It doesn't. Um, so you just have to genuinely act like these new algorithms are like an intern. So overexplain, um, get repetitive, get consistent with strong, high quality, deep, you know, um content that speaks to those topic clusters best.

Steph 32:14

Amazing. When you are reading other people's captions, what are the biggest mistakes that you can see at the moment?

Cherie 32:22

Well, I think too many people still think that um TLDR is a thing. Um, and they're trying to be really punchy with one sentence. And I just think that is such a miss. Um, so one sentence, like, congrats on being the cool kid. Like, you've got the street cred. You look like a really cool kid with one caption, with one sentence in the caption and so on. Those days are over in a social SEO AI first landscape, which is where we're at. Um, so we're not just writing captions for community now. We're writing so that we have a chance to show up in those spaces and places that I just spoke to before. How on earth are you going to be a chat GPT answer if you're punching out one-sentence captions on, you know, Instagram, for example? So just last year, Steph, we obviously we host a lot of in-person workshops throughout the year. Um, and I noticed this new trend where these are small intimate workshops, by the way. There's no more than eight people in a TDP in-person workshop. And all of last year, in every single workshop, we had two people from Chat GPT who'd never heard of the digital picnic before. You want to know why they were there?

Steph 33:33

Why?

Cherie 33:34

They punched into ChatGPT. Um, where can I learn Canva in Melbourne? Or where can I learn video editing in Melbourne? And in every workshop, two of those people were like, Hi, I've never heard of you before. Um, I'm here to learn Canva, I'm here to learn, you know, video editing uh that feels at that time 2025 relevant and so on. So uh how did they find us? Because we didn't stick to one-sentence captions. We've never stuck to that. Um, you know, we always do the too long thing, if anything. It look, if your community doesn't read from beginning to end, damn. But uh a really happy, almost more important side bonus, I would say, is that these AI first models are reading it from start to finish and they're going to start embedding you into answers because all they want to be is a solution to people who are searching for someone like you.

Three Focus Points To Start

Steph 34:30

Okay, so for someone who is listening to this and maybe feeling a little bit out of their depth, overwhelmed, give us three things that they can focus on and take into their Instagram strategy. Okay.

Cherie 34:44

Well, first I would start with uh just a little mindset shift to begin with. I think the people who are feeling overwhelmed, I they can probably identify as being a perfectionist. Um, so you've just got to honestly overcome that perfectionism mountain and just honestly get started slash restarted. Um, we're in a different landscape. So it's okay. You're gonna um have a bit of content that flops. If it flops, all right, well, at least it might have filled like a chat GPT-based search query for the future, right? So if you're not getting the big hits that you're craving at a bare minimum, we're feeding um AI, you know, to figure out who we are and what we do. But outside of that, um, I would honestly really ask big questions of yourself around what you want to be known for, um, who you're meant to be serving. Um, and to me, it sort of almost comes down to legacy, you know. So that's really helped me not overthink the topic clusters, to be really honest. Like I just want to, I've always just wanted to teach people and teach them well. So, marketing education done. Let's make that a topic cluster. And we've got so many possibilities with that. So I don't overthink that one. Um, it's just really important to me as a human being to teach people uh and teach them well. Um, and then lock in your second and your third. You don't overthink it. Get started on it, start exploring it. And I always say your topic clusters are most likely the things you cannot stop yapping about. Um, that is a really great place to start in terms of topic cluster. If you can't stop talking about one to three things, congratulations, you've got a topic cluster, you're gonna feel really qualified to repetitively speak to, you know. So uh try not to overthink it, lock those topic clusters down. And then I think from there, 2026, everyone needs to upskill in video editing. Because a lot of us had we have the video creation down pat, but I think editing has changed in this social SEO slash AI first, you know, sort of landscape. And I can see really good content that could have done so much more from a social SEO perspective if it had just been edited better, you know. So it's lacking the hooks, it's lacking an ability to capture interest from the start. Um, it hasn't even got on-screen text, it hasn't got X, it hasn't got Y, it hasn't got Z. Um, so we need some, we need a pretty much a collective radical upskill in video editing.

Steph 37:19

Amazing. So if people are listening to this, hopefully they've got three golden nuggets or nuggies, as we like to say at TDP. So remind me again clusters, keywords, and editing probably is the other one.

Cherie 37:32

Optimization, think in optimization, just go optimization first, um, and then you'll never go wrong.

Steph 37:38

Amazing. And of course, if you do have any Instagram questions, slide into our DMs on Instagram. Funnily enough, we are there 24-7. Not really, but you know, we we have boundaries, but we are there for a lot.

Cherie 37:51

Pretty responsive, pretty responsive as a business. So slide into those DMs, we can help you out. Any questions you have about this podcast? We said just seconds ago we we want to teach and teach well. So the education continues in the DMs with us on Instagram.

Steph 38:04

Amazing. So thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you next week.

Cherie 38:09

Thanks for listening to the climb with Cherie Clonan and Steph Clifford. Here's to growth, grit, and bloody good stories.