EXACTLY how Instagram works in July 2026

This is an updated step-by-step guide on what Instagram is working on Instagram as of July 2026. Because it is crazy out there and we are over complicating things. Okay, so the first thing that's kind of confusing on Instagram is algorithms. There's loads of different algorithms. There's the Stories algorithm, the trial Reels algorithm, the Reels algorithm, the main algorithm. I've done several videos on how all of these work before, but today we're mainly just focusing on the main Instagram as a whole algorithm. So the way that algorithm works on there is your content goes out to 10% of your most engaged followers. So your family, your friends, your clients, your customers, based on how they react to it, it pushes it out to the other 90%. So we have to think about how can we re-engage this 10% when our engagement is low. That is usually with a reintroduction post, an announcement of some sort. Like, really think about what is going to get them to comment on this post. Of content works on Instagram at the minute. Carousels and Reels, all on. So it's a perfect mixture of the two. Carousels often nurturing your audience, Reels often growing your audience. Things that we've personally seen work super well is native Instagram fonts over branded fonts. Word by word captions whenever Reels content. So, in terms of the content you post, Instagram likes short, snappy videos like I would say between four and seven seconds long with trending audio in the background. Carousels need to be value driven. How you would post, I would say three to five times each week as well, just for more growth. Posting time does matter on Instagram. It's going to be, like, 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM are. Content on there is usually elevated. So cool graphics going on, cool edits, like little mic's going on, as not as authentic and stripped back as TikTok is. You absolutely can post longer chatted videos on Instagram, I just say try and make them as interesting as you can. For bigger accounts, they can really post whatever they want. If you're on your mission to growing, focusing videos with audio. That is basically at an updated look at what is working on Instagram. If you want to see more content like this, updated, simplified social media advice, give me a follow.