Boost Instagram Reach with Carousels

Looking to improve your Instagram reach? Adam Mosseri, Instagram’s Chief, has revealed a simple tip: start posting carousels. Carousels, which can now feature up to 20 frames and include musical accompaniment, are becoming a powerful tool for boosting engagement and reach on the platform.

The reason carousels perform so well is due to their multiple media format. Each frame of a carousel offers a chance for users to engage, whether they swipe through the images or interact with the post in other ways. This increases overall engagement, which in turn, leads to greater reach. Mosseri explained: “Why [do] carousels often get more reach than photos? Two main reasons. One, multiple pieces of media are going to mean more interactions with your carousel posts, and more interactions is going to mean more reach on average. And two, if someone sees your carousel post but they don’t swipe, we’ll often give that carousel a second chance.”

Instagram’s algorithm might serve the same carousel to users multiple times, showing them a different frame if they didn’t interact with the first. The extra exposure can significantly increase the likelihood of engagement, which Mosseri notes is crucial to improving a post’s performance.

Carousels and Reels: A Winning Combination

Additionally, carousels with music can now appear in the Reels tab, Instagram’s feature that promotes short, engaging videos. This creates another opportunity for users to find your carousel content, potentially reaching a wider audience than through feed posts alone.

This advice from Instagram’s chief is straightforward but effective: if you want to maximise your Instagram reach, try incorporating carousels into your content strategy. Carousels offer multiple points for engagement, give posts a second chance at visibility, and can now even blend into Reels content.

What This Means for Brands and Marketers

For brands and marketers, this advice presents a significant opportunity. Carousels offer a more dynamic and immersive storytelling experience, allowing brands to share multiple product images, tutorials, or step-by-step guides in a single post. The ability to integrate up to 20 frames and now with music provides even more creative flexibility to keep audiences engaged.

Carousels also create opportunities for product discovery, as they encourage users to swipe through various items, especially when combined with music to capture attention. This is crucial for brands, as more engagement means their content is more likely to be pushed to new audiences.

Additionally, the new multi-format display and text overlay options enable marketers to experiment with different content styles in one post, ensuring they can adapt to the preferences of their target audience. The ability to repurpose content into Reels, thanks to the music integration, further boosts visibility, increasing the chances of reaching Instagram’s broader user base.

Brands should take note: leveraging these features effectively can help amplify reach, build stronger connections with their audience, and drive better conversion rates.

What Does This Mean for You?

While Mosseri notes that there’s no need to force carousel content, if you have the assets or ideas, it’s certainly worth exploring. With Instagram continually evolving its features to offer new ways to engage, carousel posts are a versatile tool for anyone looking to improve their reach.

So, if you’ve been sticking to single photo posts or videos, now might be the time to switch things up and experiment with carousels. You could find that this simple change significantly enhances your Instagram presence.

Instagram users can access the new carousel features in the latest version of the app.