Instagram Shares Advice on Switching Content Focus in the App

Thinking about changing up your approach on Instagram?

You may want to take a cautious approach, in order to ensure that you maintain engagement and reach in the app.

That’s according to IG chief Adam Mosseri, who’s provided some new notes on how creators should go about switching up their content approach in the app, and what they should be mindful of in the process.

As per Mosseri:

“Generally speaking, it’s better to continue to use your existing account [as opposed to creating a new one when changing approach], and there’s things that you can do to make that a little bit more of a smooth transition. You can post a video about the fact that you’re changing the direction of the account to give your followers a heads up. You can archive all of your old content from your profile, so it’s not confusing. You can use trial Reels before you decide to pivot to see if there’s an audience for the new type of content that you want to create. All of this allows you to maintain your follower base, and allows us to understand a bit more about who’s interested in you, which will help you grow over time.”

This is the key concern from Instagram’s perspective, that after the system has established notes on your profile, in regards to what you post about, who’s likely to be interested, etc., then you’re throwing all of that away if you start again.

That’s not good for creators looking to maintain steady engagement, while it’s also not good for Instagram, as it reduces overall engagement.

As such, if you really want to make a shift to a different content approach, it’s worth factoring in these considerations.

Mosseri says that he gets this asked this question a lot by creators, who are concerned about how their content evolutions will impact their stats.

And they will, which is why Mosseri has provided these notes, explaining that, yes, starting a new account is a much harder road, and if engagement is your big focus, you may not want to take it.  

Mosseri does note that if you’re making a “really hard pivot,” and the content that you’re shifting to is nothing like what you’ve published in the past, then starting a new account makes sense. But again, it’s difficult starting from scratch, and if you can, Mosseri advises creators to transition their account, rather than beginning again.

Of course, there are a range of variables at play within this, and some accounts will be able to grow really fast, even new ones, so there’s no definitive best approach to shifting your content focus.

But Mosseri’s basically saying that you don’t want to throw away all of your past work in growing your account if you don’t have to, while new profiles also need time to feed into Instagram’s algorithms, in order to help its systems showcase your material to interested users.

So, unless you’re really changing focus, you probably don’t want to start a new profile, if you’re looking to build an audience.