Instagram is changing the way you connect with your audience.

Soon, your feed will be full of hyper-personalised Reels, your DMs will be where the action happens, and anything that doesn’t interest you will disappear.

But what does that mean if you’re a creator or brand trying to get discovered?

Today, we break down the latest Instagram changes, what they mean for your strategy, and how you can stay visible in this new era.

Let’s get into it 👇

Quick Fire 🧨

• Trump signs executive order to transfer TikTok to US owners

• YouTube says it'll bring back creators banned for violating its COVID-19 and election content policies 

• Linktree launched new design tools and features.

• YouTube launches a UK creator advocacy group, the All-Party Parliamentary Group.

• Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

What does IG’s personalisation push mean for your strategy

Instagram has just surpassed 3 billion monthly active users on the platform. 

The head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, announced the milestone earlier this week, joining Facebook and WhatsApp’s monthly active user count.

Despite narratives that the platform is “dying,” Instagram activity is growing, and this is partly due to the site's push for DMs, Reels, and Recommendations features. 

This likely explains why users spend more time on Reels (50% of time in the app) and share more content via DMs than ever.

It’s also maintaining its lead over competitors by keeping up with broader social media trends, including personalisation, messaging, and short-form video.

So what does this mean for creators or brands that depend on audience growth and monetisation?

With this 3 billion user milestone comes the announcement of major updates in the coming months: 

1. Doubling down on Reels

   • Making a Reels-first experience the default in some regions. A test was done in India, where TikTok is also banned. 

   • By prioritising Reels, this becomes a non-negotiable format for creators and brands to grow and be discovered.

2. Easier DM Access 

   • Prioritising DMs by redesigning user navigation

3. Control over Recommendations  

• Niche-focused content wins → If you’re a creator or brand, being broad (posting a little bit of everything) makes it harder for Instagram to know who to show your content to. But if your content sits clearly in one niche (e.g. “vegan recipes for busy parents” vs. just “food”), Instagram can match it to people actively interested in that category.

• Clear verticals = discoverability → When you “own” a vertical (a specific theme or content lane), Instagram is more likely to surface your posts in Recommendations, Explore, and Reels.

Practical steps:

• Optimise bios, captions, Reels covers, Story Highlights, around your niche keywords.

• Double down on one or two niches per account instead of mixing everything together.

• If you cover multiple areas (marketing, fitness, and cooking), consider heroing one niche or even creating separate accounts, because broad content will perform worse in a more tailored feed environment.

Meta 

• Meta is rolling out Vibes, a new feed of AI-generated videos in the Meta AI app and on meta.ai.

YouTube

• now let’s creators filter comments by newest and by replies to their own responses.

• is giving creators more tools to tackle AI deepfakes.

Threads 

• now lets you search posts within a specific profile using a pre-filled “From:username” tag

TikTok 

• now lets you adjust how HDR videos appear