ICYMI: 7 Things to Know About Instagram in 2026

🏷️ Save these must-know updates, shifts, and signals shaping your Instagram strategy this year

Jan 12, 2026

Today’s Instagram deep dive — part of a special 2026 Social Strategy series — is made possible by Sprout Social!

This newsletter kicks off a special 2026 Social Strategy series — combining industry data, expert insights, and platform updates to help set the stage for what to prioritize this year.

I’ll be diving into a different platform each Monday, helped by experts like Fallen Media’s Sol Betesh, Snapchat creator JT Casey, Pinterest strategist Gregory Littley and more. There are also brand strategy spotlights from accounts including the Beverly Hills Cheese Store on TikTok, Sweet Loren’s on LinkedIn, e.l.f. Cosmetics on Pinterest, Eater on YouTube and the Scottsdale Public Library on Instagram, among others.

We’re starting with Instagram so you’re not forced to chase every update Adam Mosseri announces, but instead building a platform strategy that reflects how people actually use the app in 2026.

Instagram’s big theme heading into 2026 is: “See something; Say something — to each other.” Meta knows the real action is happening in the DMs. So, whether it’s Reels or Carousels that you watch on your mobile device or your TV set, the brand and creator content that wins will be whatever gets people trading content and talking about it with each other.

Let’s get into it.

INSTAGRAM PLAYBOOK

2026 Social Cues + Clues: DMs and Share Rate; Creator-Led; All About AI; Interest-Based Recommendations; and IG for TV
Sprout Social Data Drop: What audiences are expecting to see from brands on Instagram
Ask an Expert: Sol Betesh on Instagram’s scripted storytelling
Ask an Expert: Jenny McCoy on AI Creative in paid media
Brand Spotlight: The Scottsdale Public Library
Your Source of Truth: People to follow for updates
Same But Different: Platform Comparisons and Audience Overlaps

1️⃣ SOCIAL CUES + CLUES

REAR VIEW

Instagram shipped a lot in 2025. You don’t need every detail (it would fill a book) but the following updates were among those that had an outsized impact on your day-to-day use of the platform:

3-minute Reels (January 2025)
Edits App (April 2025)
Reposts (August 2025)
Linking Reels (August 2025)
Meta AI voice translations (August 2025)
iPad App (September 2025)
New navigation (October 2025)
20-minute Reels (November 2025)
Control your algorithm (November 2025)
Instagram’s TV App (December 2025)

Screenshot of the IG for TV app. Category of the Reels is "Popular with Friends"

LOOKING AHEAD

Five of the major themes heading into the new year include a focus on DMs and share rate, creators, AI and interest-based recommendations. Plus, a late-breaking addition you might have missed if you weren’t online over the holidays!

1. DMs Are Instagram’s Home Base

DMs — not the Feed, not Stories, not Broadcast Channels — are the primary way people share on Instagram. We may never get back to a chronological feed but users have hacked the system to connect with their favorite people through DMs.

A Meta rep even told me that DM activity was up 15% year over year in 2025, reinforcing that private sharing now drives creator and content discovery on the platform.

We’ve seen this shift play out through several updates:

New ways to message friends, including DM translations, new ways to share music, scheduled messages, pinned content and group chat QR codes
The homepage navigation was redesigned to center DMs
Send rate has also been flagged as one of the most important metrics to track for expanding reach

And with the introduction of Reposts last summer, it seems public sharing is equally important.

The Takeaway: Optimize for sharing. Want more reach? Create content people want to send to their favorite people. Instagram has even revealed the 5 categories of content that people are most likely to share:

The Gift: Content that makes you say, ‘This is your kind of thing’
The Mirror: Content that makes both of you say, ‘OMG, this is so us’
The Idea: Content that makes you say, ‘We should do this!’
The Gossip: Content that makes you say, ‘Have you seen this?’
The Mood: Content that makes you say, ‘Feel me on this?’

2. Does the Format Matter? Less Than You Think

Adam Mosseri credited last year Instagram’s growth (a whopping 3B monthly active users) to Reels, DMs and recommendations. But that doesn’t mean video is the only content format that performs. The ICYMI prediction survey and other data showed that carousels and images still outperform for some brands and organizations — especially those with thought leadership, education, or visual storytelling at the core.

Yes, Instagram is testing 20-minute videos and Reels is a powerful driver for content discovery. But until Instagram fully shifts the default home feed to a Reels-first experience (which is currently being tested in India), the strategy remains: experiment with the content format that performs best for your account.

The Takeaway: Use whatever format performs best for your account — not whatever format Instagram is hyping. Reels may get you discovered, but other formats may keep your audience more engaged.

3. Creators Are the Center of Gravity

Instagram is building for creators (and creator-led content). Mosseri previously said power is shifting “from institutions to individuals,” with athletes becoming more relevant than teams and journalists outshining legacy media organizations.

The Instagram Rings and Instagram Drafts programs were just some of the new initiatives announced in 2025 as a symbol of Meta’s investment in creators. Expect to see updates continue to be tailored mainly to creators.

The creators getting the most attention? Aspiring and emerging talent — especially those who resonate with Gen Z and Gen Alpha teens. According to internal documents that leaked recently, staff were directed to boost teen-friendly influencers.

The Takeaway:

Creators are community hubs. Smart partnerships will go beyond in-feed posts to tap creators with audiences they’re able to reach through podcasts, newsletters, live events (especially anything college campus related), and IRL communities where trust runs deep. Think: Alex Cooper’s sold out Unwell tour; or Anthony Po orchestrating a Timothée Chalamet look-alike contest in New York City.

We’re also seeing creators being valued as skilled storytellers — so it’s not just about access to audience, but finding creators with a deep understanding of the brand category and the ability to craft a compelling narrative.

4. The AI Dilemma

Meta is investing heavily in AI, superintelligence and nuclear energy, acquiring AI startups Manus and Scale AI, along with AI wearable startup Limitless.

On the consumer side, Instagram announced Restyle, an AI-driven option to edit your photos and videos in Instagram Stories. And Meta introduced Vibes, a feed of fully AI generated video in the Meta AI app.

But the spigot of synthetic content is leading to trust and credibility issues. So, Adam Mosseri proposed a way to solve for the “infinite abundance and infinite doubt” plaguing Instagram: “We need to surface credibility signals about who’s posting so people can decide who to trust.”

The Takeaway:

Mosseri is much morer interested in labeling real media than flagging AI slop or deep fakes.

While we don’t know exactly how this will play out yet, it’s worth looking at a feature that X launched last November which revealed account details like: country of origin; when the account started; and how many times it had changed usernames.

For brands, this is going to mean a shift from storytelling to story living. It’s not what you say, it’s what you do — with receipts included.

5. Instagram’s Interest-Based Era

“Follower count is dead” made for great headlines last year — and while it’s not entirely true, there is something to the claim that follower count now matters far less than it used to.

Mosseri has been laying the groundwork for this shift for years, emphasizing Instagram as “the best place to talk to the people you care about about your interests.” Now we’re seeing that vision take shape as Instagram tests a way to let you tune your algorithm by adding or removing topics based on your interests.

The Takeaway:

As Rachel Karten recently put it, Instagram is moving from social media to “sharing media.” It’s no longer about posting for an audience — it’s about making content that people want to talk about with each other, (see: “Sharing Motivations” above).

- Bonus: IG For TV Enters the Ring -

Instagram launched a TV app, IG for TV, at the tail end of 2025.

With all of the success that YouTube has had in this space — people in the U.S are now more likely to watch YouTube on their TV sets than mobile devices — it was inevitable Instagram would want a slice of that pie and try some version of “livingroom watching.”

Adam Mosseri even hinted at this back in October at the Bloomberg Screentime conference, saying “If behavior [and] the consumption of these platforms is moving to TV, then we need to move to TV, too.” He also approved 20-minute Reels and a cinematic cut for videos — possibly to be a part of the IG for TV experience.

Over time, Instagram said it will explore new features including, “using your phone as a remote, intuitive ways to channel surf, shared feeds with friends, and making it easier to keep up with your favorite creators in one place.”

The Takeaway: Instagram will continue to prioritize Reels as the content you want to watch with friends and as a centralized way to keep up with your favorite creators in one place. It won’t necessarily turn all Instagram creators into “TV stars” but it puts an even greater emphasis on creator-brand partnerships, social “shows” and thinking about how brand content shows up on a 55-inch screen.

*Two of my personal favorite 2025 updates were the ones that spoke to finding new ways to tell stories through different formats. I don’t think the 5120 X 1080 aspect ratio (September 2025) or Animated Collages (October 2025) will change the world, but I appreciate the creative experimentation.

2️⃣ SPROUT SOCIAL DATA DROP

Instagram has real influence on people’s shopping habits. Over a quarter of consumers use it for product discovery, half engage with brand content multiple times per day, and 24% even rely on it for customer service, according to Sprout Social’s 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report.

But users are just as likely to turn to Instagram for entertainment that feels native to the platform and is UGC or creator-driven, rather than brand-led.

To learn even more about what to prioritize in 2026, sign up to be first to receive Sprout Social’s 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report when it launches later this month.

Get the report first!

3️⃣ ASK AN EXPERT: BRANDED CONTENT

When I asked Fallen Media CEO and Co-Founder Sol Betesh where he sees the biggest Instagram opportunities in 2026, he kept coming back to one thing: high-quality, scripted storytelling.

Success will belong to those who think less like advertisers and more like showrunners.

“I see a lot of scripted content doing very well on Instagram Reels — much, much better than TikTok,” he told me. Even though Fallen Media distributes shows across all platforms, Sol says Instagram stands out because the audience still responds to elevated visuals and more intentional narrative formats.

“It’s a carryover from the sunsets and the fancy pictures — there is a quality that does well on Instagram, more than TikTok”

“I think it’s a carryover from the sunsets and the fancy pictures — there is a quality that does well on Instagram, more than TikTok,” he said. Shows like Fallen Media’s 15 Second Film, which performs “Ok” on TikTok, crush it on Reels.

@15secondfilm

15 Second Film on Instagram: "THANKSGIVING INTERRUPTED 🦃🎬

DI…

“A friend of ours makes The Ick,” Betesh told me. “It’s a scripted series and every episode is a different scenario of someone getting the ick on a date or in a relationship. The show does incredibly well on Reels. Each episode gets a million views. Nothing on TikTok. It’s polar opposites, I’ve actually never seen anything like it. But if you want to see where the two platforms differ, that’s actually a great example.”

Another opportunity Sol is watching closely is the rise of behind-the-camera creator talent on Instagram. Brands often focus on on-camera personalities, but Sol stressed that some of the most valuable creators are editors, directors, and videographers who know how to craft tight, engaging short-form stories.

“There’s so much creator talent behind the camera,” he said. “We find a lot of that talent on Instagram Reels.” He pointed to 15 Second Film as an example — they discovered its creator, Jeb, directly on Reels. “His stuff was weird, but you’d watch it and think, ‘this guy’s got some brain.’ He was getting 400 to 600K views a video. We got on the phone with him, started tossing around ideas, and built the whole concept. That came from finding talent on Instagram.”

- Sol Betesh is Co-Founder & CEO at Fallen Media. His company has a track record of producing its own viral hit shows and branded content for Fortune 500 companies across platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.

4️⃣ ASK AN EXPERT: PAID SOCIAL

I asked goodhelp Founder Jenny McCoy what she thinks will define Instagram’s paid strategy in 2026, and she didn’t hesitate: advertisers will need to get a lot smarter about creative — especially as Meta leans harder into AI.

“Meta is pushing AI creative enhancements and the industry as a whole is feeling the pinch to produce AI creative,” she told me. But even with all the new tools, Jenny stressed that the fundamentals aren’t changing. Feed-stopping creative that resonates with a scalable audience segment is still the single most important driver of performance on the platform.

And despite the noise around emerging channels, she’s confident Instagram will hold its lead. “Meta will likely remain the most efficient and powerful ad platform for driving scalable results,” she said.

- Jenny McCoy is the Founder and Lead Strategist at goodhelp and author of the Wednesday Morning newsletter.

5️⃣ BRAND SPOTLIGHT: SCOTTSDALE PUBLIC LIBRARY

If you think “library Instagram” means quiet stacks, Scottsdale Public Library is here to change your mind.

It’s one of my favorite brand accounts because it strikes a rare balance: the team genuinely seems to be having fun with platform-native content while never actually losing sight of their core mission — letting you know about everything the library has to offer. And it all happens without a massive operating budget.

The account had 3K followers last January with a goal of reaching 7K by years end. They wrapped 2025 with 10K followers — and community members coming in to sign up for library cards after discovering the library through its videos.

This is my interview with the library’s Community Engagement & Outreach Coordinator Jennifer Wong.

Name: Jennifer Wong, Librarian and Community Engagement & Outreach Coordinator for Scottsdale Public Library System. The Instagram account is also a team effort alongside: Jenny Lundin (librarian), Emma Albright (library aide), Marissa Montero (library assistant), Megan Hardesty (library aide), Ansley Ruelas (library aide)
Organization: Scottsdale Public Library System
Platform: Instagram
Posting Frequency: On average, 3-4 times a week

ICYMI: How would you describe your creative approach on Instagram?

Jennifer Wong: To have fun! But to also showcase library services, programs and resources. I trust my team to create fun but approachable content that tells the public about what a library, and specifically Scottsdale Public Library, offers.

ICYMI: Who’s your audience on Instagram, and how does that shape what you create?

JW: When you look at our insights, our audience is primarily women between the ages of 25-44, which probably means moms in the community. However, I feel that our content is also geared towards book lovers and people who love libraries. We don’t necessarily let that control our ideas, but we know that our audience loves seeing books and all that we have to offer, like programs and the unique spaces.

@scottsdalepubliclibrary

Scottsdale Public Library on Instagram: "When was the last time…

ICYMI: What is actually working for you on the platform right now?

JW: We mainly started focusing on videos because the city’s Parks & Rec team had started doing videos the year before and they were getting a lot of engagement. We invited them to come to one of our meetings where they gave us some tips and tricks. We had to adapt a bit, but I gave the team the freedom to look at trending videos and see what kind of service/program/resource we could relate to, or how we could put a library spin on it. It’s worked well so far and we try to post at least 3-4 times a week to continue to give us visibility.

ICYMI: What does Instagram do better than the other platforms for your organization’s specific goals?

JW: Instagram has a really wide reach and their algorithm does a great job at leading people who enjoy books and libraries to our page. I also think that it’s more fun and engaging to scroll through Instagram.

ICYMI: As you head into 2026, are you doubling down on what’s working or planning to experiment with something different?

JW: We’re doubling down! It’s worked really well for us so far and we all have so much fun creating content. However, I want to challenge my team to find the trends and adapt them even more to our new services, which sometimes can be tough to do.

ICYMI: If you could give other organizations one non-negotiable rule for making content people actually care about on Instagram, what would it be?

JW: I think my one non-negotiable rule would be to find people who *want* to create posts on Instagram. You have to find the right person and/or people who know what they are doing, are open to ideas and enjoy being on camera. If the people who are making the content are enjoying it and having fun, then it’ll translate through to the platform.

ICYMI: What’s the biggest mistake you see organizations or brands making on Instagram and how should they avoid it?

JW: I can only speak from our own experience and I would never claim to be an expert and know what the biggest mistake is, but I’ve seen that static posts that are created with graphics get a lot less engagement than photos of real people.

6️⃣ SOURCE OF TRUTH

If you’re looking for the most credible Instagram source for news and updates, then the head of the platform is hard to beat.

@mosseri

Adam Mosseri on Instagram: "Sharing a few tips if you want to p…

But Adam Mosseri’s AMAs aren’t the only thing to watch. Keep an eye on the following:

Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri’s Instagram Account
Adam Mosseri’s Broadcast Channel
Adam Mosseri Threads Account
Instagram’s Creators Account
Instagram’s Creators Broadcast Channel
Instagram for Business Account
CEO Mark Zuckerberg Instagram Account
Mark Zuckerberg’s Broadcast Channel
Instagram’s Blog
Instagram’s Creator Blog

Creators to Watch

These are some of the digital content creators embedded with Meta — they attend events, get sneak previews of new features and exclusive access to leadership:

1. Adrian Per

2. Roberto P. Nickson

3. Kelli Erdmann

7️⃣ SAME BUT DIFFERENT

The average person now uses 6.75 platforms a month — with plenty of audience and feature overlaps across them. The charts below show where Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Pinterest, and LinkedIn intersect, and where they differ in formats, surfaces, and engagement so you can decide where your time actually matters.

As for Instagram, it remains focused on visual storytelling and product discovery. With about 3B monthly active users, it fuels more than half of Meta’s ad revenue and consistently attracts the largest share of influencer marketing spend.

And even after years of chasing competitors, it still has a few uniquely sticky features: teen-favorite Notes and a growing focus on private spaces like DMs, group chats, and Broadcast Channels.

*Audience Overlaps inspired by a chart from GWI and Meltwater in the 2026 Global Digital Report

One final note:

Between the rise of AI, high-profile mergers and acquisitions, and the aggressive race to win over Gen Z and Gen Alpha teens, the state of social in 2026 already feels more volatile than in years past.

I drafted this newsletter in December 2025 and have had to revise it almost daily since.

This snapshot reflects what we’re seeing in January 2026 — and I’ll keep sharing updates throughout the year as the platforms, the tech, and the industry continue to evolve!

Thanks for reading ICYMI by Lia Haberman! This Instagram deep dive is public so feel free to share it.