Common Instagram Rumors You Should Know About

Recently i’ve had an absolute obsession with myth-busting common Instagram rumours.

With all the information out there on the internet, it is pretty easy to get swept up in the latest ‘Instagram hack’ or ‘Instagram algorithm change’ that someone has shared in a blog, in a Facebook group or in an Instagram post.

And while there’s a lot of accurate, amazing information and tips shared on the internet, there’s also a tonne of rumors and misinformation in full swing.

So, what can we do about it?

We can address the rumors, and myth-bust them with facts!

Common Instagram Rumours You Have Probably Heard

There are quite a few Instagram rumors that have spread far and wide, you may have even heard about them!

Here’s a handful of golden Instagram rumors – WARNING: they’re probably not 100% accurate, so don’t throw your Instagram strategy out the window right away.

You should never edit a caption after posting to Instagram. This will make the Instagram algorithm de-rank you and you will see a huge drop in organic engagement.

Deleting your hashtags and adding a new set of 30 after an hour will double your reach and increase your overall engagement.

If you leave comments that are only emojis, Instagram will think you are a bot and your account will get shadow banned.

If you ‘save’ your own post immediately after publishing, your post will rank higher within the Instagram algorithm.

It’s a good idea to use an app to see who has unfollowed you so that you can unfollow them back.

How to Approach a Potential Instagram Rumor

Whether you’re minding your business in a Facebook group and spot one, or a good business friend of yours mentions it casually in conversation, it’s worth taking every Instagram rumor you see with a healthy pinch of salt.

Why is that?

Well, a lot of these Instagram rumors are based on… rumor. They aren’t actually proven by any particular study, report or announcement from the head honchos at Instagram.

We recommend testing out these so-called Instagram hacks on your own account and see if they truly double your engagement or decrease it.

The only way of truly knowing if a rumor has any merit is experimenting with your Instagram marketing strategy and reviewing the results.

And when you do go to look at the results from an experiment? Take a really hard look at what you were posting on Instagram before you jump to conclusions.

For example, at Plann we decided to experiment with the rumored hack of saving your own Instagram posts to increase your ranking within the algorithm.

For a week we saved our own Instagram posts immediately after they were published to the ‘gram. Specifically, we ‘saved’ our posts from the Plann account first, then two ‘test’ accounts within minutes of posting.

The findings were really quite fascinating.

At Plann we have a pretty good handle on what our perfect content formula is, so we can often tell is a piece of content is going to go well or if it will tank before we even go to post.

At the time of writing this blog post, our average for Instagram post likes currently sits at roughly 450-600, with our most-liked post ever bringing in a whopping 1772!

During our week-long experiment, we saw one of our posts go ‘viral’ bringing in over 1,000 likes, one post reach 400 likes (slightly below average) and our final post of the week bringing in just 250 likes before it was archived, oopsie!

Our learnings? That Instagram rumor is probably not 100% true. Sure, we had a post go viral but that content type usually performs incredibly well for us without the additional help from ‘saving’ it. Other posts that we tried that trick on actually under performed compared to our average engagement, so i’m definitely not impressed!

Learn how to manage multiple accounts without going crazy!

Plann’s Instagram Rumor Series

Over on the Plann Instagram account we’re tackling Instagram rumors one at a time.

We’re aiming for weekly (but sometimes they’re fortnightly) open discussions through our captions on the most common Instagram rumors that are really jaw-dropping and mostly untrue.

Here’s a quick look at some of our previous posts in the series:

INSTAGRAM COMMENT PODS

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Feel like you’re doing backflips trying to understand Instagram rumours? 😳⠀ ⠀ You are not alone!⠀ ⠀ “You should join a comment pod to increase comments straight after posting AND to encourage your followers to leave comments.”⠀ ⠀ Um… nope.⠀ ⠀ Here’s why you shouldn’t join an Instagram comment pod:⠀ ⠀ 👉 Instagram is an intelligent platform, and they 1000% can tell if you are ‘creating’ engagement through an engagement/comment pod.⠀ ⠀ 👉 Just like accounts that buy followers on Instagram, if you participate in an activity like this, you’ll never be able to get a blue verification tick on your profile and you’re likely to see a drop in organic reach once you leave the pod.⠀ ⠀ 😥 So, what should you do?⠀ ⠀ 👉 In a pod? Get out of it ASAP and take a break from Instagram for a few days. Review your top performing content from the past three months and recreate what your audience loves.⠀ ⠀ 👉 Not in a pod, but want more engagement? Master the art of creating content your audience LOVE to engage with. Check out the Plann blog for fantastic tips for writing captions and content tests you can do.⠀ ⠀ ⠀ 📷 @jamesvodicka / @thesailingyogi

A post shared by Powerful Instagram Planner App (@plannthat) on Mar 17, 2019 at 10:00pm PDT

HASHTAGS IN THE CAPTION VS COMMENTS

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INSTAGRAM LIES 😱⠀ ⠀ There are some reeaaal juicy Instagram rumours (lies) floating around the inter webs and today we’d like to debunk one of them.⠀ ⠀ 👎 Hashtags ONLY WORK in the Caption/ Hashtags ONLY WORK in the Comments⠀ ⠀ 👍 It all comes down to preference.⠀ ⠀ Put your hashtags in the caption if you are prone to forgetting to pop them in the comments after posting.⠀ ⠀ OR⠀ ⠀ Put your hashtags in the comments section straight after posting.⠀ ⠀ Either way?⠀ ⠀ The Instagram algorithm doesn’t care.⠀ ⠀ It just wants you to post, and keep your audience entertained and on Instagram for as long as possible.⠀ ⠀ Dun dun dun…⠀ ⠀ Any Instagram rumours that you want us to talk about? Let us know in the comments 👌🤗⠀ ⠀ ⠀

A post shared by Powerful Instagram Planner App (@plannthat) on Feb 14, 2019 at 10:08pm PST

USING 30 HASHTAGS IS BAD

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This Instagram rumour is a storm in a teacup ☕️ ⠀ ⠀ “You shouldn’t use 30 hashtags in a post because it looks desperate and the IG algorithm will penalise you”⠀ ⠀ ❌ That is flat out not true! ❌⠀ ⠀ Here’s the real facts:⠀ ⠀ 🌊 Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than posts without.⠀ ⠀ 🌊 Hashtags are like a filing cabinet – you use them to lump your content with posts that follow the same topic and/or were created in a certain location.⠀ ⠀ 🌊 By using 30 hashtags per post you are giving yourself 30 chances to be discovered by people who are looking for posts just like yours!⠀ ⠀ 🌊 Hashtags aren’t just for short-term gain! By using hashtags (and not deleting them after a day) you will be found in that hashtag for weeks to come. This is particularly helpful for small businesses using local hashtags that are likely to be smaller and less competitive.⠀ ⠀ If someone tells you that you look desperate for using 30 hashtags on Instagram tell them this:⠀ ⠀ “I am giving myself the best opportunity to be discovered by new customers and to make more 💰”⠀ ⠀ 🎙Mic drop!⠀ ⠀ Edit by @nhelene91⠀ Reposted with @plannthat

A post shared by Powerful Instagram Planner App (@plannthat) on Feb 26, 2019 at 9:00pm PST