How to promote on Instagram in 2025: a selection of the most important updates and tips

Instagram continues to change, and every year the rules of the game become more complex. But if you want to stay on top of trends, understand innovations, and use them to your advantage, this material is for you.

Ready to learn how to promote yourself on Instagram in 2025? Let’s start with the main thing.

The main changes in Instagram 2025

Ban on monetary rewards for targeted actions. Do you remember the high-profile blogger sweepstakes where you had to follow dozens of accounts for a chance to win money? That era is over. Instagram has officially banned financial rewards for following, liking, or reposting.

❗ What it means:

• Avoid any financial incentives for the audience.
• Focus on organic engagement: create content that attracts your target audience.

Ban on calls to action before reading the content. Now you can’t write “Like and scroll further” in the middle of the carousel. Instagram strictly prohibits interaction requirements that appear to be a “condition” for accessing the rest of the content.

✅ Tip:
Instead of direct appeals, use creativity: intrigue, ask questions, or use hooks in your storytelling.

The requirement for unique content. Instagram is stepping up its fight against plagiarism. Content that copies other people’s texts, photos, or videos will no longer be included in recommendations.

🎯 Tip:

• Focus on creativity and quality.
• Use your own materials and style to stand out from the crowd.

Activity restrictions. New rules for likes and comments:

• New accounts:maximum 300 likes and 150 comments per day.
• Existing accounts: up to 900 likes and 250 comments per day.

⚠️ What you should know:
Activity should be organic. Cheats can lead to a decrease in coverage or even a ban.

Changes with hashtags. Instagram is gradually moving away from hashtags:

• Excessive use of the same hashtag is now considered spam.
  
• Subscribing to hashtags is no longer available.

💡 What to do:

• Use 2-3 relevant hashtags.
• Optimize your profile and posts for internal SEO (keywords in the description and texts).

Algorithms: focus on shares and saves

According to Adam Mosseri, CEO of Instagram, likes and comments are no longer so important. Instagram’s algorithms are focused on sharing and preservation.

📝 How to create content that works:

• For saving: make checklists, tips, and collections of useful things.
  
• For sharing: humor, insights, info reasons.

Ask yourself the question: is my content interesting enough to save or send to a friend? If not, think about how to fix it.

Other innovations

1. New features in Direct
   Instagram introduces filters for messages: you can now sort messages by account type, and spam will be better filtered.
2. Remove inactive followers
   You can delete bots and inactive accounts that spoil the statistics.

🎯 Why you need it:

• New subscribers = higher engagement and better rankings in the feed.

Updating highlights. Highlights will now be located in a separate tab. This will give them more attention and space.

👉 What to do:

• Check your highlights: remove unnecessary and add relevant ones.
• Add information that is really useful for your subscribers.

Trial Reels. Instagram is testing a new feature – trial videos that are shown to random users. If they are successful, the platform automatically publishes them after testing.

🌟 Why it’s useful:

• Gives you the opportunity to test ideas without fear of losing coverage.
• Motivates you to experiment with formats.

Conclusions

Instagram in 2025 is about quality, creativity, and uniqueness. Forget about cheats, spam, and monotonous formats. By adapting to the new rules and creating content that touches, inspires, and engages, the algorithms will reward you with reach and engagement.

The main rule of SMM in 2025 is to be unique!