Can we talk about how Instagram keeps punishing long captions now?

I used to write full stories under my posts and get tons of engagement. But after I ran a test last month with 5 short captions vs 5 long ones, the short ones got 3 times the reach. Has anyone else seen their longform content just disappear from feeds?

3 comments

3 Comments

samk771mo agoMost Upvoted

And it's the same thing everywhere now, not just Instagram. I was talking to my neighbor who runs a small landscaping business and he said people barely read his longer Facebook posts anymore, but a quick before and after photo with a one sentence caption gets all the comments. Seems like the whole internet is training us to be faster and shallower with everything we do. Even my crew will skim a two sentence text from a supplier but ignore a paragraph of details.

emmam891mo ago

Saw my engagement drop off hard too when I tested long captions last month. Posted a 3 paragraph story about finding my old cat at a shelter and it barely got 200 views. Next day threw up a one line joke and it hit 4k. Makes me wonder if they even want us connecting anymore or just scrolling past fast.

taraross1mo ago

Yeah you definitely hit on something real. Algorithms hate walls of text now. Try breaking that cat story into 2-3 separate posts over a few days, maybe even turn it into a little series. People zone out on a single long caption but they'll stick around for a quick punchline or a short relatable hook.