If your account’s Instagram engagement has dropped over the past 6–9 months, you’re in good company.
It’s a topic of discussion that’s come up frequently in my recent conversations with CSU social media managers across campus. And CSU’s flagship Instagram account isn’t immune. We’ve noticed a hit, too.
In March, Buffer released a report on “The State of Social Media Engagement,” analyzing more than 52 million posts across 10 platforms. I’ve read through the full report and am here to provide the TL;DR version, and offer a few (unverified, totally assumption-based, yet educated) guesses of my own.
What does the data say?
The results are in and I can confirm: You aren’t imagining things. Engagement on Instagram has declined ~-26%. And Instagram’s median engagement rate fell from ~7.3% (2024) to ~5.4% (2025).
TWENTY-SIX PERCENT.
And that’s alongside its distant cousin LinkedIn (~-5%) and Meta-mate Threads (~-18%).
So if you’ve noticed your engagement drop on any of these three platforms over the last year (I know we sure have!), it’s not necessarily because you’ve suddenly lost the ability to engage with your audience overnight. (Phew.) This is platform-wide.
Why is it happening?
Based on Buffer’s report, why Instagram’s engagement is declining isn’t a simple answer.
Instagram’s engagement drop doesn’t necessarily mean the platform is suffering or becoming less relevant.
For example, as Buffer notes: “Instagram behaves like two platforms. Reels get 36% more reach than carousels — but carousels earn 12% more engagement. Part of this split comes down to how engagement rate is calculated: Reels are optimized for views and reach, which dilutes their per-impression engagement rate. Depending on your goals, those are two different strategies.”
So should you ditch Reels and focus only on carousels? Not if you want to reach new audiences and play to Instagram’s prioritization of Reels.
There are many factors at play: Algorithm shifts, vertical video prioritization, interest-based feeds, crowded market, user behavior shifts and more.
My (unverified, totally assumption-based, yet educated) guesses
What we know: Instagram has shifted toward prioritizing views and reach, particularly through short-form video.
What I think this means: Content is shown to more people, but those people are less likely to engage deeply.
What we know: There’s more content than ever. More brands. More creators. More AI-generated content. More everything.
What I think this means: When supply increases and attention stays finite, each post gets a smaller slice of engagement. This is a basic attention economy problem. Even high-quality content is now competing in a much more crowded feed than it was a year ago.
What we know: The shift to interest-based feeds changed the game.
What I think this means: Your followers are less likely to see your content, and your content is competing with far more posts. Engagement, therefore, becomes less predictable.
What we know: I blogged about this recently. Engagement isn’t gone, it’s just getting quieter, or, less visible. A growing amount of interaction is happening in private spaces: DMs, group chats, text messages, etc.
What I think this means: Users are overwhelmed. The average person is exposed to thousands of pieces of content daily, and attention is more fragmented than ever. As a result, people scroll faster, they engage less frequently, and they’re more selective about where they interact and how they interact. While harder to measure, these behaviors are increasing. At the same time, users are engaging less publicly. Many are choosing to scroll, watch, or save without liking or commenting. So we need to start shifting what engagement and success means for our content.
What can you do?
First: Don’t panic.
If engagement is down across the board, the answer isn’t to throw out your strategy. The bigger takeaway from Buffer’s report is that platforms are evolving, and the way audiences interact with content is evolving with them.
That means social teams (us!) need to evolve, too.
Second: Reply, reply, reply
One of the clearest takeaways from the report is the importance of interaction.
Not just publishing content, but participating in conversation.
Buffer found that replying to comments on Instagram can meaningfully impact engagement, which makes sense. Platforms want signals that real community is happening on your posts.
Third: Accept that different content formats serve different purposes
The report also reinforces something many of us are already noticing in our analytics: different content formats now serve very different purposes.
Carousels currently outperform Reels in engagement rate, likely because they encourage slower, more intentional interaction. People pause, swipe, save and share. But Reels continue to dominate reach, which makes them critical for discoverability and reaching audiences beyond your followers.
So no, this isn’t a call to abandon video and pivot entirely to carousels. It’s a reminder that every format has a job to do:
- Reels are your awareness engine.
- Carousels are often your engagement engine.
- Stories are your relationship engine.
The strongest strategies understand how those pieces work together instead of treating every post the same.
This also means we need to rethink how we define “good performance.” A post with fewer likes but high shares, strong watch time or a flood of DMs may actually be doing more meaningful work than a post with surface-level engagement. Attention is becoming more passive, more private and more fragmented, which means the signals of success are changing.
I think the smartest thing social teams can do right now is focus less on chasing perfect engagement rates and more on creating content people genuinely care about. Content that makes someone stop scrolling. Content that gets sent to a friend. Content that sparks conversation (even quietly).
The most important takeaways
What am I taking away from Buffer’s report?
- Engagement is not the sole indicator of success anymore.
- The way people use social media has changed. But the way many teams measure success hasn’t (yet).
Moving forward, it’s critical to:
- Focus on shares, saves and watch time
- Create content people want to send, not just like
- Build strategies around reach, not just interaction
- Reply, reply, reply
Because while engagement may be down, attention is not. It’s just moving differently.
This moment in social media isn’t a collapse. It’s a transition. The teams that adapt to how platforms and audiences are evolving will be the ones that stay ahead. The ones that chase old metrics will keep feeling like they’re falling behind.