When I started writing this newsletter years ago, it was under a brand, and while I added touches of my personality here and there, I never really gave a lot away. 

Now that I have been doing this for almost five years (!!), I wonder if less of me is a mistake and adding more of my writing, a fun little intro, and general advice from my 15 years of experience in marketing and social media would actually be … beneficial. And make writing these WAY more fun and exciting. Because somewhere along the way, I feel like I’ve been trying to reignite my passion for these newsletters, and I think it starts there.  

And with that, I would like to reintroduce myself: 

Hello! I’m Mackenzie, an American living in England with a cat named Lenny (photo below), who has been working in social media for over 10 years and in marketing for 15 (I promise that makes me sound older than I am!). 

I am a freelance social media marketing director with a niche background in growing accounts for hospitality, nonprofits, and SaaS (I know, it’s all over the place). 

I started writing this newsletter because, at the time, there wasn’t one source for all the social media and marketing news that I thought was the most interesting and resourceful for growing my accounts. I wanted people to be able to have one place where they knew they could get all the information they needed each week … and I slowly built that to 60,000 subscribers over the past 5 years. 

Huge. Lucky. Amazing. Iloveyouallsomuch!

I love chatting and connecting with you all when you reply to my emails (trust me, I see every email — here’s looking at some of you who have been a bit feisty in the past …), and I can’t wait to see where the future of this newsletter goes. 

So this is a very long-winded way of saying thank you for being part of this! And without further ado, let’s get into this week’s social news!

The best marketing ideas come from marketers who live it. That’s what The Marketing Millennials delivers: real insights, fresh takes, and no fluff. Written by Daniel Murray, a marketer who knows what works, this newsletter cuts through the noise so you can stop guessing and start winning. Subscribe and level up your marketing game.

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Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, is starting a new series on Instagram explaining ranking on Instagram. He will be breaking down how they rank, why they rank certain things, and how users can get more control over their algorithm.

According to Mosseri, Instagram ranks posts based on how likely a user will engage with the content. Instagram knows you pretty well after all the data you’ve given it throughout the years, so more likely than not, it will serve you the content you want to see.

From the content that Instagram serves you, Instagram will rank each post based on relevancy. How likely are you to comment? Watch? DM a friend? Etc. And then, it will order the posts by that internal ranking.

Mosseri explained that if Instagram didn’t rank posts, then the entire app would become more heavily skewed towards brands and businesses’ posts over friends, family, and creators. Why? Because brands and businesses post WAY more often than the average person. 

Something that I consistently hear each and every week from friends or other creators is that they are struggling to grow and never see content they want to see. 

Now, I have always believed that the algorithm ebbs and flows, and we have WAY more control over what we’re seeing on our feeds than a lot of people believe.

It’s true, and I promise I ain’t bullshitting you! Instagram (and Meta has a whole) wants you on their app for as long as possible, so why would they be serving you content you don’t care about? They wouldn’t. All the things you see on your feed are things that they have collected data on, knowing you enjoy. 

And now, you need to make sure you’re fixing what you’re served and participating way more in your feed. 

Want to see your friends and family? DM them! Engage with them on the platform. More likely than not, your friends and family aren’t posting on IG every single day (or even every single month). The content you’re going to see on your feed more often than not is from creators and brands because they post way more often than the people you know IRL. The more you interact, engage, comment, etc on content, the more you’re going to see their content on your feed and in your Stories. 

Not interested in a post? Tell Instagram! Click the three dots next to the post and select “not interested.” Trust me, the algorithm will stop serving you that content!

Hate seeing content from accounts you don’t follow? Snooze the option! Yes, Instagram lets you opt out of content from people you don’t actively follow. Similar to the above, click the three dots next to the post, click “not interested,” and then select “snooze all suggested posts in feed for 30 days.” You'll have to do this every 30 days, but you won’t see content from people you don’t follow afterwards!

Want your feed chronologically? Click the Instagram logo at the top of the feed and click “Following.” Your feed will now be in chronological order with posts by people you follow only.

Thanks for reading! If you made it to the end, you’re my new favorite.

I hope next week is a bit beefier, but we never know what our social media overlords will do!

See you next week!

Mackenzie