One thing’s certain about social media: it’s always changing. Glance away for a moment and poof!—a brand-new twist pops up that shifts the playing field. Instagram is no exception. At the start of 2025, it fine-tuned its algorithm yet again, changing how your content gets shown.
Wondering what the fourth secret of Fátima is? It’s all about shares, giving a slight cold shoulder—okay, maybe just lukewarm—to likes and comments.
Here’s how reach works now
🔙 Flashback: how reach used to work
No time to buckle in—this is a quick jump to the recent past (with a dash of nostalgia). Until not so long ago, racking up a ton of likes was your golden ticket for a post to take off. But heads-up: the rules have changed.
Adam Mosseri—Instagram’s big boss—recently shared the three main factors that determine a post’s reach:
- Watch time – how long someone spends on a post or watching a Reel;
- Likes per reach – the number of likes in proportion to total reach, known in NJL as Reach E.R. (pretty neat, huh)
- Shares per reach – how many people pass your content along to their own audience – by dm, stories or direct link – relative to reach
But Mosseri didn’t stop there. He also specified that Instagram’s algorithm judges a post in different ways. Depending on the type of interaction it gets, if all goes according to plan, it rewards that content by showing it to your followers or people who don’t know you (yet). There are two types of audiences your posts can reach:
- Connected reach relates to your existing followers and is mostly influenced by likes. If a post scores a lot of likes, it has a better shot at being shown to those who already follow you.
- Unconnected reach targets people who aren’t following you but might discover you. Here, shares act like a Trojan horse to expand your content’s visibility!
Sure, in both cases watch time is the main factor, but if you want to reach more people (i.e. grow), you need to encourage users to share your posts—or produce posts that go viral, which is pretty much the same thing.
The logic is simple. The longer people stay on your post and the more they share it, the more Instagram deems it interesting, pushing it to a broader audience.
At NJL, we jumped on that last point.
If Instagram tells us shares are the real rocket fuel for organic growth—because they push your content beyond your followers and into a completely new audience—then our response is the Shareability Index: a new KPI in your business analytics that helps you see which posts have the biggest distribution potential and optimize your content strategy to catch Instagram’s eye.
Incredible, but true: now you can measure the viral potential of both your posts and your profile. 🧯
How the Shareability Index helps you measure content virality
Okay, okay—back to business.
To help you measure and optimize the now-crucial ‘Share’ button activity, we’ve developed a new metric in Not Just Analytics: the Shareability Index.
This KPI reveals how well your posts are set up to reach the “Unconnected reach”, offering practical suggestions to improve your strategy.
In simple terms, we take all the data from a post (likes, comments, saves, shares, reach, and views) and analyze them to give you one easy-to-read number: a percentage ranging from 0 to 100%! Easy peasy.
Why is it so important?
Here’s our reasoning:
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The criteria Instagram uses to decide which content gets shown and which doesn’t are now clear.
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If you create content that meets these criteria, you can reach a new audience.
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Knowing which content performs best allows you to work efficiently and strategically.
That’s what saving money looks like. Essentially, the Shareability Index is your time and budget’s best friend, helping you spot the content with the greatest viral potential and reproduce its success—so you can keep growing on Instagram without always reaching for the credit card.
Where do you find the Shareability Index?
This new metric is already available on every plan, in two different sections. It helps you think on both a single-post level and big-picture profile virality.
- Under “General” section Its score ranges from 0% to 100%, categorized into five evaluation bands, giving you a concrete overview of your profile’s shareability!
- Moving to the “Post” section, we clearly show you which of your individual posts have the highest Shareability Index and which format works best—making it super easy to replicate them!
Who benefits most from the Shareability Index?
Straight talk: everyone. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have rolled it out to all active NJL plans.
Here are a few examples of how you can leverage this formula—factoring in likes, comments, saves, shares, reach, and views.
1. Creators and Influencers: broader audience = 🤑
Creating quality content is a lot of work, and sometimes your best posts stay stuck inside your current follower bubble. We see comments on our posts all the time: “I’m not reaching new people,” or “You can’t grow on Instagram anymore.” The Shareability Index helps creators and influencers figure out which content can reach beyond their usual circle.
Which means:
- Gaining more organic visibility
- Growing faster without churning out content you already know won’t work
- Delivering greater perceived value to brands you collaborate with (show them your Shareability Index – cough cough 😉)
- Having solid data to support a viral content strategy based on real metrics, not “I just have a feeling”
2. Brands and companies: maximize organic reach = less waste 🫰
Companies pour thousands of euros into ads, often without knowing if their content even has solid organic potential. We’re not denying that paid campaigns can be great (we’d be crazy to!), but with the Shareability Index, you can pinpoint your most effective posts before putting ad money behind them!
No need to spell it out:
- Potentially lower ad costs through targeted strategies that shield you from budget burnout
- Greater brand awareness via organic reach
- Overall improvement in content quality, helping you highlight and focus on your most effective, engaging pieces
3. SMMs and Marketers: showcasing your work = 🤩
If you work with clients—like SMMs and social-focused marketers—you often need to prove your strategy is effective and producing tangible results.
And since many businesses still look only at follower count (it hurts just to say it), the Shareability Index lets you showcase clear, measurable numbers that highlight increases in organic visibility.
The perks are obvious:
- Better client credibility thanks to transparent KPIs
- It’s super simple to build sustainable, long-term content based on data-driven insights
- Stronger client retention with clear, detailed reports
Conclusion: our two cents
Want to get the most out of Instagram in 2025 and and make sure your profile starts delivering results again? Use the Shareability Index 🚀
Hey, don’t say we didn’t warn you. You can churn out 20-slide carousels, ten Reels a week, pick the right hashtags (with NJL, obviously 🫣), but if you’re not measuring and optimizing how shareable your posts are, it’s all for nothing!
🧲 Ready to see how viral you can go? Analyze your profile now and magnetize your content!
👉 👈 Not part of the family yet? Don’t wait for the algorithm to catch you off guard—the Shareability Index is a new feature included in every NJL plan!