The Instagram Algorithm Ghosted Me (Here's What I Learned)

Sometimes technical issues make you feel like a failure (spoiler: you're not)

Aug 30, 2025

This is part of the monthly series where I share real-world build-in-public deep dives, playbooks, and solo builder strategy lessons.

🧭 TL;DR (Builder’s Digest)

Problem: Tried to increase reach through reels, wound up with 0 views on most posts.
Action: Explored new platforms to determine the cause.
🧠 Key insight: Sometimes technical issues make you feel like a failure.
Solution: Tried different platforms.
Result: What initially seemed like an issue with my videos might have been an issue with the platform.
❗️Key takeaway: A platform is a variable, not a constant.

📊 Time & Tools Breakdown

Estimated hours: ~10 (been spending time resting on vacation)
Primary tools: Instagram, TikTok, Substack
Major focus: Creating a presence outside Substack.

💸 Revenue & Expenses

Expenses this month: $25
- Still paying Railway $5 to host my backend and database for Solopreneur Liftoff.
- Paying for Gemini Pro: $20
Revenue: $0 (still not a point where I’m actively selling)

🧱 Builder Playbook: Are My Videos Really That Bad That I Get 0 Views?

The Situation: It’s been a slow month. I’ve been on a three-week vacation from my consulting job, with a week spent in another country. It was mostly a time of rest, but I also made some time to keep working on my project and trying to get better at making videos.

I was consistently posting to Instagram, but the Reels were getting no views, no engagement, and no followers.

Nothing. Actually 0.

I felt like something was off, which led to a lot of frustration and the struggle of feeling like it was a failure.

But it’s never a failure. It’s juts an opportunity to debug.

The Action: In a moment of pure frustration, I decided to abandon Instagram for a few days and try my hand at TikTok. I posted the same Reels I had already created. It was a small, low-stakes experiment born out of anger.

The Outcome: The results were immediate. Those same Reels, which got 0 views on Instagram, were getting 200-700 views on TikTok. This seems to confirm something was wrong with my Instagram account. My reels weren’t even being tested by the algorithm, literally not being shown anywhere.

I’m not sure what the solution is here, but at least I’m not wasting time anymore posting continuously for nothing. If you’ve experienced the same, what did you do? I’m thinking I might just need to delete the account and start a new one.

🧠 Lessons Learned (and Advice to Past Me)

The platform is a variable: Don't get emotionally attached to a single platform. Your job is to find where your audience is and talk to them.
Reframe a 'failed' experience as a debugging experiment: What feels like a failure is actually valuable data.
Distribution is more important than perfection: The best content in the world is useless if no one sees it.

🧠 Favorite framing from this month: "The platform is a variable, not a constant."

⏪ What I’d Do Differently

Start a multi-platform strategy sooner: I would have started treating each platform as a separate, independent experiment from the beginning, instead of getting emotionally attached to a single one.
Don't let the numbers dictate success: I would have reminded myself that a lack of views on a new account is not a personal failing.

📅 What’s Coming in September

✅ Consistently execute the new 3x weekly Reel schedule
🤝 Focus on engagement, not views
🎯 Try to figure out what’s going on with Instagram

If I had to summarize September’s goal:

Fix the distribution pipeline. Get the flywheel running.

🧰 The Builder's Toolkit (August Edition)

Instagram: A great place for building a core community, but not where new accounts get their first break, it seems.
TikTok: A great tool for discovery, as the algorithm is more open to showing new content to a wider audience.
Substack: The hub that holds everything together and where a new audience can become a community.