Have you ever stalked someone’s Instagram account and noticed a post that has zero likes and don’t recall ever seeing it posted? This happened to me recently and I was super confused. I was stalking my best friend’s profile to see how life at school was going for her and noticed quite a few posts that I don’t remember her ever posting. Granted, I don’t see every Instagram post people make, but she’s my best friend so I should’ve seen at least some of them. When I tapped on the pictures to expand them I noticed they all had no likes and comments, as if the algorithm messed up and no one ever saw them. I realized this was some sort of Instagram trick and instead of just asking her to explain it, I went to TikTok.
TikTok had all the answers. All she did was post a photo, archive the post immediately, and unarchive it a few days later. I confess, this has been a trend for a few months now, but I’ve only recently learned about this new “hack” for your Instagram feed.
There’s a lot of appeal to using the archive feature in this way. First, you can post without the pressure of a ton of people seeing it. Have a cute selfie that you want on your feed, but don’t want to actually post it? Post it, archive it, and unarchive it a few days later. Second, it allows you to add photos to your profile that will add to your feed’s aesthetic or even photos you think would look cute, but don’t feel like actually posting. For example, my friend added a few sunset pictures in between photos of herself because she liked them and the way they looked in her feed, but she didn’t feel like posting them for everyone to see.
This seems like a great way to curate your feed the way you want without everyone you know having to see every single photo. I’m tempted to try it out with some nature scenes I’ve photographed, but don’t feel like posting for everyone to see. They would look really cute in my feed. The only downside is that you can’t go back and add in photos. Whatever you post and archive will be the most recent photo in your feed. But if that’s the only downside, oh well! Instagram is yours to use how you want, and you should do just that.