Aubrium Blog
Research, evidence and original analysis on how social platforms work — no listicles, no recycled advice.
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56 articles
What you cannot do when you don't post from the app
Publishing through Instagram's API is not penalized. It is limited. Shopping tags, story stickers, most of the music library and mid-flight collaborator changes do not work. Here is the documented list, taken off Meta's own pages.
You are a cold item: what Instagram's own documents say about a new post
Everyone repeats that Instagram tests a new post on 500 people. That number is in no Meta document we could find. The 500 Meta does publish counts posts, not people.
X by the numbers: what the platform will say, and what it will not
The first audited user count in four years arrived in a rocket company's IPO filing. Here is what changed, what we can verify, and what still has no source.
The cover is the real hook: thumbnail and first-slide science
Before your video plays, one image decides whether anyone clicks. YouTube publishes the numbers, and its own testing tool optimises for something other than the click.
Trending audio on Instagram: the most repeated myth in the creator economy
Every creator is told to chase trending sounds. The Reels system card lists audio signals, but they measure whether you engage with audio, not whether the audio itself is popular.
Does paying for verification actually boost your reach?
The platforms made big claims about what a checkmark does for you. We read what they actually published, found the one randomized test that ran, and isolated what nobody can verify.
Where a clip travels furthest: Shorts vs Reels vs TikTok
The same 30-second clip meets three different engines. One ignores your follower count, one ranks by it, and one publishes almost nothing. A comparison built only from what the platforms themselves publish.
Carousels vs reels vs static: the format showdown, settled with mechanics
Instagram's Feed card documents a carousel-specific prediction that does not exist for a static post. Here is what Meta's own ranking documents, and two studies covering millions of posts, say about which format to reach for.
The complete history of Instagram
How a chronological photo app for friends became an algorithmic video feed that mostly shows you strangers. Fifteen years of announcements, acquisitions and reversals, each one dated and sourced.
