Instagram recently launched two new features - Recap and Celebrations, which are designed to help creators better understand their account performance and motivate their creative enthusiasm.
This article will analyze in detail the purpose of these two functions, how to trigger them, and how creators can maximize their use. It is not just about looking at the data, but about leveraging them to increase the pace of interaction and growth.
Function 1: What is Recap?
Instagram's new "Recap" feature regularly pushes data summaries of key accounts every week/month, allowing you to clearly understand the performance of recent content without having to open the Insights panel.
What data does Recap contain?
Post Views
Non-Follower Views
Follower Growth
Account interaction performance trends (may be expanded in the future)
Why is it worth paying attention to?
Lower the threshold for viewing data and help you maintain control of your account at all times
Gain insights into the growth paths of non-fan sources and optimize your future content strategy
The system will also provide suggestions or prompts for deficiencies, so that you can adjust the direction in time
Function 2: What are Celebrations?
When you reach a certain number of followers, publish popular Reels, or achieve other system-recognized "milestones", Instagram will pop up a full-screen celebration pop-up and generate a celebration card that can be shared directly to Story.
These cards can:
Remind you that I am making progress
Motivate you to continue publishing high-quality content
Become a point of interaction for fans (encourage them to leave a message to celebrate)
Tutorial Tips: How to make good use of these two new features to truly achieve account growth?
1. Set reminders to check Recap as soon as possible
Use mobile phone reminders or IG push settings to review data at a fixed time every week and establish your own "content review habit."
2. After each recap, answer these 3 questions:
What was your most successful piece of content in the past week/month?
Did non-fan views increase? Which content brought them?
What are the declining figures? What could be the reason?
Suggestion: Record this data in a Notion/Excel spreadsheet. Three months later you will be thankful that you started recording it today.
3. Use celebration cards to create a sense of community
When sharing, @ several active fans thanked them for their support
Add a sentence: "We got here together" to bring people closer
Use polls or questions: What should be the next challenge? Let fans participate
How to enable and use these two new features?
Instagram has now fully opened the Recap and Celebrations features to creator accounts around the world. If you haven't seen the update yet, follow these steps:
Inspection method:
1. Open Instagram and switch to your Professional/Creator account
2. Click the upper right corner → Enter the "Professional Panel"
3. Look for "Recap" or "Recent Performance"
4. Wait for the platform to push the "Achievement Celebration" card (usually appears on the day the milestone is reached)
Tips:
Keep posting content actively to receive more frequent "celebration reminders"
Use the Reels function more often to have a higher chance of triggering "trend alerts"
Why is Instagram doing this?
Instagram launched Recap and Celebrations not simply to please creators, but for three main purposes:
1. Improve creator retention and avoid "creative fatigue"
Many creators stop updating within 3 months, the reasons are nothing more than:
I can't see the feedback, so I don't know if I'm doing well.
Slow growth and lack of achievement
These two new features help creators see the results of their efforts by lowering the data threshold and providing positive feedback , thereby extending the creative life cycle.
2. Activate content output and enrich the platform recommendation pool
Instagram needs a lot of content to power its recommendation algorithm (especially Reels and Explore pages).
When creators become more active because they "see growth", the platform gains:
More vertical content
Update your account more frequently
A more predictable data ecosystem
To put it bluntly, this is to "gamify" the creative process, using a sense of accomplishment and visual rewards to encourage users to "voluntarily contribute content."
3. Comparing the creator ecosystem of TikTok and YouTube Shorts
TikTok has long been encouraging creators to be active through methods such as "video viewing reminders" and "achievement badges", and YouTube also has similar "creator milestone reminder emails".
Instagram's Recap and Celebrations are obviously a response to these features, and are also an "internal platform culture update" for Meta in the short video content ecosystem.
Conclusion
Instagram's Recap and Celebrations are data tools on the surface, but they are actually part of the operational incentive mechanism. Mastering these features will not only allow you to see the value of content more clearly, but also help you turn cold data into "warmth" in the hearts of fans by "telling your own growth story."
What do you think of this new feature of Instagram? Have you received the Growth Card?
