Are carousels working

[ABDULKALAM_497]

Carousels still grow accounts, especially educational or storytelling pages, just slower than strong reels usually.

[wilzerjeanbaptiste]

Yeah they still work, but the bar is way higher than it was two years ago. Carousels with weak hooks die now while reels with the same content can go viral, so the format alone isn’t the moat.

Few accounts off the top of my head doing it well with mostly carousel content: rajshamani, minimalist_in_canada, khe(.)studio, creatorsnow. Notice they all have either a strong design system or a really clear point of view that translates well to slides.

The big shift is that the first slide has to do the same job a reel hook does in the first second. If the first slide doesn’t make someone stop scrolling, the rest of the carousel doesn’t matter. That’s where most people lose.

[Outrageous_Wait_2265]

Definitely possible — especially in:

* design
* marketing
* finance
* self-improvement
* storytelling niches

Carousels still dominate for saves/shares because they slow scrolling and increase session time.

A few examples:

* Starter Story
* Designership
* The Futur

Most “carousel-first” accounts grow slower than reel-first accounts, but often build stronger niche audiences + higher trust.

[Conscious-Bread9008]

I highly recommend doing both! Especially if your account is new, reels are great for reaching new followers. Seems like Insta is pushing them more now, but my early carousels didn’t get much reach when first started.

It most likely wouldn’t hurt for you to try doing only carousels but doing reels also would definitely be ideal for growth.

[HitxLerr]

Carousels are honestly still one of the strongest organic formats right now, especially on Instagram and LinkedIn haha. They tend to generate strong dwell time, saves, and repeat exposure, which the algorithms seem to love fr. One of the underrated advantages is that platforms will sometimes re-serve the same carousel later using a different slide as the preview if someone skipped it the first time lol. That basically gives you a second opportunity to hook the viewer with the same post haha. Tbh, that is why slide 2 or 3 should almost feel like its own standalone hook instead of just continuing the intro. Different visuals or angles can massively improve retention and engagement fr.

[Prasanth7799]

A lot of creators quietly grow through consistency and strong carousel value even if reels dominate overall reach conversations.

[Hrushikesh_1187]

Carousels still work but they tend to build engaged smaller audiences rather than viral growth. Best performing ones are usually educational or list-based with a strong first slide hook.

For making them consistently without spending hours in Canva, I switched to generating them in Runable. Faster to produce and easier to maintain a visual style across posts.

Accounts in finance, productivity and self improvement niches seem to grow purely on carousels still.

[Civil-Panda7265]

carousels are posted in reels section too? asking because sometimes i end up getting them when im scrolling reels?

[butterfield66]

What kind of carousels are you guys talking about? Just a regular post of multiple photos? Don’t those only get shown to ones followers? How would that spur growth?

EDIT just to mention that I use them every day on TikTok, it’s just that Instagram does everything differently.