A lot happens in a day.

Yesterday (well, 10 July 2025 depending on when you are reading this), there was a small update to Instagram.

Most of you are business owners and senior leaders who don't have to think too much about the nuances of Instagram, but I'm sharing the update for two reasons.

1) to check that your teams have a stress-free way to stay in the know on all the random things (we recommend setting up ChatGPT alerts - see our earlier loom here)

2) so you can forward this to the team in charge of your social or check out the below if you're doing it all - if we don't have each other's back, who will?

but if you are a customer - don't sweat it, we have you covered

An AI-created summary of what’s going on:

Instagram is rolling out a major change—starting July 10, 2025, public posts from professional accounts (business and creator profiles of users 18+) will automatically be indexed by search engines like Google and Bing.

📌 What’s new?

• Effective date: July 10, 2025

• Scope: Only public professional accounts (business/creator), age 18+

• Content types: Public photos, Reels, carousels, and videos will now show up in Google search results

• Opt-out options:

  1. Toggle off “Allow public photos and videos to appear in search engine results” via Settings → Privacy → Search Engines

  2. Or switch your account to personal or private

Why it matters

• For businesses & creators: Instagram is now part of your SEO toolkit. You can attract new viewers via Google without leaving the platform. Posts—especially with optimized captions, alt text, and hashtags—can rank in search results.

• For personal users: If your public business/creator profile includes personal or casual posts, they may appear in Google searches—possibly out of context or without intended audience awareness. Deleted posts could still be cached in search engines.

• Privacy & control: This shift represents the biggest transparency in Instagram’s “walled garden” to date. For professional accounts, this feature is opt‑out by default, meaning most posts will be visible online unless proactively hidden.

✅ What you can do before it goes live

1. Check your account: Are you a public professional account?

2. Decide your priority:

   • Visibility first (opt in): keep professional status, stay public, use search‑friendly captions, alt text, and keyword hashtags

   • Privacy first (opt out):

     • Toggle off indexing

     • Or switch to personal/private account

3. Review your content: Archive or delete posts that aren’t evergreen or reflect your desired public image.

Bottom line

Instagram is merging with the open web—professional public accounts are now part of Google’s search index. This change can expand your digital reach or raise privacy concerns, depending on how your profile is set up. Review your account type and content strategy to align with your goals.

Continue the chat here.

Have you scheduled your AI audit yet? 30 minutes to review:

• What can be automated or streamlined immediately

• What tools are actually worth using (and what’s noise)

• How to create more flow and freedom by doing only what you need to do

Get on the Calendar

I'll be traveling for the next two weeks - if you are in the London or Manchester, UK areas and want to connect live or know anything about Mackinac Island, MI US and want to share a tip - just hit reply! We'd love to hear from you.

Until next week,

Rebecca and the Advisory 9 team

P.S. - Have you completed the market research survey yet? Your insights and wisdom would be most welcome. Spend just 3-5 minutes here - https://advisory9.com/Market-Research-Request.