Content format benchmarks
This cut shows how the system scored different content formats in January. It shows reach rates with month-over-month direction from December.
As a reference point: Image and text posts both landed around 14% typical reach rate. Videos sat lower at 8% but climbed from December.
These are system-level patterns, not recommendations. What the algorithm distributed, not what you should post.
The Shield Index
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Full breakdown
The full content format breakdown for January 2026.
Additional formats: Carousels, articles, and polls.
Breakout rate included (top 1%, the viral outliers). This indicates the viral potential each format had in January.
Carousels held a 13% typical reach rate and no clear movement from December — except at the breakout level where they climbed to 594%, meaning a viral carousel post reached roughly 6x the account’s follower count.
The breakout column tells the bigger story: text posts still led at 1199% — but that’s down from ~9000% in December. The highest ceiling in the dataset also had the furthest to fall. Yet text posts still come out strong.
Images followed the same pattern — breakout down 280 points, but still second at 916%. The top two viral formats (image, text) both corrected hard, but they’re still the top two formats right now.
Video reach improved overall — breakout up 122 points to 689%.
Polls mostly dropped reach across the board except in the very top. Articles improved a little but remained flat toward the top end.
Format choice matters less at the median than it does at the extremes.
More cuts from the January data coming.