Emplifi analysed 520,198 posts across 3,791 Instagram profiles from January to June 2026. More than 73% of brands used Instagram's collab feature, which puts one post on two or more accounts at once. Collabs a brand published and collabs a brand accepted from someone else both beat the brand's normal posts, and the accepted ones did best.
For ecommerce and retail, accepted collabs reached over 5x the amplification of normal posts. The smallest brands, under 10,000 followers, saw accepted collabs earn about 5x the interactions of their standard posts. Reels showed the biggest gains. This is Emplifi's data from its own clients, so treat it as a strong signal, not a law.
This is how we think about organic social: your brand account is one voice, but creators bring their own audience and their own trust. Let them post and invite you in. Then the winners become partnership ads on paid.