Instagram is the new website

This one’s for my fellow millennials who are confused about how the internet works in 2026. I was confused too. We grew up in a world where marketing meant creating written content against keywords and building links to our websites. But since AI started to eat away at Google traffic, that strategy has diminishing returns, and we’re left out in the dust.

But I believe I have figured out what is replacing websites, it is Instagram. This is not from my own experience, I’m in the same boat of trying to figure this out. It’s from conducting interviews with creatorpreneurs with combined followings of 50 million. Every single one of them uses their Instagram the way we used to use websites, let me explain.

A website used to work in the following fashion. You had pages set up that were your main pages for conversion. These are now Instagram pinned posts. Then you had individual pages of blog content meant to attract search traffic, these are now individual posts on Instagram. Then you had CTA’s on individual posts to gather leads. These are now DM automations on individual Instagram posts.

So it all works the same way, it’s just the medium is different. Now instead of a 1,000 word written piece, it’s a 30 second Instagram Reel or a 5-slide Carousel post. But the mechanics are the same, and it all functions the same. You just swap out the content format from written blogs to short videos. And then all the same stuff applies as far as creativity, differentiation, etc.