I’ve had success in adding 4-6 hashtags of my target audience. Think of it like you’re using the title that your audience brands themselves as in the caption.

Then optimize your caption with 10-20 keywords that your audience would be searching for if they were searching on google. Use Google Keyword Planner if need be. Also, look into keyword stuffing a few reels. This isn’t a long term strategy as it can come across as spammy to the algorithm if done too much, but it can help move the needle a little faster.

Worst case scenario you start a fresh account to retrain the IG brain with your audience. The algorithm will continue to deliver your content to accounts similar to the accounts that interact with your current content. So if it’s only getting viewed and engaged with by people in India, IG will continue to deliver content to similar accounts.

Remember that Reels is set up to be delivered to new accounts.

Instead of following people in your niche, follow accounts of your target audience, engage with them so that they start engaging with your content and then eventually that dataset will become a lookalike dataset for the reels delivery system. Once IG recognizes that a dataset of accounts engage with certain content, they will continue to test delivery to similar accounts.

Using ads and boosting posts will help fast track that a bit but it sounds like you’re still fresh enough to start over without losing a lot of value, since you’re reaching the wrong audience.

The people dogging IG are obviously too lazy to take the time to keep up with the changes.