How to beat the Instagram Algorithm
Feeling confused about how to outsmart the Instagram algorithm?
You’re not alone. Since moving away from the chronological feed in 2018, changes to the Instagram algorithm have caused users a whole lot of stress.
I’ve seen so many questions popping up everywhere and I often get asked them in my DM’s.
Does feed ranking favour videos over photos? I’ve heard that the algorithm ranks posts higher that get a lot of likes and comments in the first 30 minutes? How do I get my posts showing up on people’s feeds?
So firstly, what even is the Instagram algorithm?
The Instagram algorithm essentially dictates the order of posts that they see when scrolling through their feed. So when you’re posting new content, you want to work with the algorithm to ensure your post is at the top of as many users' feeds as possible!
How does it work?
The algorithm is powered by machine learning where it considers your behavioural patterns and trends in order to predict how much you will care about a post.
The more it thinks you’ll care about a particular post, the closer to the top of your feed it will appear. It has grown significantly since the launch of Instagram and is highly intelligent. What you see in your feed is going to be similar to what you’ve liked in the past.
We now know that the algorithm is based on 3 major ranking factors:
1. Interest. The interest you’ll have in a post is determined by your past behaviour with similar content and potentially ‘machine vision’ which analyses the actual content of the post. If it thinks something is important to you, it will rank it higher in your feed. For me personally, the type of content I like and save frequently involves food, restaurants and cafes. So these are the types of posts that always show up on my Explore page. Instagram is unlikely to show me posts about fashion or sports, for example.
Therefore, make sure you know which type of posts get you high engagement as this is something that you want to post more of. Another tip here is to be creative and re purpose your top performing content. If you already know the algorithm likes certain posts, you could try redesigning your images and turning them into a carousel for a new purpose. Or you could feature those old taco photos (that generated high engagement) on your stories to celebrate #tacotuesday. The options are endless.
2. Recency + Timeliness. You would have noticed that newer posts usually show up high in your feed. It’s important to check your insights and know when your audience is online so that you can make sure you post at a time when you’re likely to get high engagement on that post. Currently my followers are most active at midday, so I tend to post between 11 and 11.30am to make sure my post will show up on their feed when they login.
3. Relationships. The algorithm will show your content to users that you actually interact with, particularly those who it thinks are your ‘friends’. One of the best ways to start a relationship with a user, is to send a DM to your new followers who you think you have a common interest or goal with (based on their profile) and say hi. You can’t simply sit down and wait for people to come to you.
Start a conversation and let them know that you’re excited to see more of their content. It’s important to then sustain this relationship going forward, comment back and forth on their posts and create conversations through stories or DM’s.
Another way to indicate to Instagram that you have a relationship with another user is to tag their account on your photos and mention them in the comments of posts and stories. Building relationships shows Instagram that you’re keeping people on the platform, which is what they want. The more time people are spending on Instagram, the more advertisers want to work with Instagram (which is the end goal as they’re an ad based company).
I hope this has helped answer some of your questions around the dreaded Instagram algorithm! Feel free to reach out if you have any other questions that I can help with.
