A Breakdown Of The Instagram Algorithm

If you’ve been using Instagram for a while now you may have heard the murmurings around the Instagram Algorithm. For many, the algorithm is a complete mystery that is yet to be understood. What if I could help you understand it? Better yet, what if I could help you outsmart it? Stay tuned to learn how.

What is the Instagram algorithm?

The first big misconception is that people think there’s only one algorithm linked to Instagram. There isn’t just one algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t do on Instagram. In fact, Instagram has multiple algorithms that monitor the interaction of the Feed, Explore Page, and Reels. These algorithms are tailored to how people use them and their social behavior. 

How are things ranked?

The Instagram algorithm studies user behavior on the app and uses your previous activity to decide what content you see on your feed and explore page and how others on the platform see your content. Essentially, the algorithm controls your organic reach.

The Feed and Stories

Those you interact with the most within your list of friends, family, and your following come first. This is determined by:

• How popular a post is and how many people have engaged with it.
• How important this person is to you based on how often you engage and interact with them.
• Your own activity. Which accounts and content you engage with the most.
• Your history of interacting and engaging with someone. How often you engage determines how often you’ll see them in your feed and stories. 

The key ranking of engagement has definitely changed throughout the years. At first, likes were considered the holy grail. Now saves are considered the best form of engagement, followed by shares, comments, and then likes. 

Explore Page

The explore page is where you get to discover new accounts and content. The Explore Page algorithm analyzes your past interests and content engagements according to certain signals that are sent out every time you do. It then shows you content that’s similar, or content other people have engaged with that were interested in the same posts you were. 

Reels

Reels are ranked based on their level of entertainment. This is discovered through how many times people watch, rewatch, comment, share, save and like it. It’s also based on how often people interact with similar content.

The Importance of Engagement

This is how engagement impacts the algorithms:

1. When you first post a photo, it’s shown to a small percentage of your audience.
2. Instagram measures how quickly that photo is interacted with, i.e., saves, shares, comments and likes. (Saves and shares rank the highest).
3. Instagram compares the engagement that your post gets to other content you’ve shared at similar times and days. The app compares similar times to ensure accuracy when evaluating your engagement metrics, especially since certain times bring better results.
4. If your photo attracts a lot of engagement, Instagram will show it to a higher percentage of your audience and maybe even share it on the explore page.
5. If your post continues to attract engagement, your photo will stay at the top of your audience’s news feeds and reach more people. If it doesn’t attract a lot of initial attention, less of your audience will see your post.

How Social Clout Club can help you beat the algorithm

1. Increase your reach, impressions and following

With our growth packages and celebrity campaigns, we help you by sending large amounts of traffic to your Instagram Account through marketing campaigns. This helps you boost your reach, increase your engagement and skyrocket your follower count. This rapid growth stimulates the algorithm to allow your content to be ranked higher and shown to more people across Instagram. 

2. Increase your engagement

Our engagement groups will give you the love your content deserves. If you have a strong following but lack credibility this will give you a much-needed boost. By gaining higher engagement, the algorithm will be sure to love you and start ranking you higher on people’s feeds and the explore page, making you more discoverable. 

In Conclusion

When you begin to understand how the Instagram Algorithm works, you gain the upper hand because now you get to give it what it wants. Although it might sometimes look really complicated, when breaking it up into smaller bite-size pieces you can see that it’s really not as complicated as it may seem. All the algorithm asks of you is to be consistent, post quality content, and be social (engage with others and have them engage with you).

Don’t miss out on the follow-up post that dives even deeper into how to outsmart the Instagram Algorithm! You can find it here!