Very unexpectedly Instagram has opened up about its Algorithm! The Algorithm is basically determining whether your posts on Instagram reach a lot of people and you gaining a lot of followers! Let’s beat the Instagram Algorithm today!
Up until now, they have been super secretive about this so it’s amazing! They have finally decided to give people a chance to make Instagram work for them and stop the confusion which has been going on for years now!
In this post, I am giving you an overview of the main factors, which determine what, you see in your Instagram Feed! Additionally, I am giving you tips on how to use this information to beat the Instagram Algorithm and make it work for you! Yey!
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Three main factors determine what you see in your Instagram feed:
1. Interest
How much Instagram predicts you’ll care about a post, with a higher ranking for what matters to you, determined by past behavior on similar content and potentially machine vision analyzing the actual content of the post.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Interest”:
Statement 1: What matters to your audience (what people are searching for and looking at the most).
- Think about what your Target Audience is all about! Are you a beauty Blogger, a Foodie, a Gardener, a Tech Entrepreneur or a Lifestyle Guru! Try to build an audience, which is targeted and hence interested in your topic and Feed! The key here is the focus!
- Identify content that has worked particularly well within your Feed! Which posts have overperformed and received a ton of likes or engaged a lot of people in a discussion in the comments? Use this to your advantage!
- Use hashtags, which are relevant to your identified follower interest and business interest!
- Replicate descriptions people liked and engage in upcoming posts!
Statement 2: Machine Vision Analyzing
- Are your images on point and match your Blog or Business Niche? Which posts are not working for you and have an especially low engagement? Are you posting a lot of cute puppy pictures but your business is actually all about knitting?
- Identify post images, which have worked particularly well in your Feed with a ton of likes (most likes)!
- Post similar images or images of a related topic and make a content plan!
- Search Hashtags to get more inspiration from what other images you could share and people would like.
2. Recency
How recently the post was shared, with prioritization for timely posts over weeks-old ones.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Recency”:
- Post at least once a day so you are continuing to pop up within your followers feed!
- You can use Instagram Schedulers my favorite one is Tailwind. Read more about this topic in my post: How to use Tailwind to skyrocket your Blog Traffic here!
- I have also written a dedicated post on 6 Life-Saving Automation Tools for Social Media. In this post, I go into more detail on how to use Schedulers for Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and more.
3. Relationship
How close you are to the person who shared it, with a higher ranking for people you’ve interacted with a lot in the past on Instagram, such as by commenting on their posts or being tagged together in photos.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Relationship”:
- Start interacting more with your followers by liking and following more of your followers and their posts!
- Ask questions within your description and answer all of the comments you get! Support your followers and engage in active conversation with them to add even more comments to individual posts!
- Include CTA (Call to Actions) such as ask them to comment, share their thoughts or view on a discussion or create a poll!
- Emojis are a great way to build a relationship with your audience! As it can be sometimes difficult to say what you really mean by text, emojis give you the chance to really connect with your audience and let them understand how you feel! ALWAYS use emojis to attract special attention to important areas of your description! Our brains are automatically drawn to those images!
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Three Additional ranking factors
Personally, I feel that we as content creators should focus a lot on the ranking factors 1-3. There is more we can do and take action to increase our followers’ engagement!
However, I wanted to give you an overview of ranking factors 4-6 as well to give you a fuller picture! Let’s beat the Instagram code! Here we go:
4. Frequency
How often you open Instagram, as it will try to show you the best posts since your last visit.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Frequency”:
Well, it is going to be really hard to control our audience (and we honestly don’t want to do that anyway right) so let’s just try to posts at a consistent schedule with a topic you know people love and engage in so we can encourage our followers to open Instagram even more! (If you are like me #isthatevenpossible?
5. Following
If you follow a lot of people, Instagram will be picking from a wider breadth of authors so you might see less of any specific person.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Following”:
Again here I would focus on maintaining a schedule as well as interacting with your Audience! Really try to engage in a conversation with your Followers! Even though someone is following you and a bunch of others, you will be shown more because your engagement with them is higher (see also point 3 Relationship).
6. Usage
How long you spend on Instagram determines if you’re just seeing the best posts during short sessions, or it’s digging deeper into its catalog if you spend more total time browsing.
Beat the Instagram Algorithm on “Usage”:
If we are focusing on delivering the best quality throughout our posts this will be the case! Try to follow the above mentioned 5 points so that people love to spend time on Instagram anyways!
Now I hope you have found this news as exciting as me! If you have questions just let me know in the comments and we can work out together how to best beat the Instagram Algorithm together!
xoxo Katie
Also, don’t miss to download my FREE INSTAGRAM PDF GUIDE on “How to Find your Instagram WHY to become Successful on the Platform” here:
Please read more about what Instagram had to say in these two articles:
You can find more useful information and tips on how to succeed on Instagram here:
- How to go Viral on Instagram with these 10 Foolproof Tips!
- 45+ of the Best Instagram Tools to grow your Instagram
- How to join Instagram Engagement Groups to go viral!
- How to use Instagram to grow your Blog
- How to use Tailwind to skyrocket your Blog Traffic
- 6 Life-Saving Automation Tools for Social Media
- How to write a killer Instagram Bio
- How to structure an amazing Instagram Feed
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