How To Make the Instagram Algorithm Work for You in 2021
While many have tried to “beat” the IG algorithm and succeeded, many have also failed. Most people are confused with all the changes and struggle to keep up! Instagram usually doesn’t make public announcements when changing its algorithm which makes it harder to be at the top of your game.
I’ve been on IG for over 8 years and have seen many changes along the way. Trust me when I say I understand the struggle!
BUT check this out: Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, recently dished out the real deal on how IG’s algorithm presently works. The last time they made an algorithm announcement was in June 2018.
Read on to find out the real deal with how IG really works.
First of all, there is MORE THAN ONE algorithm. There is no one formula to decode the algorithm. This is the most common misconception out there. Adam Mosseri said that --
“Instagram doesn’t have one algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t see on the app. We use a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose……”
“Each part of the app – Feed, Explore, Reels – uses its own algorithm tailored to how people use it. People tend to look for their closest friends in Stories, but they want to discover something entirely new in Explore. We rank things differently in different parts of the app, based on how people use them.”
How the Feed and Stories algorithm works
By now you’ve probably learned that the Feed and Stories are the places people go if they want to see content from their friends and favorite accounts. So how does IG rank Stories? How does it identify which profiles appeal to you more than others?
IG studies your behavior patterns -- which ones you comment, like or interact with the most. These are called signals. The more you spend time on a post, comment, like or save, it adds up to the signals and over time, the algorithm gets better at showing you things that you are interested in.
Adam shares the most important signals across Feed and Stories (roughly in order of importance):
Information about the post. These are signals both about how popular a post is – think how many people have liked it – and more mundane information about the content itself, like when it was posted, how long it is if it’s a video, and what location, if any, was attached to it.
Information about the person who posted. This helps us get a sense for how interesting the person might be to you, and includes signals like how many times people have interacted with that person in the past few weeks.
Your activity. This helps us understand what you might be interested in and includes signals such as how many posts you’ve liked.
Your history of interacting with someone. This gives us a sense of how interested you are generally in seeing posts from a particular person. An example is whether or not you comment on each other’s posts.
How the Explore algorithm works
Ever wondered why sometimes it eerily feels that IG knows you so well? Once again IG looks at signals to study your behavior patterns -- like what types of posts you like, save and share.
Adam dishes out the most important signals they look at, in order of importance:
Information about the post. Here we are looking at how popular a post seems to be. These are signals like how many and how quickly other people are liking, commenting, sharing, and saving a post. These signals matter much more in Explore than they do in Feed or in Stories.
Your history of interacting with the person who posted. Most likely the post was shared by someone you’ve never heard of, but if you have interacted with them that gives us a sense of how interested you might be in what they shared.
Your activity. These are signals like what posts you’ve liked, saved or commented on and how you’ve interacted with posts in Explore in the past.
Information about the person who posted. These are signals like how many times people have interacted with that person in the past few weeks, to help find compelling content from a wide array of people.
How the Reels algorithm works
Reels entertain you and the algorithm is based on how you interact with Reels. Adam goes on to explain the most important signals in order of importance are:
Your activity. We look at things like which Reels you’ve liked, commented on, and engaged with recently. These signals help us to understand what content might be relevant to you.
Your history of interacting with the person who posted. Like in Explore, it’s likely the video was made by someone you’ve never heard of, but if you have interacted with them that gives us a sense of how interested you might be in what they shared.
Information about the Reel. These are signals about the content within the video such as the audio track, video understanding based on pixels and whole frames, as well as popularity.
Information about the person who posted. We consider popularity to help find compelling content from a wide array of people and give everyone a chance to find their audience.
If you’ve ever wondered if and why it seems you are not getting enough reach or engagement, Adam tackles shadowbanning. He stated that there’s no way Instagram can guarantee you can constantly get the same level of interaction with your posts and he underlines some people look at half of their Feed.
However he said that they are working on being more transparent about why some content is taken down and they’re currently developing better in-app notifications so we’ll know why a post was taken down.
IG heavily influences the things you see and don’t see. Here are some tips on how you can influence what you see:
Pick your Close Friends. You can select your close friends for Stories. This was designed as a way to let you share with just the people closest to you, but we will also prioritize these friends in both Feed and Stories.
Mute people you’re not interested in. You can mute an account if you’d like to stop seeing what they share, but are hesitant about unfollowing them entirely. This way, people don't know you've muted them.
Mark recommended posts as “Not Interested.” Whenever you see a recommendation, whether it’s in Explore or in Feed, you can indicate you are “not interested” in that post. We will do our best not to show you similar recommendations in the future.
The algorithm is really not complex. It likes to study you, your behavior patterns -- what you liked, saved, commented on, or spend more time watching. So you have to study your audience, learn what keeps them engaged and provide them content that will make them want to interact with it. IG has all these tools to help you make high quality and engaging content -- from Stories, to Reels, to IGTV and more.
The algorithm is not a big mysterious entity. It doesn’t hate you or punish you. Changes will always happen but if you’re willing to change with it, you’ll be consistent at delivering value to your audience.
*Source: Shedding More Light on How Instagram Works, by Adam Mosseri
