Just like the ingenious Facebook News Feed algorithm, even the Instagram algorithm shows every user a different page full of posts that are most likely in their interests. So, this is one platform that can help more and more followers and non-followers view your content, which is a very important thing to consider if you are a content creator. But, how does the Instagram algorithm work? While there is no certain information as to how the algorithm works, there are certain factors that Instagram uses to show the best content to its users. Five such significant factors that almost every digital marketing company in Bangalore may also confirm with, are listed below.
Shares
Shares through Instagram is one of the signals that the platform considers to understand your interests. When you share a post, it probably shows that you are interested in the posts by that account. Also, Instagram considers the people you have shared the post with. It believes that when you have shared a post with people, those may be the people who are important to you or those that you care about. So, Instagram might rank their posts higher on your Feed.
Relationships
You may be following lots of accounts on Instagram, but out of all those accounts, there may be some that may be the most important to you. These could be your family, friends, partner, or anyone else. Instagram does not want you to miss important posts from these important people in your life, which is why it makes sure that no matter how many accounts you follow, you see the latest posts from those important people on your Feed. This means that content from your most valuable friends and family ranks higher on your Feed. But, how does Instagram find who these important people are? Since it is owned by Facebook, it can use data from the platform to determine your relationships like family, friends, schoolmates, colleagues, partner, etc. Another way it can find these people is by studying your past interactions with people like people you directly message, people you search for, or people whose content you frequently like.
Account Search
There may be certain people whose accounts you may be searching for frequently to know what they are up to. When you search frequently for a particular profile, it definitely shows that you are interested in the posts from that particular person. Instagram can find out the list of these people and rank their posts higher on your Feed so that you don’t have to search for their profiles to see their posts. This consideration by Instagram has highly improved the online experience for many users because with this algorithm, the number of searches has gone down considerably, meaning that people are seeing posts they are interested in on their Feed, without having to search for their favourite profiles.
Engagement
Engagement refers to the popularity of the post – how popular a particular post is amongst the audience. When a new post is published, Instagram shows the post to a small group of people to see how they react to it. If the audience reacts positively to the post, it then shows the post to more people. This means that a post with more engagement is likely to rank higher on your Instagram Feed. So, how is the engagement level decided? The factors that are considered to decide upon how popular a post is include the number of likes, comments, shares, saves, story views, video views, and live video views.
Relevancy
Although the posts with high engagement levels are likely to rank higher, it is also important to note that posts with lesser engagement but more relevancy can also appear at the top of your Feed. Relevancy here refers to the content type that you are interested in. But, how does Instagram know what interests you? Can Instagram really find out what all you are interested in? It sure can determine your areas of interest by looking at the genres of content you have interacted with in the past, or the hashtags that you have used. If there is a certain genre of content you have engaged with more frequently in the past, Instagram will rank content of that particular genre higher on your Feed.
These are just some of the most important signals that Instagram considers while planning to rank the posts for your Feed. There are a whole bunch of other signals that the platform considers, and these signals are continually changing and evolving to give users the best Instagram experience possible. An experienced digital marketing company in Bangalore is well aware of these continually evolving changes as they are always up-to-date with the market trends and internet strategies.
