How Instagram's algorithm works

Instagram’ s algorithm is like the holy grail for content creators, the magic concept that can make any content viral. The workings of influencers’ favorite social network (for now and no offense to those trying to make it big on Tik Tok) is like a great, jealously guarded mystery. Although we all imagine some things, trying to understand it may seem difficult but according to instagram itself is somewhat simpler than it seems. Let’s take a look at the most relevant of the algorithm update in 2023.

We always talk about the algorithm in the singular but it turns out that it is not just one, but five, one for each specific section of the app: the Feed, Stories, Reels, Explore content and search. Each of these has its own algorithm that picks up the way we use the app to adapt to us.

The Instagram feed, the beginning of everything

There was a time without Reels and Stories when the Feed was the master of the place. Now it has a lot of internal competition, but it’s still a fundamental part of the experience. The first thing Instagram’s algorithm takes into account are the recent posts shared by the people you follow and the ones it thinks you might be interested in. And how do they know what we’re interested in? Very easy: through signals, based on everything you follow and what you interact with frequently. To give us an idea, they describe the most important ones:

• Activity: what you liked, shared, commented or saved.
• Info about the publication: here they look at factors that indicate the popularity of the publication such as likes, comments, shares and the speed at which these interactions are received.
• Info about the author: the interactions received by that user serves Instagram to gauge how relevant that person or profile is to us.
• Our history of interactions: serve the algorithm to deduce the level of interest we have towards that person or profile.

With all this information, predictions are obtained about the probabilities of interacting with a post. What they are looking for is that you are interested, so what they value most is that you spend a few seconds on the publication, that you comment, that you give like, and that you enter the author’s profile. The higher the probability that you perform these actions, the higher the preference of that post over others. These Instagram signals evolve over time.

There are also other actions they take to make our experience better, such as not showing you too many posts from the same profile or too many suggested posts. And of course everything must pass the community standards that govern the social network, aspects related to sensitive content with which they try to protect users.

Instagram stories: ephemeral content

With the purchase of Instagram by Facebook in 2012, the social network began to change little by little. In 2016 the experience was revolutionized with a new feature inspired by the success of Snapchat, the stories. With them we are offered the possibility of publishing ephemeral content that only lasts 24 hours to which you can add all kinds of effects, filters, gifs, emojis or personalized messages. And from the beginning they conquered the Instagram community forever.

The stories we are shown are from people we follow and the algorithm selection on Instagram is very similar to the feed:

• Visualizations: The assiduity with which we view stories from an account causes the algorithm to prioritize them over the rest.
• Interactions: The Likes we give to stories or the messages we send in response also add up to prioritize those accounts we interact with.
• Link: We take into account the relationship we may have with the profile, such as whether it is a friend or family member.

These signals predict the stories that may be most relevant to each user, the ones we are most likely to like and interact with.

Explore: where to find interesting content

Explore emerged in 2015 when Mr. Zuckerberg was already in charge of Instagram. In this section we are shown content that is understood to be of interest to us, and usually quite right. To select these suggestions, the main focus is on those that have the greatest potential to make you interact with them. Here the likes, save content and share posts are especially relevant.

• Post info: Above all, it measures how quickly a piece of content receives interactions. The faster it happens, the more relevant it is understood to be.
• Our browsing activity: It looks at the content we interact with to find similar content that arouses our curiosity.
• Interaction history: Here it is taken into account that someone you follow and interact with on a regular basis has interacted with this content.
• Info about the auror: factors such as the amount of interactions and the “popularity” of who creates or launches that content is important to select the content that may be of interest to us.

Reels, the most popular of the class

Reels were Instagram’s response to the meteoric rise of Tik Tok in the pandemic. In August 2020, this functionality, which the network itself defined as “a new way to create and discover short, fun videos on Instagram2, was released in style. As in the Chinese social network, much of what is shown to us comes from accounts that we do not follow. The most important signals for selecting content are:

• Your activity: the reels we have liked and interacted with.
• Interaction history: even if you do not know the author of the content we are shown that you have interacted with him/her on some occasion and the way in which you have done it is relevant to select his/her posts.
• Info about the reel: things like the type of content, the music it contains or the popularity the reel is reaching.
• Content info: The size of the content author ‘s community of followers or their levels of interactions are also important signals for the Instagram algorithm to select that content. Also with this information it helps each creator to find his audience.

It is also noted that aspects such as low resolution quality, watermarks, muted videos, excessively focused on political topics or text-oriented videos are factors that are taken into account so that we are not shown too much. They are looking for pure entertainment and the best possible quality.

Can I influence Instagram’s algorithm – of course I can!

Personalizing the Instagram experience is within anyone’s reach and in fact the social network highly values that we do so. They give us some recommendations:

• Favorites: Adding the accounts you like the most to your favorites list will make sure you don’t miss anything that interests you the most.
• Suggested posts: many do not like what is shown as suggested. Instagram gives us the option to stop the suggested content for 30 days. It’s very simple: when this content appears we just have to click on the selection dots and select the option to pause for 30 days. Of course, we will have to do it again after 30 days if we want to continue free of suggested publications.
• Select your best friends: as in life itself, in stories you can select your best friends so that their content has priority and so that you can launch content only directed to them.
• Muting, which is gerund: sometimes we get tired of the content of a profile or friend but we don’t want to stop following them. For this there is the option to mute their stories, messages or account notes. And don’t worry, the muted person won’t know what you’ve done.
• Stop following: The quickest and easiest if the content of a profile has ceased to interest us.
• Participate in surveys: From time to time Instagram sends us questions to rate some content. Our answers are of great help to make the experience better.

Other actions they suggest we do not hesitate to do are to select the “not interested” on content that is not relevant to us, or, in the opposite case the “I’m interested”. Reporting content that violates the network’s community policies is essential to curb inappropriate content for whatever reason. If you’ve made it this far, you’re already a master of Instagram’s algorithm!