Introduction

Instagram is continuously developing and is more suitable for online businesses than other platforms. So, to grow businesses on Instagram, marketers need to keep their eyes on Instagram updates and need to learn how the Instagram algorithm works better for businesses.

Basically, the success of your Instagram business depends on what you are selling, how you’re maintaining your Instagram business account and your interactions with audiences. Choosing a perfect niche for Instagram marketing and being regular on Instagram is the most powerful trick of the Instagram algorithm. But by doing these you will not receive much sympathy from the Instagram algorithm. There are some other core factors of Instagram. By knowing it, you can make your business grow better.

Let’s get over it-

How does Instagram Algorithm Work?

Well, It’s not difficult to get the Instagram algorithms in depth. It’s more about obtaining knowledge and practicing consistently to outsmart the Instagram algorithm. However, Instagram switched to an algorithm-based feed in July 2016 and is continuously upgrading its functions.

A couple of years before, despite their upgrades, the Facebook-owned company (Instagram) still received backlashes mostly due to keeping their audiences and marketers in the dark about how their feed works. The marketers were unable to check out the insights and analytics. But now, the system has been changed. Instagram finally removed the lid on how their feed works. Now it’s possible to outsmart Instagram algorithms.

Instagram product lead Julian Gutman explained that, “Instagram relies on machine learning based on your past behavior to create a unique feed for everyone.” It means that Instagram analyzes your likes, interests, interactions, time spent, taps on profiles and preferences and you’ll get a personalized feed based on how you interact with those profiles.

For example, if you follow two different accounts with the same name, Among two, in your Instagram feed you will mostly receive content from the Instagram account you interact with the most.

However, I have covered all the factors of how the Instagram algorithm works for feed posts and decides which one to rank first. Let’s get on-

The Core Factors of Instagram Algorithm

Well, ranking a post on Instagram feed is not easy. Depending on some factors Instagram will decide which posts go to the top of the newsfeed, and in what order; In which order Stories, Live videos, and Reels show up, in the feed, and their respective tabs, etc, Which posts are featured on the Explore tab.

Here are the core factors of Instagram that determine which post appears on whose home feed.

1. Interest: Instagram analyzes your past behavior and preferences and finds what you like or dislike, which profiles you are searching for, what posts or products attract you, and then it predicts what post you might like the most and tries to optimize the feed accordingly.

These factors make Instagram help you know what type of content matters to you the most! And show it on your profile. I have followed some Instagram profiles of digital marketers and CEOs of different worldwide organizations. Instagram understood my choice of interest and suggested that I follow more popular profiles.

However, if you have a business account on Instagram you can follow your competitors’ pages to check what they are newly launched, what they are offering. So you will continuously receive their updates by Instagram feed and can brainstorm ideas about what you can do for your business.

2. Preferences: Instagram’s algorithm works as per your activity. What type of content do you like to engage with? video image? Reels? Stories? What exactly are social information graphs? Instagram presents the content on your news feed that you prefer most. For example, I like to spend time on watching social infographics. So, Instagram frequently showed me more social infographics on my page.
3. Interaction (Like, Comment, Double Tap): Your relationship with other users matters a lot! The Instagram algorithm optimizes your feed according to how you are responding to a post and how often you like or comment on their post. A post on Instagram ranks by how many likes and comments it has. The More interaction and engagement a content has the more initially Instagram will share it in your feed.
4. Recency (Uniqueness): Instagram algorithm works like a newspaper! The new and unique one gets priority over the old one. And the audiences love to save informative posts like we often keep newspapers that have important messages.

Instagram cares about the immediate post so this factor determines how recently the post was shared and how many people share it. It prioritizes new posts over old ones and timely posts over weeks-old ones.

Beyond those core factors, there are 3 more additional factors that also influence your Instagram feed –

5. Frequency: This factor depends on how often the users check Instagram and how frequently users post on Instagram. The more you post on Instagram, the more it will appear on the audience’s feed. The more you will check your feed, the quicker you will get the latest posts.
6. Following: It depends on, how many people does the user follow? And what types of profiles does the user follow? If you follow a lot of Instagram accounts who share content on Fishing, Instagram will suggest you to follow other accounts that are also selling fishing content. So, you might see less of any specific person and more of the diversity of accounts.
7. Spend-time: How long you are spending time on Instagram, matters! If you spend a long time on Instagram without cutting off the app, it starts to dig deep and shows you a lot of old posts that you might have missed the last time you were on the app. A long session on this app will dig deep and a short session will show you the best posts available.

Beside this,

The factors also depend on image or video resolution and the post’s uniqueness (a unique caption is also important). Watermarks Infractions of the Instagram Community Guideline.

Top 7 Tips To Outsmart Instagram Algorithm

Now, Based on these 7 core factors of Instagram, I have planned a list of 7 tips to outsmart Instagram algorithm. Following this will help you to grow your audience reach and optimize the power of the latest Instagram algorithm.

Grab Audience Interest To Engage With Your Post: 

The best way to boost your Instagram profile is to entertain your audiences, create informative posts and grab interest. Choose your buyer first and analyze what they tend to like, what kind of post they are engaging with.

If you don’t have enough followers, research your competitors’ Instagram profiles. Who is following them? Give them a follow, and they will almost certainly follow you back. As a result, you will earn more followers. Another way to grab your target audience is to partner with popular influencers.

Check out your competitors’ Instagram profiles on a regular basis to see which influencers are working with them, what they’ve just published, what type of content they’re providing, which of their posts are getting more views and most likely to appreciate. Receive constant updates and explore ideas based on your target audience’s interests.

Try Phlanx.com. It will help you to carry out your competitor research, contact influencers and measure post engagement rate.

Be Creative And Share Unique Contents:  

Be unique and creative! Try to share new posts on a regular basis. Being an Instagram Marketer you have to post different types of content for your audiences to grab their attention. Because all audiences don’t have the same thrust and preferences. To make your content appear in your audience’s feed, share a jumble of content with a unique caption. The caption gives a green signal to Instagram algorithm.

Don’t worry! If you are out of content. Check out my blog on Instagram post ideas. You will receive 26 types of content ideas which are more than enough to post for a month.

Use good graphics tools that will help you to create unique and fresh content. Get a review on an amazing graphics design tool, named Glorify, that will help you create stunning catchy content for Instagram. You can give it a try after reading the whole “Glorify review“.

Encourage your audiences to leave a comment on your post or hit like. Use these power words in your caption –

Hit love,

Double tap if you agree!

Tag a friend / tag someone who gets it,

Say “yes” if you appreciate it.

Brush you up with how to write engaging captions for Instagram from here –

Be Interactive And Maintain Community Guidelines:

Post engagement is a good signal for Instagram algorithm. Your audiences may feel uncomfortable engaging with your posts. Use open-ended questions, question stickers, polls, and emoji sliders to directly engage them with your posts.

If they comment on something, don’t miss out on the chance to comment back. Replying with a sticker comment is a good way to amp up a good relationship with your audience.

But don’t share any misinformation, slang, and inappropriate words in comments and captions as a form of interactivity. It’s a red flag for Instagram algorithm as well as against Instagram community guidelines. Miscommunication or information on Instagram may limit the visibility of your content on spreading Instagram feed and you will fail to market your content.

Post Trendy Content:

People usually like to be involved with funny, viral and trendy content. Use 100% of your brain and try to make content that will surefire your audience’s engagement. Engagement is more than enough to complete the requirements of the IG algorithm.

Use high volume and relevant keywords to Craft the caption content. The right keyword is a stamp for Instagram algorithm. Now you may ask me how to research those keywords.

Here is an example of how I write my caption with relevant keywords.

Keyword Finder is a magical keyword research tool. Find thousands of long tail keywords from here for free. I also use this for my youtube captions.

If it is helpful don’t forget to let me know in the comment section.

Post Regularly at The Right Time:

Posting regularly at the right time helps your content appear first on the Instagram news feed. You will get organic clicks and followers. That is a good sign for Instagram Algorithms. Research your audience’s behavior, what time and day they are available on Instagram so that you may schedule post maintenance time.

CreatorStudio.com, Socialchamp.com and Buffer.com are the best apps that will help you to schedule posts on a regular basis and your audiences will never miss a chance to enjoy your content!  

Use Right Hashtags: 

Instagram algorithm can’t read images or videos. But It will understand the words of your caption and hashtag.

Use the right and relevant hashtags if you really want to spread your content in the Instagram feed. Accurate hashtags will give you maximum reach and good search results.

Spy on your competitors’ Instagram profiles. What hashtags are they using? You can try them with tools. But you really don’t need it if you use hastagstack or allhastags. These tools will help you dig hashtags that are related to your niche and have a high volume of reach.

Within 20 minutes 39 people reached my post from the hashtag I had used.

Analyze Your Report: 

Good Instagram analytics tools like Keyhole, Hootsuite, Iconosquare, Sprout Social help your content get more reach by your followers. Try out these tools for research such as –

– When your followers are online on Instagram

– What contents are earning real engagements

– Which hashtags are performing well

– Who are your most active audiences

These Instagram analytics tools are best to learn your Instagram metrics. You can track your performance records and make your progress. At least test this tool for one month and see the comparisons of how better your content is performing on Instagram.

Unraveling the Myths of Instagram

In the press conference done by the Instagram team, they also busted some of the myths or rumors that have been going around the internet. They responded to many common questions and conspiracy theories on how its feed works.

– Instagram does not cover posts in the feed, and you’ll see everything posted by everybody you follow if you continue to scroll.

– Feed ranking does not support the picture or video format. Users’ feeds are optimized depending on what sort of content they consume or see, so if you watch less video, your feed will have less video.

– Instagram doesn’t offer extra service to those who use Stories, Live, or other exceptional features of the app.

– Instagram doesn’t downrank users for posting too much or for any specific behavior.

– Shadow-banning is not a real thing; it doesn’t hide people’s content by posting too many hashtags or doing other activities.

– Instagram doesn’t give additional support to business accounts or personal accounts. They both receive the same support and features.

Following the above tips will improve your Instagram business account to grow faster. But only by doing this, you won’t get the sympathy of Instagram every time.

Conclusion

Instagram is continuously updating its feed ranking algorithm to favor authentic content. So, as an Instagram marketer, you always need to keep your eyes on what’s new on Instagram and should work on it. Your content will be visible on the Instagram feed first if you diligently use the above tips and tricks I suggested and also collaborate with new updates on Instagram.

My plan is to help small businesses and marketers expand their businesses on social media. Keep in touch with my blogs and social profiles. I will give you continuous updates on social media platforms.

Read more: Top 10 Instagram Marketing Tools.