The Instagram Algorithm - 2024 Edition

One of the main misconceptions I want to clear up is the existence of “The Algorithm.”

Instagram doesn’t have one algorithm that oversees what people do and do not see on the app.

Instagram uses many different classifiers, processes, and algorithms, and each has its purpose. Instagram wants to make the most of your time, and they believe using technology to personalize your experience is the best way to do that.

Each part of the app – Feed, Explore, Stories, Reels – uses its algorithm tailored to how people use it. People tend to look for their closest friends in Feed and Stories, but they want to discover something entirely new in Explore. Instagram ranks things differently in different parts of the app based on how people use them.

The most important signals for Feed & Stories are:

• How popular a post is, when it was posted, how long it is (if it’s a video), and what location (if any) was attached to it?

• How interesting the account might be to you, and how many times have people interacted with this account in the past few weeks?

• What you might be interested in, and how many posts you’ve liked?

• How interested are you generally in seeing posts from a particular person? An example is whether or not you comment on each other’s posts.

How Brands & Influencers can benefit from those signals?

• Analyze your best-performing posts and try to create similar content. Simply learn from your success and become better next time.

• Engage with your followers and look for new ones. Being active in the community will help you gain more engagement next time.

• Engage within your category.

• Always reply to comments and DM. Repost to your Stories when people tag you on their content.

With all those moves, you’re making your followers and potential followers true fans. You simply ensure that when you post new content, those people will see it.

Explore was designed to help you discover new things.

The grid is made up of recommendations – photos and videos that Instagram found for you.

To find photos and videos you might be interested in, Instagram looks at what posts you've liked, saved, and commented on in the past. Let’s say you’ve recently liked several photos of vegan recipes. Instagram will look at who else likes vegan recipes photos and what other accounts those people are interested in. Maybe people who like vegan recipes are also into the vegan news. In that case, the next time you open Explore, Instagram might show you a photo or video from accounts sharing more detailed vegan information. In practice, this means that if you’re interested in vegan food, you might see posts about related topics without Instagram necessarily understanding what each post is about.

The most critical actions Instagram predicts in Explore include likes, saves, & shares.

• How popular a post seems to be. These are signals like how many and how quickly other people like, comment, share and save a post. These signals matter much more in Explore than they do in Feed or Stories.

• What posts you’ve liked, saved, or commented on, and how you’ve interacted with posts in Explore in the past.

• 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 Brands & Influencers can benefit from those signals?

• Make sure you post at the right time = when your true fans are online; this will help you grow your engagement. Engage with your targeted audience right after you posted to try to gain as much engagement as possible.

• Engage with people who recently posted content with similar keywords and hashtags.

• Simply keep your engagement stable and post consistently.

Reels feature is designed to entertain you.

Much like Explore, most of what you see is from accounts you don’t follow.

With Reels, Instagram focuses on what might entertain you. The surveyed people have been asked whether they find a particular reel entertaining or funny and learn from the feedback to understand better what will engage people. The essential predictions are how likely you are to watch a reel all the way through, like it, and say it was entertaining or funny.

The most important signals for Reels are:

• Which reels you’ve liked, commented on, and engaged with recently. These signals help Instagram to understand what content might be relevant to you.

• The content within the video, such as the audio track and popularity.

• Instagram considers popularity to help find compelling content from many people and give everyone a chance to find their audience.

How Brands and Influencers can benefit from those signals?

• Be very sharp with the idea for your Reel’s content. It is not your regular Instagram Feed.

• Use popular music and recreate popular Reel’s trend.

• Engage with people who engage with similar content.

Instagram can’t promise you that you’ll consistently reach the same amount of people when you post. The truth is most of your followers won’t see what you share because most look at less than half of their Feed.
With those few tips, you can simply increase the chances that your content will be considered more important than others, and your targeted audience will have the opportunity to see it in their Feed, Explore, Stories or Reels.

How can ENGE help you achieve your goals?
In ENGE, we focused on engagement because we believe it helps you grow organically.
If you have any questions, just send me an email at Joanna@goenge.com.

Enjoy Instagramming :)