BY KORON DAVIS

Instagram has managed to stay relevant since it was established 2010, being home to audiences of any kind. Whether it’s celebrities, businesses, organizations, or just regular users staying in touch with friends and family, people have continued to engage with the app and promote their lifestyles.

With users of all sorts, how is it that certain people and brands seem to appear more than others? How does Instagram decide what content may interest you? How can digital marketers understand and strategically position digital content by using Instagram?

This can be answered through understanding how the algorithms of Instagram function. There is not just one algorithm that describes how Instagram works, so understanding how the app is programmed to work for its different pages can be helpful to digital marketers.

Instagram Algorithms

Instagram does not have one specific algorithm, but rather different kinds based on what part of the app is being used. If you’re scrolling through your feed and stories, the algorithm may be slightly different in comparison to the content shown through the explore page. While algorithms are different throughout various parts of Instagram, they are based on similar factors such as interest, frequency, and timeliness of its users.

Interest, Frequency, and Time

Interest

Instagram knows who you follow and what content you spend most of your time viewing. It notes when you spend more time on certain content and when you like posts that seem to fit a certain genre. The app monitors not just who users follow, but how users interact with who they follow and even who they do not follow.

This is amplified even more when users follow hashtags, and can even be impacted by websites they visit outside of the app. Let’s say for example that you were to visit a website a topic such as how to learn leathercraft, you’d be more likely to start seeing an increased frequency in hashtags that you follow surrounding things like #leatherwork.

Frequency

Based on how much the app is used, Instagram will decide whether to show its viewers content either chronologically or suggested content. Based on how often you’re using the app, Instagram will decide whether to show you content chronologically or based on what it thinks you would most like to see.

For viewers that visit the app frequently, their Instagram is more than likely going to have a chronological feed, since they are more likely to see more content from those they follow and interact with. If the app is not visited as often by users, they are more likely to see content that is suggested based on the recent photos that they liked, commented on, or saved most previously.

Timeliness

Timeliness is all about when and for how long people are engaging with content. Aside from the interactions and frequency of Instagram, timeliness can play a huge role in determining which audiences are exposed to content and how many people are actually more likely to engage with the content posted.

Every user is going to have a personal best time to post their content based on their number of followers and their engagement with the app. Through understanding who their audience is and when they are most likely to be engaged, Instagram’s algorithms are bound to favor those who post most recently, during active periods of the day based on their personalized feed and followers.

There are websites online that provide personalized information that can assist you ensuring that your Instagram posts are able to receive maximum engagement.

Feed & Stories, and the Explore Page

Now that some of the factors contributing to Instagram’s algorithm are clearer, let’s dive into the specific parts of the app and see how the algorithms are used. Numerous methods are used to decide in order to figure out the order in which content appears on users’ feeds.

Feed & Stories

Information with regards to the posted content and its creator are one of the most important factors that contribute to the algorithm behind the feed and stories pages. If something was posted more recently, received a lot of likes, and the creator of the posted content is more popular, Instagram’s algorithm is more likely going to work in their favor.

For example, if a user is well-known and has a large number of followers and posts almost daily, the algorithm is likely to show users that person's content frequently since they are active and generate lots of activity.

Explore Page

The explore page algorithm works in a similar way to the Feed and Stories page, however, rather than being based on engagement with accounts those users already follow, it’s based on the way that users interact with pages they do not already follow.

For example, if a user was interested in content from a page that shared information about food as medicine, they may view the content displayed on the explore page, review, liked, and saved the post, and comment on the content.

Instagram would use that information to decide what type of content that user would want to see more of in their explore page. As time would pass by, that user would see much more healthy eating Instagram content throughout their explore page based on their previous engagement with that content.

Overall, content that shows up on users’ explore page will frequently be based on signals gathered from previous content a user engaged with or seemed interested in.

Information about the post and the creator of the post, as well as the user’s past interactions with content offered by the explore page are bound to be used as a signal for the explore page’s algorithm.

To conclude, Instagram’s algorithms are based on numerous factors such as interest, frequency, timeliness, engagement, and usage of the social media platform. While the algorithm may differ slightly for different parts of the app, the general idea is that engagement and interest are bound to play as important factors when trying to decide what type of content to show Instagram users. As digital marketers who may be seeking ways to help clients or even help themselves, understanding the functions of the Instagram algorithms, is a step in the right direction.

Koron Davis is a young professional who is a driven content marketer. His fascination with digital advertising leads him to always be learning about the next trend in digital, and he shares that knowledge through publications on Amazon SEO Experts and other industry leading pages.

Understanding The Basics of Instagram’s Algorithms