Today, we live in a world where everyone wants to get seen. Be it a small business, any MNC, or an influencer, they all crave visibility. But why is that so? This is because it is imperative for them to stay in touch with the audience and prospective customers. The best way to get visible in 2021 is social media for obvious reasons. One of the most widely used social media platforms is Instagram with around one billion users a month. Owned by Facebook Inc., this platform has a lot to offer for both content creators as well as content consumers. Instagram allows content in the form of :
- Posts
- Short videos better known as reels
- Long videos called IGTV videos
10-second story feature which disappears automatically after 24 hours - Live video
- and written content commonly called guides
However, to make the best use of Instagram, one should know how its algorithm works.
Basics of Instagram algorithm
Instagram primarily has two feeds one being the “Home” feed and another one is the “Explore” feed. The home feed shows us posts from the accounts and hashtags we follow, whereas the explore feed is responsible to exhibit our posts from the accounts we do not follow but are based on our interests. Both of these feeds help in the functioning of the algorithm. The algorithm gathers the information from these feeds from our interaction with posts on Instagram and then, it ranks that information into different factors which would ultimately be responsible for the visibility of a post. The factors are engagement, likes, comments, shares, saves, quality of content, reliability, and retention ie., how much time a person is spending on that post.
Now, each interaction holds a certain value:
- LIKES: If you are liking a post, it gives the Instagram impression that you are interested in that post.
- COMMENTS: If you are commenting on a post, it will tell Instagram that you were moved with the content of the post and spend your time writing something.
- SHARES: If you share a post with a few of your friends, it makes Instagram decide that this post is of value and shareworthy. Thus Instagram will increase its visibility.
- SAVES: If you save a post, It tells Instagram that, that piece of content is important to you and you will refer to it in the future resulting in increased visibility of that post.
How you use Instagram also heavily influences the things that are visible to you. You help improve the experience simply by interacting with the profiles and posts you enjoy, but there are a few more explicit things you can do to influence what you see like picking up close friends, mark recommended posts as “Not Interested”, and mute the accounts you don’t want to see.
How to grow on Instagram using the algorithm
Before learning how to grow on Instagram we should first look up the goal of Instagram.
Instagram wants to earn money through advertisers, and advertisers will only choose Instagram for promotions if the platform has a good audience. Thus, the main goal of Instagram is to retain users on the app. Now it’s pretty simple that to impress the algorithm, you must create content that will make someone stick to your post and ultimately to Instagram.
How to create algorithm friendly content for Instagram
The first and foremost thing you have to keep in mind is if you want to outsmart the algorithm, high-quality and on-brand content are must. High-quality content means posting pictures/videos with good resolution and interesting captions. On-brand content means content that is more targeted and niched down to a certain topic. Niching down increases our chances to get featured in front of a relevant audience that is more prone to engage with the content.
Since Instagram’s algorithm is regulated by machine learning and not any human brain, it constantly changes and improves based on new data which is based on user behaviors and Instagram features & updates. Thus the safest option to tackle the algorithm is to create content that is shareable and saveable which would ultimately also help in branding.