You should know what the purpose of the algorithm is first. Its target is to attract you because in the case that the algorithm doesn’t give you interesting and engaging content, you will exist the app. It is necessary to deeply understand how the Instagram algorithm in 2020 works.
The Instagram algorithm needs to keep you scrolling the app.
How does Instagram Algorithm in 2020 work?
The Instagram algorithm in 2020 measures how quickly your posts attract engagement, and check the relationship between your account and your audiences’ accounts. Then it will decide where your post should show up on people’s feed. Several factors impact on how high your post shows up in a feed: engagement on prior posts, direct shares, and even Instagram Stories.
In 2016, Instagram’s algorithm was pretty straightforward: posts were ordered chronologically, regardless of engagement. For example, if I posted a selfie photo 10 minutes after my friends published her images, my photo showed up first.
However, in March 2016, Instagram changed the algorithm, pivoting from the chronological feed and moving towards an experience-based more on users’ engagement. Instagram explained that with the old algorithm, on average, 70% of information is missed. And because of the development of Instagram, people have found it harder to keep up with all the photos and videos shared on this platform. This means you often don’t reach the posts that you might be interested in the most.
The chronological algorithm couldn’t ensure that users be continuously delighted. To keep you scrolling Instagram, the algorithm was changed. It focused more on account factors such as which accounts you like best, which posts you engage with the most, and which posts were attracting the most likes and comments from your followers.
We will learn some specific factors taken into account to deeply understand how the Instagram algorithm works currently and how they select posts to display at the top of your feed. We hope that this article will help you to deliver higher-quality Instagram posts with more engagements.
1. It’s All About Engagement
Let’s see what happens once you post a picture on Instagram. Have you ever wondered why some of your posts stay at the top of your audiences’ feeds for hours, while others with higher-quality disappear from everyone’s feeds within minutes?
The answer to your question is Engagement.
How Instagram Algorithm Uses Engagement to Measure How Many People See Your Post:
- Your posts are shown to a small group of your audiences when you first launch these on your Instagram.
- Instagram measures how quickly that post gets engagements, comments, and likes.
- Then Instagram will compare the engagement your picture is getting to other posts that you’ve shared at the same time and days. For example, is this Monday 9 p.m. post getting more or less traffic than last Monday’s 9 p.m.? It would be unfair if Instagram compares your post to another one you posted at a more popular time of day then assume that this post is less popular. So, Instagram compares similar times to make sure accuracy when it’s evaluating the quality of your post’s engagement.
- In case your photo is attracting a lot of engagement, Instagram will show it to more audiences. And it might appear on the Explorer Pages.
- If your post continues to attract a lot of engagement, your photo will stay at the top of your audiences’ feed and reach more users.
- However, if your photo doesn’t get a lot of engagement initially, it will go further down on feed, then less of your audience will see it.
2. Relationships Play a Key Role
In the first part, we understand how the Instagram algorithm in 2020 works and based on engagement to decide how many people can see your post. Here, let’s explore the factors that influence the order in which posts appear on a user’s feed.
It is not only necessary for a business to know, but it’s also interesting to know as a user. If you are suddenly seeing too much of one brand on your feed, here are the reasons why:
The Five Factors Instagram Algorithm Decides How High Your Post Will be on Someone’s Feed:
- Your relationship with the person. Instagram will understand that you have a good relationship with a person because you regularly comment and like this person’s posts. Then they make sure that its posts keep appearing in a high place on your feed.
- Instagram still wants to show you new and relevant posts. Of course, it won’t keep showing you your favorite page’s posts from weeks ago.
- Likes and comments. Although Instagram does not want the algorithm to become a popularity contest, it will consider how many likes and comments a picture has when deciding what to show you.
- Direct shares. If you’re sending posts to your friend, it means that you like those posts. So, Instagram will show you more posts like this in the future.
- Profile searches. If you look for someone’s profile, Instagram thinks that you want to see this person’s posts.
3. How to Push Your Posts Higher on Your Audiences’ Instagram Feeds
We’ve known how the Instagram algorithm works and which factors influence Instagram’s decision for choosing posts to show you. Finally, let’s take a look at this information to understand how you can get your posts higher on your audiences’ Instagram feed.
Ideas to Push Your Posts Shown Higher on Instagram:
- You should know when your audience is on Instagram and publish your posts at this time.
- It’s good if you have an Instagram business account, you can check out your Instagram Insights page to see which posts get the most engagement. Then you can base on this data to create your content and post on the right time to attract more engagement.
- Create content that your audience will enjoy then get value from them. Instead of creating an advertisement for your business, consider what your audience will engage with.
- Make Instagram Stories. Instagram takes note of engagement with your Stories. For instance, your business will show up on the feed of people who replay, comment, share or vote on a poll on your Stories.
There you have it!
A piece of full information that helps you to understand how the Instagram algorithm works, which factors Instagram considers most important, and how to use it to promote your brand in a stronger, better, more engaging way.