What you need to know
Instagram’s main goal is to help you see what they think is the most relevant content for you at the top of your feed.
The algorithm is determined by 3 top factors; Interest, Timeliness and Relationship.
The chronological feed and Instagram shadowbanning spammy accounts are myths according to Techcrunch.
The rest
We’re pretty sure most Instagram users want to know all about this topic, so we are ready to give a good amount of relevant information on how to understand the new algorithm and how to give your beautiful content the attention it deserves through the platform.
Not too long ago Instagram made some algorithm changes that would prioritize posting time, this was supposed to be the main factor that would influence the Instagram algorithm. Now, Instagram’s main goal is to help you see what they think is the most relevant content for you at the top of your feed, this means that most of it comes from friends and family or from the accounts that you engage with the most.
How will they try to predict what content is the most important to you? There are many factors that can help determine this.
Top 3 factors that affect the Instagram Algorithm
Interest: Your past behavior will do most of the magic here. Basically Instagram will show similar content to the one you have liked before. Who you follow, what you like and what to look for in your Explore Feed, will help them predict how much a post will interest you.
Timeliness: This is the part where some get confused, you may feel like it’s a chronological feed but actually the main focus is still Interest, they’re just trying to avoid having users looking at old content.
Relationship: How much you interact with a user will tell Instagram that you probably have a stronger relationship with that user, that will categorize him or her as part of your friends and family group and this one will make it to the top of your feed, instead of random accounts that you don’t engage with too often.
There are some other factors that affect the algorithm but these three are the most important to take in consideration.
Having a relationship with with your followers will increase interest, this will help you increase reach and engagement.
Photo Courtesy of Nikki Martin
Photo Courtesy of Nikki Martin
It all sounds pretty good, but if you have further questions about the rumors on some of the changes made in the past, we’ll clarify a bit here.
According to Techcrunch, the Instagram chronological feed wont be coming back. If you were aware of the “new posts” button that was being tested and you were waiting for it, this is not coming anytime soon. Also, if you were thinking that Instagram was hiding posts from your feed, it’s all good because it’s not happening, they’re all there and if you want to see them all just keep scrolling.
They also talked about the Instagram Shadowban, it turned out this was never a real thing. Some accounts were affected by a mysterious bug that was actually shadowbanning posts with spammy behavior but this is no longer the case. Some other myths were clarified, you can read more here.
Moral of the story
It’s probably time to rearrange your Instagram strategy if you’re looking to increase your reach and engagement, update your Instagram hashtag strategy too and stay tuned to the changes and features that Instagram will keep adding, cause you never know when everything can turn around again.