How exactly does the Instagram feed work?
That question has puzzled marketers ever since Instagram first introduced its algorithm in July 2016.
The Instagram algorithm was introduced to help surface the best, most relevant content to each user every-time they check their feed. Until now, though, the inner-workings of the feed have been kept under wraps, but recently Instagram shared the six key ranking factors publicly for the first time.
In this post, we’ll break down the Instagram feed for you. We’ll go through the factors that influence the ranking of your content and explain why the Instagram algorithm is actually great for marketers.
Let’s go!
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How does the Instagram algorithm work?
Recently, Instagram invited a small group of journalists to their San Francisco office to put an end to the rumors and share how the Instagram feed ranking algorithm really works.
Instagram revealed that there are three main factors that determine what you see in your Instagram feed:
- Interest
- Timeliness
- Relationship
There are also three additional criteria that play a smaller part in your Instagram feed rankings:
- Frequency
- Following
- Usage
We’ll discuss each factor in a little more detail below.
The 3 most important Instagram feed ranking factors
1. Interest: How much Instagram predicts you’ll care about a post
When the algorithmic timeline was announced, Instagram mentioned that it would show you content that you’ll likely be interested in first:
Content that is relevant to your interests will rank higher on your feed. But how does Instagram know your interests? One way could be to look at the genres of content (e.g. travel, food, fashion, sports, etc.) you have interacted with in the past.
With the level of photo recognition technologies available now, I believe it’s possible for the algorithm to categorize posts into simple genres such as travel, food, fashion, and more — and possibly even more sophisticated genres. The algorithm could also look at the hashtags used.
If there’s a certain genre of content that you engage with more frequently (e.g. food), Instagram might rank content of that genre (e.g. food, restaurants, etc.) higher on your feed.
An Instagram spokesperson told Business Insider that ranking of Instagram posts will not be a popularity contest. Posts with less engagement that are more relevant to you can still appear right at the top of your feed.
2. Timeliness: How recent the posts are
The next key ingredient in the Instagram algorithm, as shared by Instagram a while back, is timeliness.
Instagram wants to show you posts that are recent and, consequently, more relevant.
Something from last week might not interest you as much as something from an hour ago, so Instagram will likely show you more recent posts rather than posts from a few days or weeks ago — even if the older post had received a lot of engagement.
This implies that recent posts likely rank higher in your feed and that the timing of your post is still relevant.
According to a talk from Instagram’s Thomas Dimson, and my personal experience (admittedly, a sample size of only one), it seems that the Instagram algorithm re-orders only the new posts between your current visit and your last visit.
For example, if I visited Instagram at 11 PM last night and again at 9 AM this morning, and there were 50 posts created in between. The algorithm would sort only those 50 posts created and not include posts from before 11 PM last night. Based on my personal experience, if I were to scroll past all those 50 posts, I’d see the same posts in the same order as when I last visited (11 PM last night).
(If your personal experience is different from this, it’d be great to hear from you!)
If this is true, it could mean that the best time to post is when your followers are most active as there would be less competition (e.g. between 9 to 10 AM in the image below).
3. Relationship: The accounts you regularly interact with
