Digital marketing – How to decode the Instagram algorithm to boost engagement

Instagram wants you to stay with it and carry on scrolling – Katrina Bell lifts the lid on how it tries to keep you engaged, and how understanding this can help your social engagement.

Dubbed the ‘home screen of social media’, Instagram is no different to the other apps in that the ultimate aim of its suite of AI-driven bots is to keep you scrolling.

However, knowing how they do that will also give you the tools to super-size engagement rates on your own content, as well as find more followers. 

The hitch is that you will need to understand the 3 main types of content before you can tailor your marketing effectively. Why are they different? Because we interact in distinctly different ways with each format. A big course-correction in 2016 came about due to people simply not seeing the content they wanted to. There was just too high a volume. Hence we saw chronological newsfeed scrolling sidelined. 

Instagram Signals, the set of data AI uses to evaluate content rankings, are different for each feature but there is an overarching set of themes. 

An important one assesses the technical quality of your product – do you have sketchy audio, low-quality video or even if there is a question mark over how much of the content belongs to you? Accounts that can’t produce Insta-worthy visuals just won’t get seen as much. 

Then there is engagement – did you get shares, likes and comments? 

Another Signal is ‘What is it about?’ Insta wants to be able to pin that down so they can distribute it to the right people. Once you post, Instagram shows it to a section of your followers, as well as a select few non-followers based on their interests and the signals their viewing habits put out. It’s like a test run to see what the reaction is. TikTok works in a very similar way. 

If all goes well, the algorithm assesses that it can show your content to more non-followers and how much they interact with it. Without this initial success, this process will stall. 

Instagram, in its own words, has said this algorithm change is designed to benefit smaller accounts. “The process is designed to level the playing field by distributing the content based on its engagement and not just on the creator’s follower count.” You will soon hear lots of buzz around evaluating your sends per reach (SPR), i.e, how many times did your content get forwarded on via share or DM?

Knowing the individual types of post is the next vital step. There are 4 on Instagram... 

1. Feed: Personalised, non-chronological permanent photos, videos, multi-photo carousels and ads which form your profile grid. What users see is who they interact with the most and how timely the post is.

2. Reels: 50 to 90-second vertical video using the on-app music, effects, text and filters. Effective in finding new viewers if you post regularly and in a consistent format. What users see is the type of content they watch the longest and if they engage.

Owner Meta is trialling Instagram for TV that will certainly take the lead from Reels for content.

3. Stories: a temporary photo or video that is hidden after 24 hours. Commonly it will be timely ideas such as polls or viral gifs and memes. Save them to your Highlights to prevent them disappearing. What users see is whose Stories they watch and engage with the most.

4. Explore: Mostly from feeds you don’t follow. What you see is what AI pulls in that is analogous to things you have interacted with before.