Ever wonder why your Instagram feed is set to show you the same people over and over again? It’s because of an algorithm! The algorithm determines which accounts should be shown on your feed first, based on what you interact with most, how relevant the content is to you, how often you share it, how often you watch the entire video or like the image. This means that if you want more followers or more views on your posts, it’s important to understand the Instagram algorithm.
This is obviously easier said than done since Instagram has been working very hard to make sure that accounts that create great content are rewarded, which unfortunately means that there is no shortcut to gaining more followers. If you truly want to see an increase in followers then you will have to increase your levels of engagement using an understanding of the Instagram algorithm, which you can find below.
Engaged With Accounts Thrive
If you are wondering how successful accounts continue to keep growing, whilst you might be feeling like your own hasn’t grown much, it’s because of engagement. Engagement is one of the most important aspects of the Instagram algorithm and the reasoning is pretty simple; if a post or account receives engagement, the content must be good, therefore it will have more reach. This is why many growth services, such as Growthoid, focus on engaging organically with other users to help you gain more Instagram followers. To be more specific, the key indicators of engagement are how many comments do your posts get, how many likes do they get, how long do users spend looking at your post, does your post get shared, does it get saved, and do people click on your posts to view your profile.
Use Promotions
Now that we have covered how important engagement is for posts, and the key indicators of engagement, focus can now be shifted to how to increase that engagement. One of the easiest ways to drive traffic to your profile and increase profile visits is by using promotions. Using promotions is incredibly easy if you have a creator or business account. All you need to do is select a post you want to promote, set an audience or let Instagram decide based on your followers, and set a budget and duration.
Not only will you begin receiving more profile visits, but your post will also be seen by thousands of people, get likes and potentially comments if the content is good.
Produce Great Content
The next thing that you need to focus on to beat the Instagram algorithm is simply to create great content. As mentioned above, the post you select to be promoted needs to have great content, and the reason for this is because Instagram can only show your posts to people, but they have to be good to get engagement.
Increase the quality of the content could mean anything from using a better camera, learning about angles, putting more time into creating quotes, or even beginning to use videos; it all depends on your niche. Great content means more people will spend more time looking at it and sharing it, which all contributes to engagement and the ranking of the post.
Use Videos
As mentioned above, one way to increase the quality of your content is by using videos. A picture might be worth a thousand words, but a video is what helps keep people entertained. The same rules apply however, the video quality has to be good and the content has to be entertaining to make sure people watch from the beginning of the video to at least 75% of the duration.
Pay attention to trends and popular accounts to see how they structure their videos and introduce their content, what angles they use, what timing they have between transitions, how fast the video feels like it’s moving. If you do this, you are bound to see an increase in engagement rates, and as a result, an increase in followers.
Now you have a brief understanding of how the Instagram algorithm affects the ranking of your posts, and as a result, how much reach you get. Remember to create great content, promote your most liked posts, follow the example of popular accounts, and most importantly, continue to grow.