For the past couple of years Instagram has been a place to share your lifestyle, opinions, photos and more from all over the world, bringing together all kinds of people. Yet recently Instagram updated their system that seems to work against us. Instagram has come up with an algorithm that tells us what we want to see or at least thats what they think. My question to Instagram is why keep a follow button if your going to curate my timeline for me?
Luckily there are some ways around the system and after reading a ton of articles I've complied the Top Tips to beating the Algorithm and seeing your favorite pages once again!
Feel free to read all the details below or you can jump to bottom for a quick recap!
Let’s get into it...
Profile Searches:
When Instagram is attempting to rank images in your feed, it takes profile searches into account! This isn’t so terrible. After all, if you’re frequently searching the same page, you would hope that the page for that person or business would pop up on your popular feed.The only negative to this? Once you’ve finished seeing that content, it’s difficult to make it disappear. So simply keep a few of your favorite pages in your search bar and click on there page so Instagram knows there your must sees!
Relationships:
So Instagram is constantly trying to find the most relevant accounts for your feed. The app sees who you talk to. So basically if your constantly commenting on your friends or favorite accounts post the theory is they will stay on your feed. Now with the Algorithm all messed up, It helps to create an Instagram Pod. A Instagram Pod is when you get a group of 8-10 friends in a private chat and let one another know when you post so they can check it out. By your friends knowing when you post, they can like and comment making Instagram see the relationship!
Now Ive been in a Insta Pod and sometimes it can be chaotic catching up with all the posts from all 8-10 people, but I believe if you can come up with some guidelines for the group it could work efficiently.
Time Spent:
Lastly, we’ll consider time spent visiting Instagram content. Think about Facebook videos – have you ever seen a video, watched it for five seconds, and then scrolled past it to find something you care about more? This is essentially how the Instagram algorithm works in regards to time spent viewing content. If you’re interested in an Instagram video or boomerang, you’ll likely watch it or interact with it. If you aren’t, you’ll move forward onto something you do care about. Instagram takes this into account when populating photos and videos onto your feed.
Stories and Hashtags:
Your stories and hashtags are essential to your IG algorithm. Using hashtags in your stories through the Instagram feature is big when Instagram decides if your story should pop up before others. They look at hashtags used and they compare it and see which of your others friends and followers use them as well. Same thing when using Hashtags on your posts, they connect like hashtags to profiles, so if you have favorite hashtags share them with your friends (but do make sure they are relevant to your content)!
So here’s the shortened recap to all this madness:
• Go to the Explore tab, search your favorite pages and go spam their feed with likes and comments!
-This will let Instagram know your searching for them and loving their stuff
• Constantly use relevant hashtags for your posts/stories and see what your favorite accounts use as hashtags as well.
- The more alike, the better chance they will pop up! In stories use the IG feature #
• Create an Instagram Pod with some friends! This will help boost your engagement brining you to the top and helping more see your feed.
- The more comments and likes you have the better chance your post stays relevant and at the top!
• Talk to your followers!
-This is big especially with your business if you interact with them, Instagram will make sure to connect y’all. End each post with a question to spark some engagement.
• Also always check your analytics! Know when your followers are on IG and who they are (Men, Woman, Ages etc)
I’ll list some apps that will also help track more stuff like this.
Helpful Apps:
- Webstagram, Helps you find the best and most relevant hashtags to use.
- Iconosquare, Helps with your pages analytics. Learn information about your page. * HIGHLY RECOMMENDED*
-Schedugram, Schedule your posts according to times your followers are active.
I have been trying a few of these trick and they seem to be helping! The first bullet point is a big one for me, the explore tab is my best friend lately!
Let me know if these tricks work for you or if you know of any others! Share the love and email me so tips and tricks to share.
Hope this helps!
- Nicole Ashely❤️