5 facts about the Instagram algorithm
Instagram has become an effective marketing tool used by more and more companies for targeted marketing activities. However, many social media managers and online marketers make many mistakes when dealing with Instagram, which significantly limit the reach and thus almost negate the benefits. It is important to use the Instagram algorithm specifically and to use for your own benefit. We’ll show you the five facts you need to know about the algorithm and how you can benefit from that knowledge.
The effects of texts, images and CTA’s
With the possibility of call-to-action interactions in the Instagram postings, the opportunities for targeted marketing have been significantly expanded. But to be really successful and to be noticed by the Instagram algorithm, it is important to make the right combination of image, text and CTA. And here, many companies and marketing experts fail because every social medium is subject to different laws.
For Instagram, it’s all about creating user reactions on Instagram itself. This means that images and text must be the focus. The users must therefore necessarily respond to these. Now the real problem begins. The approach of the CTA must fit with your followers and motivate them. From an order of 1000 impressions, you should be particularly attentive to interact and actually test the CTA’s through A / B testing to get as many responses as possible. The algorithm quickly identifies which CTAs are relevant and important and will push and advance your postings accordingly.
What relevance do interactions / engagement have?
To assess the impact of interactions, we first need to talk about the visibility of postings on Instagram. When you post a new post on Instagram, it will initially show about 10 percent of your followers. If your page has more than 10,000 followers, the post will show only 1,000. The reactions of users to your mail are now crucial. Within the next hour, as many users as possible have to support the post with likes or comments. In this case, the post will also be displayed to the remaining 90 percent of your followers. However, if the post does not trigger a response then it will not be displayed at all. It is therefore necessary to design the postings so that they call for immediate interactions as possible.
But not only the reactions of your followers play an important role. Your direct reactions to the likes and comments also have a huge impact on the visibility of your postings. The faster you respond and the more you respond to your followers, the higher the rating of the algorithm. You can therefore have a specific influence on visibility if you remain active after posting.
Caution: Although emojis may be a great way to respond to users, the algorithm does not rate it as a reaction. Even comments with less than four words are no longer recorded and are therefore also to be avoided. Prefer a little more detail on the answer, but benefit from the algorithm and its effects.
What significance does the interaction time have?
As already mentioned above, the first hour after the posting probably plays the biggest role. Because Instagram can be described as a fleeting medium, which benefits from its liveliness and its fast pace. For this reason, it is essential to generate as many likes and comments as possible in the first lesson in order to increase the reach of the postings specifically to all followers. If this fails, the posting can be written off as it has reached only 10 percent of the target group at all. It is simply not worth investing energy in a post if it is older than an hour. The only exception is when the corresponding interaction has been reached, and thus the visibility of the posting is given to all followers.
Which hashtags work best and how should hashtags be optimally used?
Hashtags are particularly important for the Instagram algorithm and ensure that the reach of a posting can sustainably improve. For a long time it was customary to put the hashtags in the first commentary. However, this is not a good idea, since in such a case they are no longer recorded and processed by the algorithm. The hashtags are again directly in the posting, since they can only be processed.
Again and again, it can be seen that social media managers and online marketers fall back on ready-made sets of hashtags that they put under every post. While this is convenient and can make sense, true reach can not be achieved with these hashtags. It is much more purposeful and effective to develop matching hashtags for each posting that really reflects the content of the posting. Although this means a considerable additional effort when creating postings, but gives them a much greater reach and thus more potential as a marketing measure.
What kind of content works best?
Although images and videos are still the core element of Instagram, the Instagram algorithm prefers stories. It is therefore particularly important for companies to use the feature of the stories regularly, as exactly this behavior of Instagram desired and rewarded accordingly. Because the stories are displayed much more frequently and thus appear more regularly in the news feed of their own followers. In addition, Instagram always shows first the stories of profiles with which the user regularly interacts. Yet another reason to regularly be active in their own comments and thus to respond to their own followers. The better the customer work in a posting, the greater the chance with their own stories at the top of the newsfeed appear.
Basically, if you interact a lot with your users, set appropriate hashtags and above all publish regular stories, you can sustainably increase the potential of your postings as a marketing tool and thus increase your effective reach.
