5 Ways to Make The Instagram Algorithm Work For You, Not Against You
When Instagram moved away from a chronological feed, it raised many questions and confusion amongst users of the app.
We have formulated our top tips for working WITH the Instagram algorithm and how to use it to boost your social presence organically.
Here's how we're using the Instagram algorithm to our advantage and how you can too!
1. Stay Familiar & Consistent
No matter how the Instagram algorithm changes, you will always be rewarded for maintaining a consistent posting schedule.
Posting regularly (4-5 times per week) ensures that your audience is spending more time on your content and frequently interacting with your account.
This signals to Instagram that people enjoy your content and want to engage with it.
We recommend planning out a consistent and frequent posting schedule that works for your business and get ahead by pre-scheduling your posts.
Using a platform such as Later to schedule your posts two weeks ahead of time ensures that you keep your content relevant and fresh while allowing you to get ahead and stay consistent.
2. It’s storytime!
Staying active on your Instagram stories is a surefire way to up audience interaction and remain relevant.
We recommend posting daily on your stories and, when possible, use interactive features such as polls, question boxes and quizzes to get your audience involved in your content. Stories are also a place to be more informal with your audience.
Stories are also a great way to promote user-generated content and share any tags you receive from your audience. The promotion of user-generated content tends to encourage others to share their experience with your business by posting reviews or sharing images of your product.
Stories are a fantastic way to participate in trends without the content being permanently on your main feed.
3. Keep Up With The Trends
Always use the latest tools provided by Instagram.
For instance, Reels bring lots of new eyes to your content. We recommend trying new Instagram features as soon as they are added to the app to get ahead of the trend and stay relevant in the algorithm. Instagram rewards users who diversify their content and post various formats, including carousels, Reels, stories, IGTVs and video content.
Using their features informs Instagram that you're making an effort to stay relevant and work with the platform to create the best content possible for users.
4. Value Adding Captions
Your content should always aim to add value to your audience.
Formulating relevant and captivating captions in a longer format raises your audience's chance of spending more extended periods on your page.
The longer your followers spend on your content, the better.
Not only does value-adding content increase time on the content, but users are more likely to save the post or send it on to another user to see.
Take the time to craft captions relevant to your business and provide information that resonates with your audience.
5. High-Quality Content
You should always be posting the highest quality of content possible. This doesn't mean you have to spend hours upon hours editing your images or videos.
Instead, set yourself up for success when you capture your content by using good lighting and a high-quality camera (this includes your phone).
Many users also create presets for their images that can easily be applied to images to create a consistent and harmonious colour palette across posts.
It's easy to capture content in batches every few weeks to create a cohesive feed and get most of the hard work done in one hit.