We know that not every follower sees every single post. The reason is very simple: the smart feed algorithm, a special algorithm applied on Instagram and other social networks. After you publish a post, it determines which of your followers would interact with this post. Moreover, there is a similar algorithm that determines which of those who do not follow you may be interested in this post. As a result, you see the direct relationship between how much the Instagram smart feed “likes” your posts and how many people will see them —and even how many new people will just visit your page.
So, let’s figure out what the smart feed is and how to work with it.
Smart feed settings
Social signals
Social signals are any activity on Instagram, such as likes, saves, comments, shares, actions in Stories, and on live broadcasts — all this counts. The higher the activity is, the more people will see your posts.
There is a rotation. For example, the most important type of activity is saving a post; the least priority is a liked post. But you need to understand that low priority does not mean unimportant. It is still important. So, there is such a thing as community management. The audience needs to be involved and interested — you should give it the content it would react to. Therefore, it is important to ask questions and make publications with calls to action to motivate the users.
User time
Finally, all social networks, including Instagram, realized that the crucial thing for users is their time. And if a user spends time on a specific account that includes reading posts, watching Stories, videos, and live broadcasts, this account becomes a priority for Instagram. That’s because Instagram is interested in people spending as much time as possible using the app, and if you help them do this, the platform will recommend you.
Therefore, it is important to make engaging posts. There are several ways to do this:
- Storytelling. Create Stories content so that people get carried away, immerse themselves in the story, and watch many of your Stories.
- Good structure. Your posts should be well structured, for example Top Ten, Twelve Ideas, Fifteen Rules.
- Hook technique. From time to time, you can say: “A little later I will tell you about that,” “At the end of today’s video, I will give a checklist,” or “Next, I will tell you about this case.”
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CTR
CTR is click-through rate, that is, what percentage of the audience pays attention to your posts. Instagram shows content to several people and checks how many of them started reading or viewing Stories.
Based on this, Instagram decides whether it is interesting or not.
Therefore, two elements are important here:
- Title. You should consider all marketing headline principles.
- Image. The content must be “Instagram-acceptable”, as the Instagram community wants to see a beautiful, bright, and rich picture.
Subject
Instagram “understands” what your post is about. It analyzes the image, text, and hashtags. Therefore, the themes need to vary. In case you write a lot about medicine, try writing about traveling sometimes. You can link these topics: for example, medical tourism. Make a special post and add an appropriate image, hashtags. This way, your post will be shown not only to people who are interested in medicine but also to people who are interested in traveling.
Hashtags and geotags
Using hashtags allows you to increase your audience reach slightly. There is an idea that, on the contrary, hashtags reduce the coverage, but it has not been proven.
Targeted advertising
There is a common myth that targeting can kill organic reach. That is not true. The correct targeting is engagement targeting. By using ads, you generate social signals and inform Instagram that you are highly active. As a result, it increases the overall audience reach.
