How Instagram Recommendations Work and How Businesses Should Post

There are four ways posts are ranked, one per surface

On May 31, 2023, Instagram head Adam Mosseri published "Instagram Ranking Explained" on the official blog. The first thing it says is that there is no single algorithm that runs all of Instagram. Feed, Stories, Explore and Reels are used in different ways, so each ranks posts with its own system.

If you don't know this, you end up applying advice like "this is how to grow on Instagram" to every post. The conditions that work for a post shown to followers are different from those for a post meant to be discovered outside your followers. The quickest route is to think about each surface's role separately first.

Signals that matter on each surface

The blog lists the important signals (the cues used for ranking) for each surface in order of importance. In brief, without paraphrasing, they are as follows.

Feed

The heaviest signal in Feed is the viewer's own activity: which posts they have liked, shared, saved and commented on. Next is information about the post itself, such as how quickly reactions are coming in, when it was posted, and where it was taken. Third is information about the person who posted, and fourth is the history of interactions between the viewer and the poster.

Stories

For Stories, three things are looked at: how much the viewer has watched and reacted to that person's Stories, and how close the viewer is to the poster. Because Stories mostly reach followers only, it is natural to think of it not as a place to reach new people but as a place to keep up relationships with people you're already connected to.

Explore

Explore is the surface that shows posts from accounts people don't follow yet. The blog says that here, post popularity (how many reactions it gets, and how fast) is weighted more heavily than in Feed or Stories. Next come the viewer's activity in Explore, the history of interactions with the poster, and information about the poster, in that order.

Reels

In Reels, the heaviest signal is the viewer's activity: which Reels they have liked, saved, shared and commented on. Next is the history of interactions with the poster, then information about the Reel itself (audio, video and popularity), and last, information about the poster. The blog explains that Reels is a surface that reaches far beyond non-followers.

"Shadowbanning" and posts that aren't recommended

You often hear "I suddenly stopped being seen. Is it a shadowban?" In the same blog, Instagram says there is no set definition of that term, and that it does not make posts harder to see in order to get people to buy ads.

Instead, Instagram has "recommendation guidelines," and even posts that don't break the rules fall into certain types that aren't recommended (Explore, Reels, search, and suggested posts and accounts). An account that repeatedly posts content that goes against the guidelines or the Community Guidelines may have its posts removed from recommendations for a while.

You can check whether your account is eligible for recommendations in "Account Status" in the app's settings. If you feel your visibility has dropped, this is the surest place to look first, before trying rumored fixes. If you've been removed, the reason is shown, and you can appeal.

What this means for a business account's posts

Stop people on the first image

On both Feed and Reels, viewers decide in an instant whether to stop scrolling. For a carousel (a post with multiple images swiped sideways), it's the first image; for a Reel, it's the first second. A layout that makes clear on the first image what it's about gets more reactions than just lining up product photos. Image sizes and aspect ratios are collected in image and video sizes for each network.

Aim for saves and sends

The first signal was the viewer's own activity. More than likes alone, saves and shares are strong reactions that mean "I want to come back to this" or "I want to show someone." Include content with a reason to be saved, such as steps, comparisons, seasonal guides and common mistakes, and the post stays in the viewer's activity history.

Separate the surfaces that keep relationships from those that reach out

Stories are for keeping relationships with people you're connected to, while Explore and Reels are for reaching outside your followers. Split the roles: small daily updates in Stories, and content you want new people to know about in Reels or carousels, and you post in line with each surface's conditions. How to make Reels is covered in getting started with short video.

Don't lean on hashtags

Hashtags group similar posts. They aren't something that gets you seen in proportion to how many you add. Adding just a few that are closely related to the post is easier for viewers to understand. Instagram's current help says you can add up to 5 per post. We recommend not building posts on the assumption that you'll add many. For details, see how to use hashtags.

Posting to Instagram with SNS TOWN

SNS TOWN posts using Instagram's official API. Instagram can't be posted to without an image or video, so the composer stops a post before it goes out if no image or video is attached. Here is what you can use on Instagram.

For the first image, you can choose a photo from your Library or have the AI draw one. The checks written for X (such as a URL in the body or the number of hashtags) are shown as warnings on Instagram instead of blocking the post, and a post is stopped only if it is less than one hour from the posts before and after it. If you've also connected a Facebook Page, simultaneous posting lets you publish the same image post to both.

After posting, you can see followers and reactions in Analytics.

Frequently asked questions