8 Hacks To Outsmart The Instagram Algorithm
Just like any other social media platform, Instagram is constantly evolving, adding new features and changing its algorithm. With 1 billion active monthly users, it’s worth updating your strategy to set up your content for success. Here’s 8 tips from our expert team to help you outsmart the Instagram algorithm and step up your social media game.
1. Photos: Quality over Quantity
Make photo quality your main priority when posting. Bold colours, jaw-dropping visuals, breathtaking landscapes – those types of content are proven to get people to hit the like button. Get creative and shoot some eye-popping content whenever you can and take advantage of the Instagram apps to step up your editing game.
2. Stories: Consistency is King
Stories provide an authentic and easy way to engage with your audience. Instagram Stories has now exceeded 500 million users daily and growing. Publishing stories daily is a simple way to put your brand’s account at the front of your followers’ Stories updates and literally keep your profile popping up.
3. Embrace the Video Content
Following the logic behind Facebook’s algorithm, we want followers to spend as long as possible engaging with your brand’s content. Videos simply require people to stop for a bit longer than they would for posted photos. Your video doesn’t have to be a full blown production, it can be a simple boomerang or a time lapse to draw viewers in. Remember it needs to work with the sound on or off.
4. Go Live Or Go Home!
Live videos are growing in popularity, however are supposedly not considered to contribute to your profile’s success in breaking the algorithm. Start with producing something single minded to share and experiment with the feature. At the end, Instagram Live generates notifications and prioritises live content by putting itself at the top of your followers’ Stories feeds.
5. Craft Your Captions
As we all know, the Instagram algorithm prioritizes engagement, with likes and shares as the currency. Encouraging interactions should then be a focus of your brand’s activity. For example, ‘tag a friend’ or asking a question are some of the ways to get people talking. Creating a dialogue with your audience is a great way to improve your engagement, but don’t go overboard as you might be punished for purposely trying to game your algorithm. Use this formula once every few posts and you’ll be safe.
6. Hashtags
Hashtags can be a really powerful way to get more eyes on the posts and should be considered as a part of your Instagram content strategy. A combination of hashtags including branding, product-related and community hashtags are the perfect mix to make your post searchable and encourage engagement. We believe the optimum number of the tags is 15, but feel free to experiment and see what works best for your content. We recommend you using Display Purposes to help you choose the right one. #easy.
7. Post O’Clock
Hitting all the bases mentioned so far isn’t quite enough if you don’t find the optimum time for posting. Check your account insights to analyse peak hours indicating when your audience is the most active on the platform. Everyone’s audience is different and will be most engaged at different times. Experiment and analyse which hours of posting perform best for your brand to find the golden mean.
8. One More For The Feed
Finally, don’t be afraid to post more frequently. Instagram has explicitly stated that posting ‘often’ is within their best practices. Posting more often gives you more room to experiment with the content and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Use one of the scheduling tools to plan your content in advance and mix it with the real-time content as you go. And with that, you are all set!
Want to learn more about Digital Marketing? If you enjoy our updates and are actively searching for social media support to take your strategy to the next level, email our expert team: contact@everydayagency.co.uk. We’d love to take a look.