How do Instagram recommendations work? The Instagram team has explained this dynamic in order to give transparency to the app, and so that creators understand why their posts do not always fall into this category.
It is not the first time that it has analyzed in depth how its algorithms work, but this time it has focused on eradicating the idea that there is “shadowbanning” on Instagram.
Adam Mosseri in an extensive article explained how Instagram works to recommend posts in the apps, and clear up some misconceptions about this dynamic.
For example, one of the first points to clarify was that there is no “an Instagram algorithm” that is behind recommended posts, but that each section of the app has an algorithm dedicated to this dynamic. This is so, since each section has a different objective.
Your activity and interaction will define feed recommendations and stories
Instagram considers the Feed and Stories to be the most personal sections, since users expect to see in this section the posts and stories that their friends share, as well as other people they follow.
So in these sections it’s not as aggressive with the recommendations, but based on the user’s recent activity in the feed and their interaction. For example, likes, posts where you have commented, shared, etc.
Not only does this give Instagram a clue as to what topics you’re interested in, but it can also see which users you engage with the most so that posts from those people are prioritized.
And in the case of the feed, the algorithm also takes into account the type of format you prefer. If it “notices” that you engage with posts that include photos, but you don’t have the same engagement with videos, then it will prioritize the first format.
All of these factors will not only influence how Instagram presents you with content posted by people you follow, but also how it will show you ads and posts from users you don’t follow.
How Instagram recommends content in Explore and Reels
Unlike the feed and stories, the goal of the Explore and Reels sections is for you to discover new content. So all the recommendations you’ll find are from people you don’t follow.
While the dynamics that Instagram algorithms analyze are no different from the sections we looked at above, other factors are added as well. For example, they take into account the popularity of a post, and your past interaction with the creator of that content.
So not only your interests, your previous activity, but also the reach of the posts are analyzed. A metric that applies to both Explore and Reels.
And taking all factors into account, it orders the posts in these sections “based on how interesting we think they are to you,” as the Instagram team explains.
How to customize Instagram recommendations
Although we cannot change the way the Instagram algorithms work, we can indicate if the recommendations are to our liking or not, so that they take it into account for the following suggestions.
For example, you can indicate “I’m not interested” in some recommendations that are not of interest to you, or directly hide them from your feed. Or you can be more specific and indicate that you are not interested in showing recommendations with posts that include certain words.
And of course, you can always report recommended posts that violate Instagram policies.
