Instagram wants you to better understand how its algorithm works. In this effort, Adam Mosseri- Instagram Chief, has published a new blog post to shed light on its elusive ranking algorithm and also share new features which the platform has built in response to creator’s feedback. The social media company aims to offer clarity on how creator’s content may be surfaced and how the reach of the content can be improved.
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Mosseri in 2021 also gave a similar explanation to offer more transparency on its algorithm secrets behind ranking. In this new blog post, Mosseri starts with a clear point that Instagram doesn’t have a single algorithm. Each part of the app including Reels, Stories, Feed, Explore and more has its own algorithm.
“Instagram doesn’t have a singular algorithm that oversees what people do and don’t see on the app. We use a variety of algorithms, classifiers, and processes, each with its own purpose. We want to make the most of people’s time, and we believe that using technology to personalize everyone’s experience is the best way to do that,” Mosseri wrote in the blog post.
Mosseri in separate paras explains how Instagram ranks Reels, Stories, Feeds, and Explore. Starting off with how Instagram ranks Feed, he explains that its ranking depends on factors like users’ activity on Instagram, information about the post and the person who posted, and users’ history of interacting with someone. Instagram uses these information pieces to build “set of predictions” which are mostly educated guesses.
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“In Feed, the five interactions we look at most closely are how likely you are to spend a few seconds on a post, comment on it, like it, share it, and tap on the profile photo. The more likely you are to take an action, and the more heavily we weigh that action, the higher up in Feed you’ll see the post. We add and remove signals and predictions over time, working to get better at surfacing what you’re interested in.”
Stories are ranked based on factors like how often users view an account’s stories, how often does user engage with these stories and the closeness of the user with the author of the Stories.
“Based on these signals, we make a series of predictions about stories you’ll find more relevant and valuable – including how likely you are to tap into a story, reply to a story or move on to the next story – to determine which stories will be shown higher in your stories tray.”
Reels is ranked on using data like user’s activity like which reels they’ve liked, saved, reshared, commented and engaged with. Other factors taken into account in this case are users’ history of interacting with the person who posted, information about the Reels and also about the person who posted.
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