If you ever wondered how Instagram works beyond the graphical interface and the options available to any user, today is your lucky day. The social network released interesting details about the technology it uses and the impact it has on visibility in its users' publications.
Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram, was in charge of disseminating very interesting data in what promises to be a series of publications about it. In the first instance, the manager took advantage of to disprove the idea that the platform is governed by a single algorithm that sees everything and controls everything . No. Instagram uses several algorithms, in addition to processes and classifiers, and each one serves a specific purpose.
Each section of Instagram has its own algorithm, and it adapts to the way people interact with the app, Mosseri explained. He also released more data on what parameters are taken into account to filter publications, stories and Reels.
Instagram algorithms focus on four basic points
When it comes to posts and stories, Instagram uses “signals” to determine what it shows to each user and why. The social network relies on four basic points , so that you can see what is most interesting to you.
Thus, it analyzes the popularity (number of likes and views, for example) and other data inherent to the publication itself, such as the date of completion or location tags. On the other hand, study the information of the person who made the post and your interaction with her.
Photo by Kate Torline on Unsplash In addition, Instagram is based on your activity in the social network to understand what type of publications interest you the most and from whom. Among other behaviors, examine how many photos and videos you have liked . “From there we make a series of predictions. These guesses are based on the probability that you will interact with a publication in different ways. There are about a dozen of them,” Mosseri explained.
The head of Instagram also indicated five typical interactions that they take into account to show more or less content related to an account: how likely is it that you will stop for a few seconds on a post, like it, comment it, save it and touch on the profile picture of the other user. However, Mosseri also clarified that they take measures to prevent you from seeing many consecutive publications from the same account.
Explore and Reels also have their tricks
The algorithms behind other sections of Instagram also analyze much of your interactions with posts and stories to show you content. In the case of Explore and Reels, for example, the most visible posts come mostly from accounts you don't follow. For this reason, the platform analyzes the information of each post and compares it with your tastes and habits , so that the visible material is attractive to you.
On the other hand, Mosseri came out at the crossroads of criticism from users who claim that Instagram silences them. He even denied that certain publications “hide” with a technique called shadowbanning. In addition, it ratified the commitment to be clearer when explaining how complaints work and how they remove some content .
We can't promise you that you will consistently reach the same number of people when you post. The truth is, most of your followers won't see what they share, because most look at less than half of your feed. But we can be more transparent about why we delete things when we do, work to make fewer mistakes, fix them quickly when we have them, and better explain how our systems work.
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram But not everything that happens on Instagram depends purely and exclusively on the algorithms and other tools that are “under the hood.” Users can also influence what kind of content they see each time they open the app. What should they do? The three recommendations that the platform makes are to make a list of best friends, silence the accounts that do not interest them, and apply the same concept to the recommended publications that do not work for them relevant.
