Decoding the Instagram Algorithm – Part Three – Ranking of Reels

Instagram has three main sections, Feed & Stories, Explore and Reels. Previously we studied the first two and now we move on to the most popular and discussed one, reels. In order to understand this article we would strongly recommend reading the first two and the summary.

• Feed & Stories
• Explore section

It is nearing the end of 2021 and even now Reels as per Instagram are meant for entertainment and entertainment only. It is somewhat strange that despite being so universally popular in India, it still falls under the category of entertainment. So till the time, Instagram updates the algorithm, reels are for entertainment purpose only. That presents a challenge for brand owners.

In reels Instagram is getting to know what interests you. Instagram has a special focus on small creators. They also collect feedback on who people have watched it. So all those reels which have the caption “watch till the end” are aimed at this algorithm. 

The audio which is playing in the reel is also important because Instagram considers it as inspiration to make your own reel. 

Your activity

• Which reels you have liked and commented the most
• Which reels have you interacted more including shared

Your history of interacting with the person who posted. Have you

• Followed the person who posted the reel
• Checked the profile of the person
• Explored more reels of that person before following

This is what most people do while watching reels. This is the reason why your reel should be interesting as well as entertaining to an audience.

Information about the reel

• Audio track used
• Content of the reel
• Quality of the video
• How professionally it has been created including effects
• Popularity

There are many big and small creators who have made a small niche for themselves by providing entertaining reels for an audience. All these signals are recorded by Instagram so that each small creator finds their own audience.

The following content will get you either banned or ranked low.

• watermarked pictures of videos
• low resolution videos
• highly filtered or out of focus content
• sensitive content already defined by Instagram
• Content containing politically sensitive content

Instagram is working on giving you enough reason as to why a post was taken down or ranked low. Instagram agrees that it will simply not be able to show all your posts to all your followers. That is why you should be pruning your followers from time to time.

Reels are totally different from the rest of the content on Instagram. That is why you should have a different strategy in place for reels if you want to be a creator. If you are a business or brand owner getting an average of 50 likes per post and get 2000 views on a reel, it is not the same thing. Reels are tricky for brand owners because they are of entertainment value only and very rare buying decisions are made watching reels.

Here are a few more tip from Instagram

• Pick up your close friends for stories. That will make sure your updates reach them.
• Use the mute feature if you don’t want to see posts from a person. The person won’t come to know that he has been muted. But remember that can happen with you too. People who mute you will not see your posts.
• Use the ‘Not Interested’ option to teach Instagram more about your preferences.

We in India believe in shortcuts. As soon as something new comes up, the jugad option immediately comes on the scene. In the quest to reach out to a wider audience, the brand owners and small creators are victims of Instagram tips and suggestions floated by influencers and digital marketing experts. These are the same people who manipulated page rank on Google from 2000 to 2010 to artificially bump up the rankings of websites. These SEO experts were put out of business after the roll out of Google Panda Update which in a single purge took down around 10% of websites which had thin content but were highly ranked. The key to success on Instagram is to keep your followers interested with your content.

Summary

Feed & Stories, Explore and Reels work on different algorithms. These sections work on getting updates from whom you follow, discover new content and entertainment respectively. Understanding Instagram is a complexity, so there are no simple tips and shortcuts.

Relevant content will be picked up by Instagram and send to your target audience. So instead of going after the target audience let Instagram do it for you.

So here is the summary of what your strategy should be if you are a brand owner.

• Keep your content informative and interesting
• Keep a tight circle of followers and keep them engaged with relevant content
• Check your posts on how fast people are liking it and how they are engaging it
• Comments and likes are reciprocatory. Do the same to your followers
• Follow the right set of people, brands and customers
• Plan a giveaway or activity which increases the activity of your followers, but don’t overdo it

Instagram is a social networking platform. Do stay away from these tips and shortcuts.

• Rules like one post per day. Remember six months down the line, it will become 180 posts and the old posts will never show up.
• Rules like posting at 9pm at night or 8am in the morning. You will unnecessarily bog down yourself with rules and end up disappointed.
• Do not hunt for customers with your content. Posts specifically designed for promoting business are ranked lower.
• Do keep following people and unfollow them after they follow you back. It is not only considered rude but is watched by Instagram. There is no algorithm which even remotely suggests that you need to have maximum followers and you following minimum.
• Do not direct message your followers as soon as you post. You run the risk of getting muted.
• Randomly sharing business promotion posts to strangers on direct message will get you in trouble.
• Do not mix content with reels and stories. Each has a different purpose and algorithm.