There’s some new information out about the new Instagram Algorithm in January 2018. Sigh. Just when I thought I had finally curated my feed to attract a certain audience and to keep my current audience engaged, something new had to happen. It is such an unpredictable puzzle and is constantly changing.
According to multiple sources, here are some of the most recent changes you can expect to see on Instagram, along with changes you can make to increase your exposure and get ahead before your posts get buried and unseen.
Post Exposure in the new algorithm
- New posts may or may not get exposed to only 10% of your audience. If your newer posts receive immediate engagement as soon as it’s posted, the post will then be released and shown to the remaining 90% of your audience. So if you’ve been wondering why one post gets a fraction of the traffic of another post, this could be the explanation.
- Remember the Instagram Pods of 2017? These pods are groups of people who have agreed to boost engagement for the group by liking and commenting when a member of the group announces that they have a new post. It may have not been a loophole after all. There is evidence that a lot of people were getting shadow banned as a result of belonging to multiple instagram pods.
- Business Accounts: By promoting yourself, your brand and your business with a Business Instagram account, you’ll be able to check additional stats, something that is very helpful when determining your audience’s prime times.
Hashtags
- Have you ever noticed how some of the accounts you follow have absolutely NO hashtags underneath their posts or in their comment section, yet have a lot of engagement? They could be on to something! Hashtags posted in the comment section are no longer searchable, only the hashtags displayed within the body of your caption. 5 hashtags seem to be the magic number.
- Don’t use the same hashtags on every post or you’ll be recognized as a bot.
- Don’t edit your caption for at least 24 hours after posting. This could lower your visibility significantly.
Engagement
- Instagram is now thought to be restricting exposure based off of your engagement. Now, you might want to respond to comments left on your posts within 60 minutes. Otherwise, your post’s visibility might gradually decrease.
- Apparently, it’s true that anything less than a 4 word or more comment isn’t considered to be “engagement”.
- On the flip side of that coin, it helps to post to your Instagram stories often and on a regular basis. The stories shown at the top of your feed are the accounts you engage with the most and this a great way for people who actually care about your feed to actually see you.
Activity Status
Just like with Facebook and other apps, anyone you DM will be able to see the last time you were active on Instagram. This might be basic for some people and an invasion of privacy for others.
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