The 2021 Instagram Algorithm

If you are a blogger or own a site on the web, then you have almost certainly researched the Google Algorithm. All Search Engines and Social Medias run on some sort of algorithm. In this post, I am going to talk about the new Instagram algorithm for 2021. I do want to note that these tips are all from my research and observations.

Old Instagram Algorithm

The Old Instagram algorithm used comments, likes, views, and shares to boost your audience. The more likes, comments and shares, the better your post will rank. This was the basis of the algorithm and still is. The difference lies in the Instagram profit.

Instagram Ads

Instagram makes money off of ads. After you view a story you might see an ad. In your feed you will see content that was paid to be promoted. If you engage with this content, Instagram will make more money. This is why Instagram learns from the content you like to give you ads related to the content. This will increase the likelihood of engagement resulting in profit.

The Algorithm Change:

What is new about the 2021 algorithm? Well, Instagram is now looking at the time that you spend on Instagram. Likes on posts don’t matter as much as they used to. What I mean is, Instagram will not boost your content from just likes. If your post gets comments though, then it will get boosted. What is the biggest aim? Shares are the best though. If someone were to share your post, it shows the algorithm that your content has a lot of value. Comments act similarly to shares, but shares will give you the bigger boost.

How to Grow in 2021:

Using all the Instagram Algorithm, old and new, how can you get your content seen the most? Engagement is very, very, important. The longer someone spends on your post, the better. If you post multiple photos in a carousel, you will likely make your audience stay for longer.

Carousels are good but currently, my most liked Instagram post was a singe photo. Why is that? I used two different tags with a few hundred thousand posts linked to those tags. This might not be related, but the caption was longer than most of the other captions that I write.

How to get more engagement? Reels and IGTV are important as well. If you were to create an impressive Instagram video and upload it, this might help you with getting an engaged audience. You do have to make a perfect length video though. A super long video might cause audience members to click away.

One last thing though: Instagram Stories. Stories are important as well. Instagram stories are popular in marketing according to Marketing for Greatness. Stories are also pretty important.

The Most Important Change to the Algorithm:

Once you post a photo, spend about an hour on the app engaging with content from others, and then you want to close the app and stay off of it for a long time. Why do this? By being off of the app Instagram will push to try and get you back on. How will it do this? Instagram will put your content on other peoples feeds more and more so that you will get more and more notifications to try to get you to open up the app agian.

This big tip is from Chris Hau on Youtube. He explains it really well in his video below so be sure to watch that if you are interested.

I really hope that you found this post useful. If you want to grow a public Instagram account of any kind in 2021, these tips will help. Also, I wrote this post because my Instagram account just passed sixty followers so a big thank-you to my wonderful followers over on Instagram!

-Digital Wonders & Smiles