{"id":128341,"date":"2019-02-15T23:45:36","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T22:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sftarticles.wpenginepowered.com\/en\/?p=128341"},"modified":"2025-07-01T22:21:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T05:21:32","slug":"instagram-algorithm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/instagram-algorithm\/","title":{"rendered":"How Instagram decides which photos to show you first"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back in 2016, Instagram changed the way users saw the photos in their feed. They claimed that this was because users were missing around 70 percent of the photos that were posted. They switched from a chronological feed to a feed that was driven by an algorithm<\/strong>, in hopes that users would see more relevant content. Not much was known about how this algorithm worked, however. At the time, Instagram said that the new order of the photos was based on a user\u2019s relationship<\/strong> with the person posting, when<\/strong> the photo was posted, and the odds that the user would be interested<\/strong> in the content.<\/p>\n

Since implementing the algorithm, Instagram has seen a huge jump in engagement.<\/strong> This would suggest that their algorithm is actually working as intended: users really are seeing more of the content that interests them. Fast forward to today, and the inner workings of the algorithm have been revealed. In the summer of 2018, Instagram finally explained how it all worked \u2014 and confirmed many users\u2019 long-held suspicions.<\/p>\n

How Instagram decides which photos to show you first<\/h2>\n

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1. Instagram wants to show you posts from people you engage with<\/h3>\n

Before the algorithm, users were only seeing about 50 percent of posts from their friends and family.\u00a0Now they\u2019re seeing about 90 percent of posts. That\u2019s a huge jump. But it all depends on who you engage with, too. If you never comment on or like posts from your crazy uncle, then you\u2019ll likely see fewer posts from your crazy uncle.<\/p>\n

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Whenever you like a post, you\u2019re basically saying that this content interests you and you want to see more of it.<\/strong> If you want to see more posts by a particular brand or account, consider engaging with their content more. This will help to make sure that their photos are prioritized in your feed.<\/p>\n

2. Instagram chooses photos based on your behavior<\/h3>\n

How do you interact with others on Instagram? This is a big force behind the new algorithm. It pays attention to which brands you like, which posts you like, and even what type of content you like. So, the photos that Instagram shows you first depend a lot on how you\u2019ve behaved in the past. It also takes into consideration how often you look at Instagram to determine which accounts or photos to prioritize.<\/p>\n

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3. Instagram wants to show you recent posts<\/h3>\n

Instagram still takes into account when a photo was posted. In fact, they recently adjusted the algorithm to factor this aspect more. So each time you log in to Instagram now, you should be seeing a lot more recent photos. However, if you don\u2019t log in all that often, you\u2019ll likely see older posts first.<\/p>\n

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Ever wonder how Instagram picks the photos you’re scrolling through? Here’s what’s happening behind the scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9167,"featured_media":128344,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[1698,2354,1051],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[],"class_list":["post-128341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-algorithm","tag-app-subdomain-redirectioninstagram","tag-instagram"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326569,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128341\/revisions\/326569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128341"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=128341"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=128341"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=128341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}