Social media is a service that while serving many societal functions—from dating, to commerce, to clubs, and catching up with relatives—still remains something that is not universally understood by many in-house marketers. To some, social media is easy, natural, and growing pages is merely a matter of effort and time. While for other marketers, the process is onerous, cumbersome, and characterized by many shots in the dark that are met with very few results. I should know: I’ve worked with both types of marketers in the past. When it comes to the latter group, however, while these people are most certainly talented at other things—be it advertising, design, or writing—”social media marketing” is a term that might as well be synonymous with black magic.
The funny thing that I have come to realize over the years, is that while the learning curve for how to successfully utilize social media is steep—it is attainable. Furthermore, usually, some of the greatest knowledge about the machinations of the platform itself is available right on the very websites that some marketers try—and fail—at mastering.
Recently, however, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri published a post that sheds some light specifically on how the social media platform works. While some information is useful for marketers, much of the article’s tone takes on the perspective of the user, and how the user can control what it is that they see on the site. This isn’t to say that the article’s contents are for naught, however. Mosseri takes the time to discuss some users’ burning questions such as how the service ranks feed items and stories, shadow banning, as well as how users end up on the “reels” and “explore” pages of the site—which are largely dedicated to discovering new users.
Something that marketers may find interesting is how Mosseri goes into depth about posts are prioritized within the feed. Generally, Instagram’s feed works not only based on who you follow but also who you interact with out of who you follow. Depending on what types of content you engage with, largely determines what Instagram’s algorithm assumes you are interested in. These perceived interests are largely what dictate suggestions for content from people you follow, as well as new users to discover, and content suggestions from people you do not know. According to Mosseri, “The more likely you are to take an action, and the more heavily we weigh that action, the higher up you’ll see the post.”
This is to say that for marketers who think their follower counts are set it and forget it type of numbers, think again: Instagram prioritizes content like Facebook—the only difference is that Instagram is not capping the total number of user impressions on your post at 2% of your total follower base. Generally, I would say that when it comes down to things such as the explore and reels pages, while they are most certainly interesting items, I do not think most brands can successfully “game” getting their labels on there. After all, Mosseri says that these pages make suggestions that are entirely subjective to the user.
Nonetheless, Adam Mosseri’s blog post is pretty short, easily digestible, and a recommended read for anybody that is trying to learn a little bit more about Instagram. Best get the information straight from the horse’s mouth, amirite?
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