What’s new in Instagram Explore?

Instagram has worked on making the explorer feed even more personalized and tailored to users individually. Your own explore page probably looks very different from that of our friends. It’s designed to suggest new content to us based on what we already like on Instagram.

The Instagram algorithm is constantly learning from our app habits, such as which profiles we follow, which posts we like or comment on, and which Instagram stories and IGTV clips we watch. Instagram uses this information to create our own explore page and suggest content from profiles that we don’t follow yet.

How to get on Instagram Explore

To help you land on the explorer page quickly and successfully, we’ve compiled four useful tips for you here.

Tip 1: Find out what content your target group likes

You might have wondered why some of your posts generate an unusual number of likes. This may be because your posts are already appearing on Explore pages and are seen by many users without you knowing about it.

The good news: With the Instagram Insights analysis tool, you can find out exactly how many users view your posts via the explorer feeds.

Instagram Analytics also helps you determine the content with the most views. You can use the results to create similar posts. For example, you can reuse posts with product presentations that are particularly popular and thank your followers for the positive feedback in the new description.

Tip 2: Post at times when your community is active

If your audience is on Instagram, you need to be too. Your posts generate more likes and comments when your followers see them instantly.

High level of commitment — especially right after posting — is also a strong signal for the algorithm. It shows that your content is popular with your followers. Instagram also values your posts as valuable enough to show them to other users in the Explore feed. There’s also a good chance that your followers and potential new followers are online at the same time. They’ll see your posts immediately.

The Instagram blog Later analyzed twelve million posts and found that the best time to post is often between 3pm and 5pm.

 

But beware: Different profiles also have different target groups. That’s why you should analyze your followers and find out for yourself when they’re most active.

Instagram Explore is a great opportunity for greater reach

What do we learn from this? Instagram Explore is an important point of contact for the community to discover new, personalized content and profiles. The new update means that companies and influencers have to deal more with IGTV, stories and shopping.

If you don’t use the features, you won’t appear in the corresponding categories — and will award a great opportunity to reach new fans, followers and customers.

Tip 3: Use relevant hashtags

Whether you love them or hate them, you won’t get past hashtags on Instagram. Posts with hashtags are seen more often, including liked and commented on more often. They also appear on Explore pages of users who already like posts with the same hashtags. Just make sure to be strategic. You should use niche hashtags that are relevant to your product. Otherwise, the posts will be lost quickly.

Tip 4: Produce more videos

Videos play a central function on the explore page. Instagram shows us normally posted clips and IGTV content four times larger than photos. Now the stories are also added.

Tech magazine Techcrunch also highlighted that “videos are potentially placed higher than photos because they play automatically and attract more attention.”

Creating videos usually takes a little time. However, there are a few apps that allow us to create moving image content without much effort.

• With Boomerang, we can create funny clips that move back and forth like a boomerang.
• The Inshot app allows us to integrate animations into a photo.
• With Life Lapse, we can create simple stop-motion content.
• And design apps like Over and Mojo help us insert video elements into images.

3 complementary factors that influence the algorithm

Three other complementary factors are added to the three central factors mentioned above. These are:

• Frequency: Whether you open Instagram more often or less often has an impact on your ranking.
• Follow behavior: If you follow many accounts, you’ll see less specific content because the Instagram algorithm has to choose from more posts.
• Usage: When you see the best posts also depends on your usage. If you only spend two minutes on Instagram each day, you’ll sort things differently than when you spend two hours on the platform.

6 Instagram myths that aren’t true

Instagram also took the opportunity to clear up numerous circulating myths — including the so-called shadowban. (The word is made up of the two English terms shadow and ban and is supposed to represent a penalty from Instagram, but it is not noticeable to the person concerned.

1. Instagram won’t fully return to the chronological feed because that’s too complex. However, user complaints are perceived.
2. No pictures are hidden on Instagram. Every user sees every image if they just scroll long enough.
3. The Instagram algorithm treats photos, videos, live videos, and stories exactly the same. The influence of the respective format depends on individual user behavior.
4. Instagram doesn’t rank worse for users who post pictures particularly often, use many hashtags or show other “special behaviors”.
5. Neither business accounts nor private profiles get more attention in the feed.
6. In addition, Instagram repeats the statement that there is no shadowban. Every user sees every image at some point.

Of course, you don’t have to believe Instagram’s statements. A better source, however, will not be obtained. And anyone who is still struggling with falling ranges and is looking for a cause: With every new user and every new company represented on Instagram, the competition for their own channel is getting bigger. A similar scenario also took place on Facebook a few years ago.

To-do: 

Tailor the content on the “Discover” page exactly to your area of interest. Because the more you optimize your “discover” page for your content, the better it will be for your security & algorithm on Instagram. You’ll have to repeat this process several times until the posts on this page are optimally adapted to you.

Any questions? Get into the comments with it 🙂