Understanding how Instagram works
In this blog, I’d want to share my one-month experience studying and testing Instagram’s algorithms.
Introduction
My name is Uvesh Rajwani, and I am a 15-year-old Fountainhead School student. This is the culmination of a one-month study on the Instagram algorithm, and now I will share with you all of my main results and discuss the four most essential aspects.
Posting time
Best Times to Post on Instagram by Day of the Week
- Sunday: 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
- Monday: 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- Tuesday: 5:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
- Wednesday: 5:00 a.m.,11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.
- Thursday: 5:00 a.m., 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.
- Friday: 5:00 a.m., 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
- Saturday: 11:00 a.m.
In general, posting during the hours of 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM during weekdays can help you generate solid engagement. But you will see peak engagement at specific points in time throughout every week.
Why These Are the Most Effective Times to Post
Consider your own work week: your schedule and attitude may change from day to day. These small adjustments may have a big impact on when and how you use social media.
During the work week, many social media users check their phones first thing. Monday mornings are notoriously stressful; as a result, publishing early in the morning Tuesday through Friday tends to produce more interaction.
People are more likely to check social media sites during the mid-day lunch hour. Late afternoon is also a high-traffic period, when people’s mental energy wanes and social networking can provide a welcome distraction.
Another high-traffic period on Instagram is Saturday am. Many individuals are unwinder or out with friends and relatives. Some individuals will wish to connect on social media as a result of this, and they will be more likely to see your material.
Know the Best Time to Post on Instagram Each Day and Study the Trends of Your Industry
While these basic posting hours are a fantastic starting point, it’s also important to develop your social media brand strategy so you can tailor your social content to your unique audience and industry. Peak periods vary by industry, including technology, healthcare, travel and tourism, media and entertainment, education, and non-profit organizations.
If you want to reach your industry’s target audience, you’ll need to gather relevant data to make the best judgments. You’ll be able to determine the ideal day and hour to publish on Instagram and get the most of your social media marketing budget this way.
How to Find Out When Your Audience Is Most Active
Top Instagram Scheduling Tools to Consider
Here are seven top Instagram scheduling tools that you may want to consider. While some have free starter plans, you may need to opt for a paid business plan for best results. Often, tools like these offer a free short-term trial. Be sure to take advantage of those “try before you buy” opportunities to get a feel for several tools and decide which is the best fit for your needs.
- Autogrammer: Through Autogrammer, you can schedule content across three major social platforms: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. You can also bulk-upload and edit images.
- Buffer: With Buffer, you can schedule posts across six social networks. It also features browser extensions and a mobile app to help with staging content.
- Hubspot: A multi-facet platform, Hubspot includes social scheduling and other resources to support business growth.
- Later: An Instagram-only tool, Later features drag-and-drop scheduling and an easy-to-understand calendar interface.
- Schedugram: With Schedugram, you get a post scheduler and photo editor, all in one.
- Sprout Social: A sophisticated social media calendar for businesses, Sprout Social lets you schedule posts and measure user engagement. Also, the tool has social listening features that help you identify commenting trends across your social footprint so you can include hot topics in your content planning.
- Tailwind: Catering to bloggers and small businesses, Tailwind helps you post to Instagram and Pinterest. It also supports hashtag research and bulk image uploading.
Instagram Engagement
What is Instagram engagement?
Instagram engagement goes deeper than simply looking at your follower count, it measures how your audience is interacting with your content.
Basically any time one of your followers takes an action on your profile or in response to one of your posts, that’s engagement.
Here are some of the common Instagram engagement metrics:
Post engagement metrics:
- Likes
- Comments
- Saves
- Shares
Other engagement metrics include:
- DMs
- Link clicks/swipe-ups
- Mentions
- Hashtag usage
- Stories sticker interactions
Why engagement matters
Engagement matters for a couple of key reasons:
Why is involvement so important?
There are several reasons why engagement is important:
For starters, it displays how people are responding to your content. Your engagement will be better if your audience can relate to your material. This is a strong indication that your social media approach is working.
Second, one of the most significant ranking elements for Instagram’s algorithm is engagement. When Instagram loads your feed, the algorithm attempts to reveal the posts you’re most likely to interact with, so posts from accounts and subjects you connect with frequently will likely show at the top.
In other words, the more people who engage with your material, the more likely they are to see it.
How to calculate Instagram engagement rate
Instagram looks at any action people take on your posts, IGTV, Instagram Reels, and Instagram Stories. Instagram metrics that influence your engagement rates include likes, comments, shares, saves, website clicks, profile visits, followers, and replies to Instagram Stories. Refer to our Instagram analytics guide for more info on how to view these metrics.
Looking for an Instagram engagement rate formula? Well, that depends on how you measure engagement, whether by reach, impressions, total number of followers, video views, etc.
Here’s a breakdown of the two most widely-used Instagram engagement formulas:
Engagement rate based on followers
Let’s say you want to calculate the engagement rate for an individual Instagram post based on followers. You’ll take the number of actions on the post, divide it by your total number of followers, and multiply by 100. If you’re already sweating over algebra exam flashbacks, don’t worry, we’ll break it down.
So if you have 1,000 followers and your Instagram post received 70 likes, 15 comments, and 5 shares, your engagement rate would be 9%.
Calculating Instagram engagement rate based on your followers gives you a good idea of how your followers feel about the content. However, it does not take into account how many of those followers actually saw the post. To do that, you’ll want to calculate engagement based on impressions.
Engagement rate based on impressions
To calculate your Instagram engagement rate based on impressions, you’ll use the same formula as above but replace your number of followers with the total number of impressions. (This is the formula we use at Buffer.)
So if your post was seen by 515 people (impressions) and received a total of 25 engagements, your engagement rate would be 4%.
Third-party tools like Buffer’s analytics will also do it for you. In the below screenshot from Buffer analytics, you can see our top post generated 317 engagements (Likes, Comments, and Saves) and 7,637 impressions, so the engagement rate is 4.3%.
Why we choose to measure engagement based on impressions: There’s no right or wrong formula to use here. We use the impressions-based engagement rate formula here at Buffer because it shows you how many people interacted with your content based on people who actually saw it, rather than the number of people who follow your account.
What is a good Instagram engagement rate?
Although “good” is a relative term, you might be surprised to learn that a good Instagram engagement rate can be as low as 1%. And that seemingly low number is pretty standard across industries — a study including 1,800 Instagram accounts in 12 different industries showed an average engagement rate of 1.6%.
A good Instagram engagement rate can be as low as 1%.
Before you label your engagement rate as good or bad, think about what makes engagement valuable to you. Giveaway posts may get you high engagement rates, but do they lead to more sales? Do likes translate to more customers? Instagram engagement is great for your ego, but it’s much more important to consider how that engagement translates to business.
Instead of hyper-focusing on the numbers, define “good” by your progress over time. Take note of what content gets higher engagement rates, tweak your social media marketing strategy, and work toward increasing overall engagement.
22 Tactics to help boost your Instagram engagement
Tip 1: Get to know your audience
Tip 2: Get authentic
Tip 3: Share great images
Tip 4: Post carousels
Tip 5: Post video content
Tip 6: Write strong captions
Tip 7: Create saveable content
Tip 8: Respond to questions and comments
Tip 9: Post consistently, and at strategic times
Tip 10: Go live
Instagram Reach
What is reach on Instagram
Instagram Reach: The number of unique users that saw your Instagram post or story on any given day. Unless you’re putting some serious spend behind your Instagram posts, you probably won’t have every single one of your followers see your content.
Impressions vs. Reach
The terms that get confused most often are impressions and reach. This could be because both of these metrics have to do with how many times your content was seen.
But there are key differences that make each metric uniquely important to pay attention to when looking at influencer marketing analytics.
How to Improve Your Instagram Reach
1. Use New Hashtags
2:Post at Multiple Peak Times
3:Experiment with videos
4: Use Instagram ads
5:Start cross-posting your content
Instagram followers
Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has gradually added a number of features to its platform, making it more engaging and entertaining. People are raving about the narrative feature, stickers, storing images for later in the collection, archiving posts, multiple picture uploads, and other new features. However, out of all of these factors, the overall number of followers is the most significant aspect of Instagram.
Followers are one of the most significant factors to consider when evaluating an individual’s Instagram page. Some argue that gaining too many followers on social media is pointless. However, having a large following is advantageous in many ways. Here’s how to expand your Instagram following. It will be enjoyable for you.
Benefits of Instagram Followers
The entire social media works just like the normal world. It is just that the medium is the internet and virtual, but nonetheless, the effect is very much real. Therefore, having massive followers on Instagram also has many benefits, just like in the real world:
Promote A Cause
Everybody thinks of bringing certain changes in the world or a community. Be it a social issue or an environmental issue, but that is possible only if one has a good number of IG followers. More followers mean one can spread their word more widely. It helps reach more audiences, and ultimately, an action can be taken to bring that change. Do you know? How can I check who stalks my Instagram profile?
Earn Money
You have heard people are making money with Google. You can utilize Instagram for the same purpose. Having many followers means one can reach more people daily. It is the sole reason why many brands and companies look out for such Instagrammers. Every company wants to reach a specific targeted audience, and for that, they can contact the Instagrammer to promote their products. An influencer account can be an excellent place to get more sales, and for that, one can get paid pretty good.
Market Your Product
If one is a business person who has a small to medium-sized business, then these days, Instagram has become a perfect platform to reach new clients and customers. Having a wide following of different types of people can be very useful. It is useful in creating a wide network for a business. Also, having a good number of Instagram followers to flaunt on someone’s profile means the visitors will think that the product is famous. Finally, their followers will show interest in a promoted product or service and more sales can come this way. You learn about brand marketing.
Become Famous
Lastly, the most important benefit of having more Instagram followers is becoming popular. Everybody wants to be seen and followed by others, whether it is one’s lifestyle or what they do or wear. One can be a person who is looked up to by many and take inspiration from, and thus, one can increase one’s social value. You can create a brand identity and don’t forget to avoid these branding mistakes to get success.
Conclusion
Let us now turn our attention to the conclusion. I’m going to share all the evidence that I did to my account following the tricks that I wrote above and you will be surprised by how much my account grew in just two months. Remember one thing, the Instagram algorithm takes time to recognise you and I won’t let you pop off in one day. You must be very consistent and try to engage your audience as much as you can. I’m going to share all the evidence that I did to my account following the tricks that I wrote Above and you will be surprised by how much my account
