Hashtags are not important

The social network has denied that it is necessary to use popular hashtags to "get to the top". There is no general "top": everyone sees their own section "Recommendations" (Explore), which is also constantly updated.

You can't fool Instagram with fake news: it makes 90 million predictions per second. Maintaining such a capacity costs Instagram a pretty penny.

Likes and saves are important

Artificial intelligence consists of 3 layers of neurosystems. They pass the posts through the following funnel: billions of posts ⟹ 500 candidates ⟹ 150 ⟹ 25 "finalists" who get into the section.

The mathematical model selects content based on two indicators: "High quality", i.e. the speed and quantity of reactions, and "Freshness".

Instagram accounts that publish nudity, aggressive sales, posts about plastic surgery, and misinformation (for example, about the dangers of vaccinations) get 0 chances to be included in Explore.

Words are more important than pictures

Surprisingly, Instagram's algorithms don't care about visuals. They focus on the combination of words that appear in your posts.

An Instagram engineer gives an example: if the words music and festival appear in your posts, you fall into the Music Festivals category and are shown to those who are interested in Flow, Sonar, and Picnic Posters.

Hence the conclusion: if your blog "wobbles" in terms of topics - psychology, travel, elderberries in the garden - you will not see "Recommendations".

Individual posts are not important. What matters is the overall "karma" of the blog.

The Instagram system makes decisions about your account at the level of the entire account, not its individual posts. In addition, Explore now includes not only posts, but also stories, IGTV videos, and shopping posts.

You can control Explore

If the neural system makes a mistake, click on the upper right corner of the post and tap "See fewer posts like this".

If you want to tell the algorithm what you really like, like or add to your Favorites many posts on the same topic in one session. the same topic in one session.