What determines whether your posts will be promoted in the smart feed, by hashtags and geo-locations.
What makes this social network so popular and why some people's reach is growing, while others are experiencing the opposite.

Proud first place is taken by messages in Direct. If a person has written to you privately, they will see your posts for a long time.

Second place. Preservation. Instagram sees that your post has become useful, so much so that it is saved to come back and read it again, you will pop up more often in the news feed, and your overall ranking in all other areas also begins to grow rapidly.

Third. Instagram loves it when people comment on you. He especially likes it when people comment with long messages (more than 3-4 words). Longer comments are more useful, and short comments are also counted, though in a weaker form. Communicate with your readers!

Likes rank fourth.

The fifth place is occupied by a whole set of activities. It's great when your posts are shared with other users. It would be nice to increase the activity on Stories. This also includes such a type of activity as going to the profile. This also affects the increase in coverage and your ranking by search engine mechanics!

What negatively affects the ranking of a post?
Insta doesn't like it when you make corrections to a post after it's published or archive it and then restore it!