We have once again learned about details regarding Instagram and its algorithm from Adam Mosseri, the CEO of the social network. However, this time it was not through the videos published on his profile to which we are accustomed, but Mosseri participated in the podcast Build Your Tribe, owned by Chalene Johnson and her son Brock Johnson.
During the interview conducted by Brock Johnson, Mosseri answered frequently asked questions posed by content creators, explained aspects of the algorithm, usage trends, and other relevant issues. Here is a brief summary of the highlights of the conversation.
Throughout the history of Instagram, feed has gone from being the cornerstone of the social network to being relegated to the background due to the popularity of features like Stories (and also due to measures such as the insertion of advertising or its content ordering mechanics). However, Mosseri assures that Feed continues to be particularly relevant for content creators.
“If you look at how people share on Instagram, excluding creators, more photos and videos without text are shared in Direct Messages than in Stories daily, and many more photos and videos are shared in Stories than in Feed daily.
So yes, Feed is for ordinary people to share photos or videos that they feel really proud of, but a very small percentage posts in Feed daily, while for creators it is much larger, so it is becoming much more public, whereas Stories and Direct Messages focus more on where your friends are.”
This is because posts in Feed are essential for creators as they allow them to reach new people through the recommendations tab. Therefore, this type of content will be key for strategies on Instagram to work.
“Stories are great, but an average creator reaches a lot more people in Feed. Recommendations were a way to maintain and grow Feed as an important part of Instagram, and we try to do it in a way that helps people discover creators and other accounts that they would love, but perhaps did not even know existed. You have already seen how it works, and I have worked hard to ensure that people could see the difference between their “connected” and “disconnected” reach.”
Mosseri also explained that Instagram does not usually make major algorithm changes, but rather implements small modifications daily with the aim of gradually improving its functioning, without drastic variations.
“Small changes occur daily. It is very rare for there to be a drastic change in how we do something; it is much more common for us to simply try to improve a little day by day. If you notice a drastic change, it is probably not due to a drastic change in content ranking, but to a radical change in the world.
For example, it could be Mother’s Day, and everyone is posting photos of their mothers, or if you are mainly followed by young people and students are off, you will see that time spent on social media will increase during the holidays. The same is true if people are not working; they will spend more time online. Thus, if there is a drastic change on a given day, it is more likely that the world has changed.”
Although the last part of his explanation may seem a bit vague, since there are many more factors involved in the performance of your content besides the availability situation of your audience or a holiday, it is indeed interesting to know that Instagram does not make large updates to its algorithm so frequently.
The CEO of Instagram stated that they are working to boost the visibility of creators and their content on Google and other search engines.
In addition to this, he also assured that they are optimizing content search options within the platform itself. According to Mosseri, Instagram’s technology for analyzing content, including videos and captions, is improving greatly, and we will be witnessing this soon.
During the conversation, there were also moments when Instagram was compared to other social networks and platforms. This occurred, for example, when Mosseri expressed that their goal is not for users to spend “more time” on Instagram, but rather to focus on ensuring that during that time, they are entertained, connect, and receive content of interest.
“We do not aim to optimize time. It is a common mistake to think that platforms just want you to spend more time, but that is not the case for us. I think if we look at Netflix, from what I see, they optimize time: time on YouTube, time on TikTok, in addition to other things related to originality and innovative content.
We are a place for entertainment and for you to be entertained, and to find content that explores your interests, but also to connect with your friends. If we were only to optimize time, what would happen is that you would be shown increasingly longer videos and more of them, but for every five-minute video you watch, there are perhaps 50 things that you did not see from other people, including your friends, so we focus more on short videos.”
Again, Mosseri’s discourse seems a bit lukewarm to us. It is all well and good to try to differentiate from other platforms, but let us not be deceived, Instagram prefers you to spend all the possible time on it and not go searching for contents on another social network. Does it focus on showing you relevant content? Yes, but it is not pure altruism.
Likewise, it remains interesting that Instagram continues to focus on connection as one of its pillars. And the platform has been trying for several years to reposition itself within the “social” aspect, the part of networks that has been gradually lost in favor of entertainment.
Another highlighted topic was the relationship between posting frequency and reach. And although there is no direct correlation in Instagram’s system, Mosseri asserted that being active when posting can yield good results.
The CEO of Instagram noted that being more active can generate greater reach, and that if you interact with people while sharing your latest content update, you might attract more users to your profile.
The executive also talked about “shadowbans,” pointing out that what Instagram does should not be considered as such. Mosseri explained that the platform penalizes certain content but informs the responsible creators about this decision as much as possible, except in extreme cases.
Mosseri already referred to this in 2023 in one of his explanations about the functioning of Instagram’s algorithm.
The power of hashtags on Instagram has diminished, and Mosseri confirmed this by stating not only that these are no longer the main way to increase reach, but that they do not increase it significantly. In other words, they no longer serve much in this aspect, being more valuable for classifying content.
Photo: Podcast Build Your Tribe
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