Ever set up your freshly baked goods at a bake sale and just watch as people
politely smile and nod, but never buy your cookies?
You get the feeling that no one wants your cookies,
so you force a smile your way through it as you're battling thoughts of,
"am I good enough?" Or "why doesn't anyone want my freshly baked cookies that
took hours to make?" This little anecdote has everything to do with the Great
British Bake Off, which I'm gonna get to shortly. But as a business owner,
I can relate to this feeling all too well.
It's the exact same feeling when I post to my feed and the likes and the
comments that I get back are non-existent. But guess what?
There's more to Instagram than meets the eye. In fact,
Instagram doesn't have just one algorithm. There are four,
and each of these four algorithms control different parts of the app.
But here's the exciting part. Once you understand the four algorithms,
you can focus on just what moves the needle for that algorithm to drive free
traffic to your business and ignore the rest. In this video,
I'm gonna show you how to leverage the four algorithms as efficiently as
possible so you can grow your audience. It's confirmed from Adam Mosseri,
head of Instagram himself. There are four Instagram algorithms.
But instead of just recapping the four algorithms in this video,
because quite frankly you can Google what Adam said,
I'm gonna take things a step further for you, the business owner.
I'm going to explain each algorithm in the simplest, plainest terms possible,
because you really don't need to know the ins and outs and technicalities.
But more than that,
I'm going to share with you how you can apply what we now know about those
algorithms to your business,
so that you can run it efficiently and get sales through Instagram.
Because that's why you're here, right? Right.
First up is the Stories algorithm and here's how it works.
Do you have a history of viewing an account's Stories and do you have a history
of DMing with that account?
Then you are gonna see that account's Stories more than other accounts that you
follow. It's that simple. Algorithms really aren't that complex,
but easy for me to say. I'm not building one.
So knowing that the Stories algorithm thrives off of there being a history of
you viewing their Stories and DMing with that account,
how do you apply this to your business? Well, you gotta get proactive,
and this is actually where most business owners drop the ball,
but I'm gonna get more into that later.
What I mean by getting proactive is find your ideal customers and clients on
Instagram. Go ahead and follow them. Then view their Stories,
reply to their Stories, send them a message.
The more you can engage with them through their Stories,
the more likely they're going to check you out and follow you back.
That is the key.
They need to follow you back because then that allows them to start viewing your
Stories. That allows them to continue to DM with you.
So once you've created that relationship,
that new follower is more likely to see your Stories than anyone else that's
following. Moving on to the Feed algorithm,
one of the original algorithms on Instagram. How does this one work? Well,
it's pretty simple.
You are gonna see the top posts from accounts that you follow in your Feed,
and you're also going to see suggested content. Instagram
Suggests content based on how likely it is that you are to engage with that
post, tap on that post, tap on that profile, or spend time on that post.
So how does this apply to a business owner? Well,
it's time to step up your content game.
Because you need top content that's gonna make it into the Feed of the people
who are following you. It's that simple and that hard. Now,
the simplest way you can step up your content game today is to look at the next
algorithm that I'm just about to get into and look at what's performing best
there.
And then you're going to see how you can adapt that type of content to your
niche, your industry, and your customer base.
That's your game plan for creating top content that makes it into your
followers' Feeds. Now, what about your suggested content?
You've probably seen that in your Feed already. What can you do here?
With suggested content, you can tap on the little button that says,
"Why am I seeing this post?" And you're gonna get some more data and insight
from the algorithm as to why it thinks you're interested in this content.
And you also have the option of tapping,
"I'm not interested in this." Sometimes this tactic is handy if you're finding
that you're getting a lot of your competitors in your feed and it's triggering
you, or you just wanna see more of your clients and customers in your Feed.
I know for me, my Feed is filled with Instagram tips and hacks,
and now that I'm expecting a baby, it's filled with baby content.
So the algorithm is definitely picking up on what I'm doing in my Feed and where
I'm spending my time. Now, I'm not in the baby business.
I work with small business owners.
So ideally I want suggested content to be showing up in my feed that other small
business owners would be a part of,
would've created or would be interacting with.
So if I'm gonna start shifting how my Feed works,
I need to go ahead and interact with more content like that,
and then I need to tap "not interested" for anything else that I don't wanna see
in my Feed. Next up is the Explore algorithm, you adventurer you.
The Explore algorithm is all about discovery.
So this is where you're gonna discover new accounts and see new content from
accounts that you don't follow.
And this is where Instagram gets a little sleuthy.
It looks at your history of what you've liked, saved and shared.
Then if there's a post that's similar to what you've already liked,
saved and shared, and it's growing in popularity,
that's how Instagram determines what to put on your Explore feed.
So how does this apply to a business owner? Well,
this is where you're gonna wanna go viral.
Normally I don't teach virality or push this onto my business owner friends,
but if you do wanna hit the Explore feed of your target customers and clients,
you are going to need a post that is building momentum really quickly.
And then the algorithm is gonna put it into the Feeds of people who've already
engaged with a similar post. But honestly, you can't plan for that.
You can't plan for virality.
But the best thing you can do here is put yourself in the shoes of your target
customer or client and think, what kind of content are they liking, saving,
and sharing? And can you make something similar?
But don't stress about this one too,
too much because I've got a more important algorithm for you to tackle next.
You've probably been waiting for me to get to this algorithm.
It's the Reels algorithm, and this has been
The big emphasis of Instagram for the last three plus years. Now,
don't shoot the messenger because here's how the Reels algorithm works.
Reels are designed for you to discover new things similar to the Explore feed,
but there is an emphasis on entertainment.
Don't click away because I think you might find it interesting how Instagram
measures entertainment.
So the first thing it does is it actually might survey you after you've watched
a Reel. It will literally ask you,
"Did you find this entertaining of value or interesting?" So Instagram makes
these predictions about Reels that you might find interesting,
and these predictions are all based off of your activity.
So what Reels have you engaged with?
Instagram's gonna know that and then put more in front of you because it thinks
that you're being entertained by those Reels,
and that's the most important part.
So how does a business owner get their head wrapped around making entertainment
Reels when they're dealing with stuff like operations, overhead,
team hiring and firing, marketing of other channels, finance,
all the many things that go into business?
How does a business owner make time to be funny on top of it all?
I'm in exactly your shoes because I'm a business owner, I'm not a comedian,
and I don't wanna spend time trying to be funny 'cause I know that I'm just not.
So here's my solution.
In order to please the algorithm and serve my business,
I've come up with this term. I probably didn't make it up,
but I use it to explain this concept of creating "Infotaining
Reels." So these are Reels that combine both education and entertainment.
What's "infotainment" you ask? Well, think of the Great British Bake Off.
This is a baking competition show where amateur bakers are given a set of
challenges and we as viewers get to sit back and see how they fare.
At the same time,
we get to see some delicious desserts and we get to learn some baking tips along
the way. So there you have it.
You've got the entertainment factor with the amateur bakers,
then you have the education with all the tips, bring 'em together,
that's infotaining content.
So how can you make both entertaining and valuable videos even as a busy
business owner? Well,
I've got a free five-part series right here on YouTube that covers this very
topic. Go ahead and watch this video next to kick it off.