Instagram does not rely on a single algorithm to order everything users see. It ranks Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore separately, using different systems for content from accounts people follow and recommendations from accounts they do not.
The systems share a common purpose: predict what a person is likely to watch or engage with, then rank posts accordingly. Instagram Head Adam Mosseri has highlighted three important signals across the app: watch time, likes relative to reach, and sends relative to reach. Likes carry slightly more weight when reaching existing followers, while sends matter slightly more for reaching people who do not follow an account.
The different surfaces serve distinct roles. Feed and Stories primarily help creators stay visible to their existing audiences, while Reels and Explore are more focused on reaching new people. Feed ranking considers a person’s activity, a post’s performance and details, interactions with its creator, and the history of the relationship between the accounts. Stories ranking draws on viewing and engagement history, as well as the perceived closeness of the relationship.
Instagram’s ranking principles also emphasize originality and recency. The platform says it gives more distribution to original creators than to accounts that repost their work, and accounts that mainly repost others’ content are not recommended to non-followers. New posts are also being incorporated into ranking more quickly, with Instagram tracking the share of daily impressions that go to posts less than 24 hours old.
Smaller public accounts can have their posts shown to people who do not follow them as an initial test. If those viewers respond well, Instagram may recommend the posts to more people. The platform also says it has been expanding its AI models to improve ranking, a change that the source says creators do not need to optimize their content for.
For creators, the practical guidance in the source is to make original work, publish while a topic is timely, and give posts a clear opening and a reason to be shared. It also describes Reels as a format for discovery and Stories as a way to strengthen relationships with current followers. An analysis of more than four million Instagram posts cited in the source found that Reels received 36% more reach than carousels, while carousels received 12% more engagement than Reels.
Users can influence some recommendations through controls such as Your Algorithm in Reels and Explore, Favorites, and “Not interested.” These features let people signal which kinds of content they want to see more or less often.
Sources: Buffer Blog.