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How Instagram’s Algorithm Works

Instagram’s Algorithm

Instagram’s algorithm has been a hot topic of discussion this past 2 years since they moved away from the reverse chronological “Explore” feed. Instagram has been very tight lipped about the details of the algorithm until a recent release to reporters at their new San Francisco office. Here are the main bullet points extracted from Tech Crunch’s write-up (full article here):

Interest: How much Instagram predicts you’ll care about a post, with higher ranking for what matters to you, determined by past behavior on similar content and potentially machine vision analyzing the actual content of the post.

Recency: How recently the post was shared, with prioritization for timely posts over weeks-old ones.

Relationship: How close you are to the person who shared it, with higher ranking for people you’ve interacted with a lot in the past on Instagram, such as by commenting on their posts or being tagged together in photos.

 

Beyond those core factors, three additional signals that influence rankings are:

  • Frequency: How often you open Instagram, as it will try to show you the best posts since your last visit.
  • Following: If you follow a lot of people, Instagram will be picking from a wider breadth of authors so you might see less of any specific person.
  • Usage: How long you spend on Instagram determines if you’re just seeing the best posts during short sessions, or it’s digging deeper into its catalog if you spend more total time browsing.

Instagram Myths Busted

(continued from Tech Crunch)

Instagram’s team also responded to many of the most common questions and conspiracy theories about how its feed works. TechCrunch can’t verify the accuracy of these claims, but this is what Instagram’s team told us:

  • Instagram is not at this time considering an option to see the old reverse chronological feed because it doesn’t want to add more complexity (users might forget what feed they’re set to), but it is listening to users who dislike the algorithm.
  • Instagram does not hide posts in the feed, and you’ll see everything posted by everyone you follow if you keep scrolling.
  • Feed ranking does not favor the photo or video format universally, but people’s feeds are tuned based on what kind of content they engage with, so if you never stop to watch videos you might see fewer of them.
  • Instagram’s feed doesn’t favor users who use Stories, Live, or other special features of the app.
  • Instagram doesn’t downrank users for posting too frequently or for other specific behaviors, but it might swap in other content in between someone’s if they rapid-fire separate posts.
  • Instagram doesn’t give extra feed presence to personal accounts or business accounts, so switching won’t help your reach.
  • Shadowbanning is not a real thing, and Instagram says it doesn’t hide people’s content for posting too many hashtags or taking other actions.

This is all great information to keep in mind as you leverage Instagram in your marketing efforts. See the full article at Tech Crunch.

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Want to show up more often in our “EXPLORE” tab?

We’ve been getting some great questions on how to have your profile show up more in the “EXPLORE” tab, so here are some tips and things to keep in mind that affect the relevance of your profile:

  • REVIEWS– Both the average star rating and number of reviews.
  • ACTIVITY– Be active on the app and don’t let weeks go by without collaborating. Most importantly, if you have active collabs, don’t leave them hanging. Stay in contact!
  • PROFILE– Having a completed profile (including fresh photos, bio with keywords, multiple social accounts, etc.).
  • WEBSITE– Make sure a website is added to your profile. If you don’t have a website, you can create a “LYNX in Bio” url and add your various social media accounts, portfolio, etc. all within the LYNX. Get Lynx for free HERE.
  • COLLAB FULFILLMENT– Completing collaborations on time, in full, and as agreed upon in Collab Details. Don’t forget to leave a review because the collab is not 100% finished until you have done so.

If you have any questions about these tips, please feel free to reach out to us. Thanks!

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What can Instagram influencers do for your business?

Let’s face it, if you aren’t marketing your business on Instagram, you are probably missing out on some cash. This is especially true of B2C marketers who are trying to connect directly with customers. With infomation being thrown around like the fact that Instagram “has about 400 million active users daily” and that “56% of Instagram users make $50,000/year or more”, it is easy to see why this is an attractive audience to be showing off how useful/sexy your brand, product and/or services are.

There are many ways to leverage the power of Instagram, including of course building a strong, consistent and engaging account for your brand. There are also options for paid advertising on Instagram including targeted ads that appear on people’s feeds dependent on the select target audience you choose. Both of these are very powerful methods if applied correctly, however, spend some time searching successful brands on Instagram and it is unlikely you will find anything that has more power than Influencer Marketing.

Influencer marketing can be a complex tool, with each social media platform having their own nuances and aspects that can be used to your advantage. In this article, we avoid the obvious and look at some of the other best ways to work with influencers on Instagram.

 

Feed your feed

 One of the biggest issues in building a large and engaged audience for your brand on Instagram is the sheer amount of content that is required to keep your feed up to date.

In the words of Gary Vaynerchuk “more is more”. And although there is no set figure, about 2-3 times a day is the golden number for really driving engagement and growth on your account. Having that type of content laying around is not easy!

But what if I told you could access professional image and video content from experts that consistently engage with and understand your audience at a fraction of the cost of a professional studio?  Queue Collabor8!

That is one of the biggest benefits of working with influencers on Instagram. By working with individuals to produce content that is relevant to your brand you can then ensure you have a consistent feed of high quality content for your own brands feed. It is worth mentioning here that you must make sure you have permission and/or the rights to use this content for your own marketing purposes.

Made by Mary Jewelry does a great job at getting consistent content from influencers, bloggers, etc.

 

Tell a story

“Buy our product now” just doesn’t cut it anymore when it comes to marketing messages. Brands must deliver a strong brand purpose through storytelling if they want to attract today’s younger market or they risk becoming irrelevant. Check out this bit on storytelling: “The NBA and National Geographic on the power of social for storytelling”. 

A strong brand purpose will usually have many contributors and small stories applied over time to bolster and strengthen its position. Working with influencers on Instagram will let you leverage the powerful position of that influencer with your target market while building and growing your brand story.

This might seem obvious, but worth highlighting, that the Instagram stories feature is an excellent way to do this. With more than 250 million active daily users, it is a powerful and underutilised aspect of Instagram. This can be a series of planned posts in which your brand will play a subtle but crucial part in the overall story.

The most effective way I have ever seen this being applied has been through influencer attended events and new product launches. This gives you the ability to physically build the influencer into part of your brand story and allows them to communicate it in an authentic and genuine way with their audience.

 

Think link

 It may be the bane of digital marketers lives that Instagram has for some reason made it so difficult to include links on their platform, but it does have its benefits. With so few links to choose from, this has made those that are available prime estate on the platform.

Of course, your brand will have the ability to include a link in your bio as well as the potential to include shopping tags to posts and links in your own stories, depending on the size and verification of your account. Side note: If you haven’t seen our hack for multiple links in your bio yet, check it out HERE. Working with influencers also opens up a ton of additional options of well visited links on Instagram.

Working with an influencer who will include a link in their bio can be considered the holy grail of Instagram marketing. But be warned, this is not something that is easy to land, and not always guaranteed to perform. This can either cost a huge amount up front, or you will need to offer the influencer a large amount of value for this prime position, such as a large commission on sales or something else exclusive and sexy. Yet another reason we developed LYNX in Bio.

The smart marketer will turn their focus back to stories. Most substantial influencers will have access to the link function on Instagram, accessing this “swipe-up to visit” is usually valued less by influencers and therefore easier to access for brands. Considering this in tandem with our point above means influencers can tell a fantastic story before finally pointing viewers over to somewhere you can then capitalise on that attention.

One point worth noting. It is crucial to give influencers something good to link to, with a high value for their audience. Firstly, this will encourage the influencer to actually use the link and will also mean you don’t have a huge bounce rate after users have swiped up.

 

Vote to promote

 Have you ever used the vote-button on Instagram?

It can seem a little mundane when not used properly. But in fact, this function has huge engagement and even sales potential. Imagine for example the ability to shape new products and services for your brand based around exactly what your audience wants!

We have all heard of collaborations between big brands and celebrities. These can create huge traction for brands, just take a look at the latest collaboration between Kourtney Kardashian and the Pretty Little Things brand. But working with smaller influencers can also create a great amount of publicity for a brand and the use of the vote button can boost that even further.

Working with influencers to create a specific product that is unique to them is both a great way to earn their favour as well as tap into their extensive audience. This tactic has been used with some great success with certain brands. However, working with an influencer to create a unique product based on their preferences and then tapping into their audience to create a final edition provides huge power with a product meeting customer preferences as well as a pre-engaged audience.

Take for example a watch brand that may partner with one of their top influencer partners to create a signature watch. This could include a process of creating a number of sample watches to the influencers preferences, which will then get voted on by the influencer’s audience via their story voting buttons. You end up with a watch that is both true to the influencers style as well as chosen by their audience.

It is clear that Instagram is a powerful platform when it comes to influencer marketing. Alongside the obvious options for working with influencers like posts in their feed promoting your products and brands, you can also work with influencers in more creative ways through their stories and by creating expert content that can be leveraged in your own feeds.

See how Collabor8 can connect you with thousands of influencers today!

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Can small businesses make a big impact with influencers?

Taft Shoes – @Taft on Instagram

It is undeniable that influencer marketing is a massive buzz in the marketing world. And at the moment it doesn’t look likely to quiet down any time soon. Many savvy marketers are either adopting the tool or exploring the possibilities of leveraging influencers to promote their brands. But a quick search on Google can easily leave you feeling like engaging the top talent in your market is simply out of reach, especially if you are a small or startup business with a modest budget or limited resources.

With mega-influencers such as Kim Kardashian reportedly demanding up to $500k for access to her vast Instagram audience of 104M, it is not surprising that many see influencer marketing as an over-priced and simply over-indulgent way for some businesses to rub shoulders with the stars.

But worry not. Many experts on the subject now preach the benefits and cost-effectiveness of working with smaller influencers and brand advocates to gain real and substantial exposure and brand value for smaller businesses. In fact, some businesses have practically built their whole marketing growth strategy on leveraging their numerous assets to work with a range of influencers. Take for example the Taft shoe brand and Gym Shark clothing, two businesses that have sky rocketed to success through the use of a mix of influencers and customer-generated content on Instagram.

 

Micro, Macro, Mega

Taking into consideration the sheer ridiculousness of paying up to $500k for influencer posts on Instagram, defining the size of influencers your business will work with goes a long way to defining your strategy and overall approach to this type of marketing.

Let’s start by putting Kim Kardashian and the other mega influencers on the back burner for now. At least until your business is making so much profit your only option is to buy a mega yacht or pay Kim to say she loves your stuff. You still have two options available. One is to focus on a small number of macro influencers or a larger number of micro influencers.

Working with a small number of macro influencers may seem like the obvious option here. A smaller pool means less leg-work and bigger reach per influencer. However, with startup and small business budgets in mind, working with these types of influencers can be cost inefficient. As macro influencers are often approached to collaborate with brands, this usually means there is much less wiggle room to leverage brand assets beyond financial reward for collaborations.

Working with micro-influencers on the other hand leaves more room to barter deals based on value that can be brought to the table. It also allows more scope to work with multiple individuals, this brings a host of benefits including increased creative assets as well as creating the ‘everybody is talking about…’ effect.

Micro-influencers as a general rule also bring more to the table in terms of engagement with their audience, this is often due to the more manageable numbers of followers they hold and the ease with which they can continue conversations. Engagement is key when working with influencers, without it there is no way a brand will benefit from collaboration, some reports show that micro-influencer demand more than 60% more engagement than their larger competitors.

 

Leverage Assets

 With the media’s approach to influencer marketing you would be forgiven for thinking that all influencers care about is money. Yet, many influencers are open to bartering deals around the value your brand can bring them beyond actual cash payment. When approaching influencers, take into consideration the various aspects you can bring to the table that will motivate them to work with you.

These can include free products/services, early access to products/services, discounts for themselves or/and their audience, exclusive content, access to events, access to other influencers or access to your audience or expertise. The list goes on, but you get the point. There is no harm in getting creative!

Once you have a comprehensive list of what you are able to offer influencers, you must then understand what motivates them. Usually this is as simple as starting a conversation with the influencer and discovering their goals and ongoing objectives. This then allows you to match your assets to their goals and strongly compel them to collaborate with your brand.

It is worth noting here that influencers often gain their position through the expert content they create. This takes high levels of creativity as well as countless hours of honing their skills whether that be in writing, video or image editing. Therefore, it is often worth generating some budget when it comes to working with influencers even if it is a token amount. As it allows you to show your appreciation for their craft as well as covering at least some of the time they invest into delivery.

 

Squeeze It

 As a small or start-up business, it is crucial that you squeeze every last drop of benefit out of everything you do, therefore it is crucial to understand exactly what influencers bring to the table and how to leverage their skills to the benefit of your brand.

It is also crucial to understand the difference between the metrics that can be measured from influencer marketing activities and the actual physical benefits. Just like 1,000 new followers makes no real difference to your brand unless they can be converted into customers.  Impressions, likes, reach, comments and sentiment on influencer posts truly provide no benefit for your brand, but are simply indicators of performance.

Understanding the physical benefits and assets that influencers bring means you can finely tune your operations to further boost these to your advantage. The generation of expert content, the increase of brand recognition, as well as aligning with influencers to generate a position on thought leadership are just some of the benefits of the tool.

It is clear that influencer marketing is not simply at the reserve of marketers within the big brands, working with massive influencers, paying them huge sums of money to create quite frankly often insincere posts about their products. In fact, smaller businesses can hack the influencer economy and get much better ROI on their assets by working with smaller influencers with higher engagement to create more assets that can further benefit the brand.

Collabor8 sets itself apart in the Influencer Marketing community by being the best app to connect micro and macro influencers to brands across the world. Here’s the proof:

 

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Seven Steps to a Successful Collab

social media collaboration with influencers and brands influencer marketing

Think of Collabor8 as one large marketplace. Just like other marketplaces, there are two kinds of participants. In our case, there are the “influencers” on one side and the “brands” on the other. Influencers are typically content creators and publishers. Brands create and sell products and are typically on the hunt for the right product placement and content. To be successful in this marketplace, it’s important that users create a well-curated profile. You can learn more about how to create a great profile in our previous post. Once your profile is created, it’s time to enter the marketplace and start doing some deals! These 7 steps will help you be successful in your collaborations:

  1. Find the Right Fit – There are a ton of influencers and brands on our app just waiting to collabor8. Additionally, we’re adding more brands and influencers to our platform everyday, so there should always be new brands or influencers to check out. Be sure to read their bios and take a look at their products / content to see if it’s a good fit for your objectives. It’s also a good idea to check out some of the social accounts on each profile to spot check their engagement.
  2. Request to Collabor8 – Once you’ve determined you’d like to work with that certain brand / influencer, you’ll tap “COLLABOR8” in the upper righthand corner of their profile. This will send a request to that influencer / brand that you’d like to work with them.request to collabor8 with influencer
  3. Determine Details of Collab – After your request has been submitted, it’s up to that influencer / brand to accept or postpone your request. If a request is accepted, the collaboration will move from the “Requests” tab to the “Collabor8” tab. You’ll find these recently approved collabs under your “Active” queue in the “Collabor8” tab. Either of you will then have the opportunity to begin a conversation with your match in order to determine the details of your collaboration in the chat feature. Typically these details include 1) Date of Post 2) Charge (if something other than trade) and 3) Details of Post (where will the influencer post? what content? what product will be given? any special campaign such as a giveaway, event appearance?).  Once these details have been finalized in chat, the influencer will insert them into the “Collab Details” screen – found by clicking the blue floating button in chat.details button in collaboration found in text featuredate amount and details screen
  4. Brand Funds Collab / Verifies Trade – After the details have been entered in by the influencer, the brand will be responsible for agreeing to those details or funding the collab if there’s a fee by clicking “Fund Collab”. If the rate is $50, the brand will be required at this time to pay the $50. If there is no fee, the brand will click the blue “Trade” button to confirm details.accept trade button for collaboration
  5. Influencer Completes Task – Once the collab details have been agreed to, the influencer is responsible for performing their end of the deal (i.e. posting to social media, taking photos, etc.). Once the influencer has performed the required action (previously agreed to and listed in the “Details” box) they’ll click the blue “Completed” button to confirm their action(s).influencer marks collaboration completed
  6. Brand Verifies Task / Funds Transfer – After the influencer confirms they’ve taken the required action(s), the brand will verify from their side that all is completed. If all has been completed as agreed to the brand will click on the blue “Verify” button and the funds (if any) will flow to the influencer that day based on the payout details the influencer has listed in his/her profile. *Note that the funds sit in escrow between the initial agreement and the actual post to ensure the influencer completes their end of the bargain. The influencer will be comforted in knowing their fee is already paid and waiting for them as soon as they post.brand verifying collaboration has been completed
  7. Review the Collab – The final step in the process (and one of the most important) is for brands and influencers to leave reviews for those they worked with. The review consists of two parts 1) star rating and 2) comments section. Reviews should be honest and thorough. It’s wise to leave a few sentences about why various star ratings are given.brand and influencer review each other

 

Remember that at any given time you can click into the progress bar to see whose turn it is to do what. Completing these steps are the only way that brands and influencers can get reviewed in the app, as well as the only way that collabs will transfer from you “Active” queue into the “Completed” queue.

brands and influencers can see status of collaboration in fly out screen

If you need any further assistance in your collaborations, feel free to reach out to us – aaron@collabor8app.com / jake@collabor8app.com.

Do you have any further questions about Collabor8? Be sure to check out our FAQ page!

 

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Collabor8 – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

FAQ

  1. I have signed up for the beta so why haven’t I received an invite yet?
    • We have a limited capacity of people that Apple allows beta tests to have at any given time. We are cleaning up accounts that don’t have much activity so that we can send you an invite as soon as possible.
  2. What does “POSTPONED” mean?
    • See #4 above!
  3. I have some suggestions for the app. What is the best way to let you guys know?
    • We LOVE getting your feedback. After all, that is what this beta is for. Please send us an email to  jake@collabor8app.com  and/or  aaron@collabor8app.com
  4. When will the app be available in the app store? 
    • If all checks out well and according to plan, we should be accepted into the app store in 3-6 weeks.
  5. I have Android and I am so bummed I can’t join the app!
    • First of all, why do you still have Android 😉  Just messin’. After we are securely in the app store and working out any additional kinks, we will roll out a version for Android. At the soonest it will be later this fall.
  6. We have both accepted each other for a collab. What do we do now? 
    • Now is where the rubber meets the road! There are no rules on who needs to start the conversation, so just get in there and open up a dialogue! One message we like to send looks like this: “Thanks for accepting my collab request! I love your products and would love to do a styled shoot for you. What are  your thoughts?”
  7. How does the payment process work if we are doing a paid collab?
    • First of all, the influencer will go into the details screen and set the rate of the collab after they have agreed upon it in the chat screen. Influencer will also set the expected due/post date. Once those 2 items are filled out, the brand will go to the details screen and make the 1-click payment which will debit the card information you have set up. The money then is held in Collabor8’s escrow account until the collab has been completed and verified by the brand. Once it has been verified, the full amount of the funds (we don’t take anything from the fee) will be deposited into the influencers Paypal or Square account. **If the collab goes dark or the influencer does not end up posting for whatever reason, the funds will be released back to the brand.
  8. I have tried connecting my PayPay but is says there is a payout method error.
    • First you need to delete your app and then reinstall the newest version. Should be good to go after that.
  9. What does it mean when I have collabs in my ACTIVE screen?
    • This means that you have both agreed to collabor8 with each other and you are ready to spark up a chat and proceed with collab.
  10. We have multiple people on our team who would like access to our Collabor8 account. How can they access it.
    • We can send an invite to their phones and they will be able access your Collabor8 acct.
  11. I accidentally sent a collab request. How do I Un-Request?
    • We are working on a option to recall the request, however as of now there is not a way within the app to do so.
  12. If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to email us!
    • Jake@collabor8app.com
    • Aaron@collabor8app.com
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