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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February 15, 2018

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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December 19, 2017December 19, 2017

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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November 21, 2017November 21, 2017

Can small businesses make a big impact with influencers?

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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January 23, 2017January 23, 2017

How to Maximize your Collabor8 Experience

Now that we have a larger number of users on the app, it is important that you are doing the following in order to make sure that your profile is being seen and showing up in search results:

Complete all aspects of your profile. This includes a bio about yourself or company, location, social media integrations, interests (we recommend top 3), rate information, and payment information.
Portfolio photos. Make sure you have 5-10 photos where you can showcase your style, aesthetic, personality, etc.
Make sure to “complete” each collab that you execute! This is such an important part of the Collab process because it allows you to rate and be rated by whoever you are collaborating with. Completed Collabs and your Ratings are the 2 biggest components of the EXPLORE tab algorithm. We give priority to the most active profiles and new profiles!
Send/receive collab payments securely within Collabor8 (Stripe). Payments done outside the app are not backed/protected by Collabor8 because we have no control nor visibility. Make payments through the “Collab Details” page of your collab so we can help with anything as needed. It also allows you to complete the paid collab and get the benefits of bullet point #3.
Tag @collabor8app #collabor8app in your posts and we’ll use them for reposts, newsletters, blog posts, website, etc. and tag you and/or give you photo credit.
Request to work with smaller brands/influencers to boost reviews and completed collabs.

Other Ways to Grow your Influence

Visit our website to see some of the other tools that have been recommended by Collabor8 users. If you have any other suggestions for tools you enjoy, please let us know!

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February 19, 2016February 19, 2016

7 Tips to Optimize Your Collabor8 App Experience

Good afternoon Collabor8ers!

Many of you are new to the app and are just getting familiar with the platform. Others have been on for a couple weeks now and may have already started working on collabs. Either way, we have compiled 7 tips for you to optimize your profile so that you are pleasing to the eye AND the brain.

Profile Photos – When you first create an account, Collabor8 will automatically pull in your most recent Instagram photo and use it as your profile image. This is to avoid blank profiles and help beautify the EXPLORE page. We recommend that you add additional photos by clicking the “PHOTOS” button in the upper-left corner and selecting Instagram as the source. It will allow you to bring in as many photos from your Instagram feed as you want. After doing so, decide which image you want to be on the cover of your profile and hit the “PROFILE” button in the upper-right corner of your screen. If you want to see some great examples of profile photos, check out Gigi Pip (brand) or Salome Brimhall (Influencer) inside the app.
Location and Bio – Many brands and influencers are trying to get word out to new geographical areas, so it is important that you specify where you are located, or where most of your followers are located. (NOTE: This will soon be a “smart” location that will allow you to select your geo location and then be able to search by area, radius, etc.). Your Bio gives you a unique opportunity to tell others about yourself and what may set you apart from others. In today’s world, we are dying to “connect” with others on a new level. This might be through a style of photography, a charitable cause, a life story, etc. Let others get to know you! After all, they need to trust who they are working with and a bio definitely helps. Check out Chelsey Hale (Influencer) or Halftee (Brand) to get an idea of a good bio. Short and sweet is OK!
Link Social Media Accounts – Collabor8 populates a “Total Reach” that accounts for all of your social media followings. It is important to add each outlet you have because some brands are looking to grow a specific platform. For example, “Brand A” might have a huge Instagram following but they really want to get more exposure to their Periscope account. So they might pass on somebody with a big Instagram for someone with a smaller Periscope following, because they are new Periscope. You never know what will pique their interest! Jane.com has done a great job at completely filling out their social media.As a side note, some of you have asked about the difference between VERIFIED and UNVERIFIED social accounts. VERIFIED means that we currently have an api connection that allows us to automatically tap into Instagram and Twitter (Facebook pages soon) and update the follower counts. The UNVERIFIED accounts do not currently have api connections so you must enter the number of followers that you have manually. However they do still contribute to your Total Reach.
Respond to Requests ASAP – When somebody sends you a request, think of it as an opportunity to reach a new pool of people and get new content for your account. If they are a good fit, accept quickly and spark up a conversation. There are no rules on who needs to begin the chat! Feel free to send a message right away and break the ice. They are likely just as eager to work with you as you are with them. On the other hand, if they are not a good fit at the moment, click the “x” on their request sooner rather than later so they can move on as well. COMMUNICATION IS KEY!
- Quick side note: If you get a “POSTPONED” message back from an account that you have requested, this could mean a few different things. For example, it could mean that they are currently booked for collabs, they have surpassed their collab budget for a given time frame, or they’d like to revisit the opportunity after 30-60 days. Do not feel like they have denied you. Timing is everything 🙂
Keep up on collabs – On the detail screen (the blue circle with 3 lines) within each collaboration, there is a progress bar that shows how the collaboration is moving along. You can click the bar and it will open a flyout window that shows the progress in more detail. One of the BIGGEST concerns we have heard about is people who are not responded to chat messages in a timely manner. We understand that you are busy, but try your best to be as prompt as possible. See below for a graphic:
Keep your app updated to the most current version!! – This is unique situation for you guys as beta testers because we publish updates quite often (every 1-2 weeks) and they typically have significant changes to them. Although you can’t always see the changes, we are squashing bugs, fixing crashes and making the app faster. If you don’t update your app, the platform will be slower for you AND possibly cause issues for those that you collaborate with. So please update your app as soon as you recieve the TestFlight email notification that there is a new version. You can also open your TestFlight app at any time to see if there is an update available. NOTE: To avoid bugs being carried over to the new version, try to delete the current app on your phone first and then update to the new version via TestFlight.
Curate an AMAZING platform of Collabor8ers – We want to have the best brands and the best influencers on this app so we can all work together seamlessly. If there are brands or influencers that you have wanted to work with and are not currently on the app, please let us know and we will reach out them personally to invite them to the platform. We are at your service in this regard and want Collabor8 to be a 1-stop-shop for you and your business. We are actively inactivating accounts that are stagnant to make room for people who are truly wanting to be part of this family!

We are so pumped that so many of you are loving the app and we hope to only make it better for you. We have some rad updates in the works and we hope you are excited 🙂

Have a great weekend!

-Collabor8

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February 9, 2016February 9, 2016

5 Tips for Working with Influencers to Grow Your Brand

Where do you go when you’re in need of an opinion for a new dentist? A trusted plumber? A favorite travel destination? If you’re like most people, you’ll ask those who are close to you, those whose recommendations you trust.

It’s likely no surprise then that 92% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know and that this ranks as the #1 form of advertising. Ranking in second and third respectively are consumer opinions posted online (70%) and editorial content from various forms of media (58%).

The rapid emergence of social media has enabled everyday people to share their opinions all over the world with the mere click of a button. When people begin to share content that is valuable and relevant, oftentimes they amass large amounts of followers. While the physical world is restrained by language, cultural and geopolitical barriers, the virtual world is one large online community united in differences. This community respects the opinions of influencers. Therefore, influencers have a very powerful sway over their followers buying behaviors.

So the question becomes, how do brands effectively tap into an influencers’ audience? We’ve compiled below 5 tips when working with influencers to help brands do it more effectively.

Don’t Be Afraid – When we talk with brands about working with influencers they’re often skittish about how to approach one another. Many brands think that influencers are untouchable because of their large communities of followers and their celebrity status. The truth is, many influencers share a lot in common with brand owners. They in essence are a brand, marketing themselves and adding value to the lives of their respective followers. They appreciate honest and sincere relationships.
@melburchyoga collaborating with @ifit
Respect Their Profession – While it can be natural to be intimidated by influencers, the opposite problem might also occur. Some brands don’t understand the many hours and the extensive effort influencers put into curating just the right content for their followers. They hear those rare stories of “Blogger X” making 7 figures and apply that stereotype to all other influencers. The truth is, most bloggers don’t make much money blogging – it’s a passion project. Therefore, respect their media kits and their rate sheets. Always be professional in dealing with influencers, because as quickly as they can become your biggest advocate, they could also become your quickest nay-sayer.
Be Timely – If an influencer mentions that they’d enjoy working with you and you’ve agreed on terms (product trade, rates, dates, etc.) be sure to follow through with your side of the bargain. Don’t leave the influencer wondering if you’re still interested in working with them by not replying or delaying to send product or payment. Show them respect and they’ll return it.
They Don’t Owe You Anything – Oftentimes brands will send product to influencers without any advance notice and just expect for that influencer to post about their product. Unfortunately, this is not the way it works! Can you imagine if your customers came into your business and expected to barter with you on your price and offered random objects as a trade? If you’d still like to send out product with no strings attached, so be it. But keep in mind – influencers don’t owe you anything until they’ve committed to help you.
@chaserzsd and @brandonmichaelbb showing off their @blenderseyewear
Be Creative – Influencer marketing is a hot new avenue for brand growth and as such it is still experiencing some growing pains. Therefore, don’t always do what your competitors are doing with their social media and collaborations. Be different! Think outside the box. Find ways to engage not just an influencer and his/her followers but your followers as well. Giveaways offer lots of neat perks, but don’t always do the same types of giveaways and sponsored posts. Make them fun and engaging. PS – Looped Giveaways are soooo 2015!

As founders of Collabor8, we’ve learned these 5 tips often the hard way as we sought to grow Arvo from its infancy. Learn from our mistakes and you can thank us later. Always strive to keep things fun and engaging, and don’t be bummed if a couple of collabs don’t bring you any results. Continually fine tune your strategy and eventually you’ll understand which types of influencers and posts will drive the most value to your brand.

Did we miss any suggestions?! If so, be sure to leave us a comment below!

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