The promotion of Instagram posts is no longer available to Russians. One of the few ways to gain an audience should be the recommendation algorithm.
How does the algorithm work? The social network seeks to maximize user engagement. To do this, engineers created AI (artificial intelligence), which analyzes your every action: likes, saves, views, reposts to chats and stories. This is how the algorithm learns your interests.
By design, the AI is supposed to pick up recommended content so that you can't distinguish it from your regular feed and, accordingly, want to subscribe.
In general, Instagram is NOT trying to push trending and viral posts to users. Instead, the social network offers accounts that are almost like two peas in a pod similar to those that the user is already following. This is management's way of trying to keep you on their app longer.
Like the video of the puppies? Here's 10 more of these. Oh, you like rilsams with French bulldogs more often? Then we'll only show you those! That's how it works somehow.
The mechanics are sort of figured out. But how do you use the recommendations to your advantage? There are a few tips:
Study the profiles of your competitors who are already well promoted on Instagram. See what kind of content they publish and try to make your own, but even better. You have the same audience, which means that sooner or later you will get into recommendations to their followers. Regularly remind about yourself. Viral reach gathers new posts, so post content more often.
Make videos. Instagram is putting a lot of emphasis on this format and it's becoming more popular and is "hitting the rivers" more often.
And how often do you get recommendations in your feed?