Instagram Best Practices For Recommended Content

Instagram publishes new best practices for creators to follow to increase their eligibility for recommendations.

Recommendations are photos and videos you see on Instagram from accounts you don’t follow.

Recommended content surfaces in Instagram’s main feed, the explore feed, and the reels tab.

Instagram determines whether to recommend a piece of content based on signals such as how many and how quickly other people are liking, commenting, sharing, and saving a post.

A user’s prior interactions with a content creator are a factor, as well as other posts a person has liked or commented on.

When your content surfaces as a recommended photo or video, it can positively impact your reach and accelerate audience growth.

Getting content picked up by Instagram’s recommendation algorithm is a goal of all businesses and creators trying to gain more followers.

To help more people realize that goal, Instagram shares a set of best practices for users to follow.

Instagram Recommendations Best Practices

Eligibility

First, if you want to be eligible for recommendations, you must have a public account. Instagram won’t recommend content from private accounts.

Next, you have to follow Instagram’s recommendation guidelines.

Instagram has specific guidelines covering the content types it tries to recommend in people’s feeds.

Recommendation guidelines differ from community guidelines, which are rules for what can and can’t be on Instagram.

Content that goes against Instagram’s recommendation guidelines includes:

• Content that may depict violence, such as people fighting
• Content that promotes the use of certain regulated products, such as tobacco or vaping products
• Content that may be sexually explicit or suggestive, such as pictures of people in see-through clothing

Lastly, you have to follow Instagram’s community guidelines. You’ll know if you’re not following the community guidelines because Instagram will send a warning or remove the content.

With that out, let’s get into the best practices.

Best Practices

Instagram recommends following these best practices to increase reach through recommendations:

• Post original content: Instagram aims to amplify the reach of creators creating their own content rather than aggregating other peoples’ content.
• Create reels content: Make Instagram reels part of your content strategy for more opportunities to get your content recommended.
• Optimize for search: Use descriptive captions and hashtags to get your content surfaced in search results. It also helps to optimize your bio and profile name.

Content Source: searchenginejournal.com