Feed Rankings

Your feed is the first thing that you see when you open the Instagram app. The feed is a hub of recent posts from the accounts you follow with an occasional ad or suggested post sprinkled throughout. Instagram picks up “signals” from its users, which they define as “information we have about what was posted, the people who made those posts, and your preferences.” The four signals that Instagram uses to suggest (in order of importance) are:

1. Activity - this includes what you like, comment on, share, and save
2. Information about the post - this includes the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves on a particular post
3. Information about the account that posted - this may include the number of followers the account has and the number of interactions that account has had recently
4. Interaction history - the number of interactions you have had with the account
   

From there, Instagram ranks these posts using factors such as the number of times that you viewed their profile and the amount of time you spent on one of their posts or a post like it. Instagram has also released a list of guidelines for the content that they place lower on the feed.

Story Rankings

Stories can be found at the top of the feed when you open the app. Like the feed, every few stories the user will be shown a suggested ad. Stories have their own set of signals that influence which stories appear first:

1. Viewing history - this takes into account the number of times you’ve viewed an account’s story
2. Engagement history - this includes the number of times you’ve interacted with an account’s story by liking it, sending a direct message, or sharing
3. Closeness - this looks into your relationship with the account and determines how connected you may be with them

1. Activity - this includes what you like, comment on, share, and save
2. Interaction history - the number of interactions you’ve had with the account
3. Information about the Reel - this includes the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves on a particular Reel along with the content of the Reel which can be defined by the audio and visuals
4. Information about the account that posted - this may include the number of followers the account has and the number of interactions that account has had recently

1. Information about the post - this includes the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves on a particular post; this matters more for Explore than the feed
2. Activity in Explore - this includes what you like, comment on, share, and save within Explore
3. Interaction history - the number of interactions you’ve had with an account
4. Information about the account that posted - this may include the number of followers an account has and the number of interactions that account has had recently