Instagram top post algorithm

Hey Guys,


I was wondering, how Instagram choose the popular pictures at the top of every tag page. I know that there are a few factors like the tag of the pic (obviously), votes (but not only quantity) or the location (depends on the tag) but I don't see a system, sometimes I think they are totaly random because on some tag-page the popular pics change in minutes.


Is there a way to optimize the own pics for the popular pictures like SEO for the search engines or do you know some background knowledge about the Instagram Algo. I'm totaly interested on links to studys or other related stuff.

When people in your niche with tons of followers likes your photo, chances of being featured are much greater

To reach the top hashtag you need a lot of likes from your followers from the newsfeed.

i doubt someone knows the exact algo .......

really important i guess it the % of likes from your follower.

Think it also depends on how fast you're gaining the likes. Some sort of trending algo

Thanks for all replies.

I'm not sure if the speed or the % of likes from the follower is a factor, because I observed that also old pictures can reach the top post in weakly competitive topics with only a few new votes (not from followers).

In particular the quantity of likes is in my opinion not a strong factor because you can see in the top post section pics with over 1000 likes besides pics with not even 100 Likes.

The idea with the people of my niche is interesting but how can Instagram categorize profiles? Sure with tags but is this categorization not to fuzzy? But I also think that this is not the main factor, because I have no Likes from a sort of this people an my pics are however in the top post (but not a competetive niche).

It's kinda secret

I'd love to know the algo too)

For some of my pages, i get to the top of a specific tag every time.
For other pages, i get enough likes, but i never reach that top posts area.

I think it has to do with the quickness of how fast you get engagement, coupled with how many actual posts are within that tag.

Let me get specific, if I may for a moment..

I have a page in the cannabis(marijuana) niche, which gets 200-500 average likes per pic. #HerbNLife there are under 20,000 photos. My account would dominate the top posts area.. in addition, my post would stay up there on the "top posts" area for DAYS even WEEKS.

I also have a page where if I #Sweden, i get to the top posts for no more than 24h, as this one obviously gets more tags. I average 2-4k likes per post on that one

If a tag has more posts in it, then it gets refreshed on top more frequently.

Hope this helps in some way


-SH

did the ALGO change?? my likes shot up to 500 and my views went up to 2.5k within 17 hours

I thought that the algorithm change would happen days ago, but nothing changed for me.