THE ALGORITHM ISN'T OUT TO GET YOU

Every small business owner I've ever helped with social media has asked me some version of the same question.

"How do I beat the algorithm?"

And I get it. You post something you worked hard on, it gets 40 views, and then some guy filming his lunch in his car gets 400,000. It feels rigged. It feels personal. It feels like somebody in a building in California looked at your bakery's croissant photo and said no.

Here's the thing nobody wants to hear: there's no single algorithm, nobody's out to get you, and most of the tricks people still swear by stopped working years ago. Some of them never worked at all.

So let's clear it out.

First, there isn't "the" algorithm

Instagram has said this for years, and it's still the most misunderstood part. There isn't one algorithm. There's a different ranking system for each part of the app: your Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore. Each one is trying to answer a slightly different question.

• Feed and Stories are mostly about people you already follow. The question is: of everything your friends and favorite accounts posted, what will you care about most?
• Reels and Explore are mostly about people you don't follow yet. The question is: of everything on Instagram, what will this person actually watch?

That second group is where growth happens. If you want new people to find you, you're playing the Reels and Explore game, and that game has different rules than posting for your existing followers.

What actually works

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has been unusually direct about this. He's named the three signals that matter most: watch time, likes and sends.

Watch time is the big one, especially for Reels. Did people stop scrolling? Did they watch to the end? Did they watch it twice? The first two or three seconds decide almost everything. If the opening doesn't earn the next second, nothing else you did matters.

Likes matter a little more for the people who already follow you.

Sends matter a little more for reaching new people. When someone shares your post in a DM, that's the strongest signal you can get. It means "this was good enough that I put my name on it and sent it to a friend." That's a promoter. Instagram treats it like one.

Mosseri's advice was to watch these numbers per reach in your insights. Not total likes, but likes divided by how many people saw it. A post that reached 500 people and got shared 30 times is doing better than a post that reached 5,000 people and got shared 30 times, and the system knows it.

A few other things Instagram has confirmed:

• Original content wins. Instagram has been pushing this hard since 2024, and in April 2026 it went further: accounts that mostly repost other people's content can lose eligibility for recommendations entirely. Slapping your watermark on someone else's video doesn't count as original. Adding real commentary, a voiceover or your own edit does.
• Trial Reels let you test a Reel on people who don't follow you before it goes to your followers. If you're nervous about trying something new, use it.
• Captions and on-screen text are search. Instagram search runs on keywords now, and public posts from professional accounts can show up in Google results. "Santa Barbara wedding florist" in your caption does more than #weddingflowers ever did.
• Viewers can steer it now too. The Your Algorithm tool lets people see the topics Instagram thinks they're into and dial them up or down. Which means the people who actually want what you make are getting better at finding it.

The myths that need to retire

"You need 30 hashtags." No. Mosseri has said flat out that hashtags don't really help reach anymore, and in December 2025 Instagram started capping posts at five. Hashtags still have a job: they tell Instagram (and people) what your post is about, and they're useful for events, campaigns or a niche community. So yes, use a few, make them specific, and stop there. A wall of #love #instagood #photooftheday at the bottom of your caption isn't doing anything except making you look like it's 2014.

"I got shadowbanned." Most of the time, what people call a shadowban is just a post that didn't land. If you're actually worried, Instagram has a real tool for this: Account Status in your settings shows whether any of your content has been flagged as ineligible for recommendations, and lets you appeal. Check it before you blame a conspiracy.

"There's a perfect time to post." Timing matters a little, mostly in the first hour while your followers are awake. But a great post at a weird time beats a mediocre post at 9:03 a.m. every time. Good content has a long tail now, especially Reels.

"Saying 'link in bio' kills your reach." Instagram has said it doesn't. Say it.

"Scheduling apps get punished." Also no. Scheduled posts perform the same as posts you publish by hand.

"Editing your caption after posting resets your reach." Mosseri has said it has no effect. Fix the typo.

"Comment on 50 accounts a day and the algorithm will reward you." Real conversation with people in your community is good for your business. Copy-paste "great post!! fire" comments to game the system are not, and they don't work. Same goes for engagement pods and buying followers. Fake followers don't watch, like or send, which means every post you make gets worse numbers per reach. You're paying to shrink.

So what should you actually do?

Here's my honest version, after watching a lot of people try a lot of things.

1. Make something worth sending. Before you post, ask: would anybody DM this to a friend? Useful, funny, beautiful, surprising. Pick one.
2. Win the first three seconds. Start with the most interesting part. No logo intro, no "hey guys, so today..."
3. Make it yours. Your shop, your hands, your voice, your city. The one thing nobody can repost is you.
4. Write captions like search. Say what it is, who it's for and where you are, in plain words.
5. Use a few real hashtags, max five. Specific beats popular.
6. Read your insights per reach, not total likes. Do more of what gets sent and watched.
7. Show up consistently. Not every day. Just steadily, at a pace you can keep without hating it.

The part nobody likes hearing

The algorithm isn't your enemy. It's a mirror. All it's really doing is watching what real people do with your post and showing it to more people like them.

Which means the fix is almost never a trick. It's the same thing that works off the internet, behind a counter or on a support call: give people something worth their time, and make it easy for them to tell a friend.

The algorithm just counts the sends.

— g