Instagram Shares Algorithm Insights to Inform Your Strategy

Want to improve your Instagram performance in 2025?

This will help. Instagram boss Adam Mosseri has launched a new video series in which he plans to highlight the key factors that drive his algorithms and will ultimately increase your reach.

in first videoMosseri highlighted three key factors that carry the most algorithmic weight and lead to content being shown to more users.

Those three factors are:

According to Mossers:

“The three main signals that are most important for ranking are watch time, likes, and submissions. So when looking at your insights, pay close attention to average watch time, likes per reach, and sends per reach.“

Although Mosseri also notes that there is some variation, depending on where the content is displayed and to whom it is displayed.

“Likes are a little more important for related content, and shares are a little more important for unrelated content.“

So if you want more of your followers to see your posts, likes are a key factor. The more people who tap like, the more reach your audience will have.

If you want to reach new people and increase your followers, sending is more important. So you’ll want to create content that people want to pass along, as this is a clear indication that they think your posts deserve a wider audience. Instagram will then take it as a signal that it should also show your posts to more users through Research, referrals, etc.

Both make sense because the system bases its algorithmic signals on user behavior, which is more likely to resonate with each group. For example, if a lot of people like your new post, it could be a joke or a relevant trend among your peers, so it’s likely to be interesting to other people who follow it. However, it’s more likely to get shares because people are forwarding your posts to non-followers, which means the post is more appealing to a wider audience.

Although you’ll also notice that comments aren’t mentioned at all in Mosseri’s review.

I guess comments would essentially count towards watch time and the total amount of time people spend looking at a post. Because if you have to write a comment, you will spend more time on that content, which would probably mean that more people commenting would lead to some degree of increase.

But IG doesn’t seem to base algorithmic boost on generated discussion. Which used to be a key factor, especially on Facebook, but in his move away from politicsperhaps this was a trade-off that Meta found reduced the impact of divisive discussion without directly penalizing posts based on content alone.

And given that most content on IG is now video anyway, watch time is a valid metric, even for content with images, which would also explain why carousels are ranked higher, as they take longer to watch.

But if you want to build a more effective IG strategy, these are the factors you should consider and measure for each element of your reach.

A few useful notes that may guide you towards a more efficient approach.