The state of the algoritm

2023 has been an interesting year so far in terms of algorithm performance.

I’ve gained 7K followers in 4 months, hitting 12K at this point of time.
I’ve had my first post break 300K reach.
I’ve had another post break 10K likes for the first time.
I’ve hit the big M (yes million) in terms of accounts reached in the last 30 days.
I have an average of 25 followers per post.

Those that know me, know that I like my data. Scroll through my feed and you’ll see various experiments to satiate my curiosity of the data models at play.

If you’re curious to how I’ve achieved the above growth and what I’ve learned - read on. No, it wasn’t through reels.

What happened to reels?

The lesson I learned about 2022 was that you need to adapt to change, as it is the only constant in life. Those that capitalised on the Reels wave in 2022 saw their accounts catapult 10s of thousands of followers, obtaining levels of reach absolutely unheard of. Shoutout to @WatchStudies and @averagewatches for being the pioneers leading the way.

In Jan 2023, Mosseri (IG’s CEO for those living under a rock) made a public announcement admitting that in 2022 they had pushed Reels too far. This saw a decline in users (remember everyone trying to make Vero a thing?), and took away from the essence of IG - a photo sharing app. Mosseri kept his word, and photos flourished again with substantial reach and growth potential.

Source - Verge Link

If you don’t believe me, just look at your favourite watch content creators and look at the reach of their current Reels. 2022 would see whopping numbers in the millions. 2023 numbers would be around the 15k mark from browsing various creator’s Reels. This begs the question - should you bother spending all the effort creating reels, only to have it shown to less people than a simple photo?

Are Reels useless?

No. They can still propel your reach to new heights, just not as consistently as 2022. The current state of 2023’s algo looks more like a lottery system, where only very high quality Reels content has the potential to be put into people’s feed. As a user, scroll through your own feed and count how many Reels get pushed to you now vs in 2022. Significantly less, to maybe none at all. Open up explore, you’ll see a few (not every single post!).

If you think that the Reels you create have the content quality to go viral, then keep doing it!

However if you’re better at photos, now is a great time to get back in the game.

How does the algorithm work?

I’ll save this one for another article, as I have many thoughts and speculations. The key bit here is that models need to be maintained, can evolve, and can be outdated. The current state has been tweaked to promote photo growth to keep users happy, and I think I’ve found a little loophole for watch content.

So how has my account grown so quickly? Here’s the secret sauce.

1. The multi-watch shot #multiwatchshot

A carousel post that involves multiple watches, followed by individual photos of each watch.

Example - 1st photo with 3 watches, then the next 3 photos cycling through each one. That’s it.

Having multiple watches adds to the visual appeal (evidently more people like clicking on these) increasing your chances of hitting the Explore page, and having them in a carousel means your post will pop up in someone else’s feed again if they didn’t engage the first time. More engagement = algo pushing it more = even more engagement = snowball of reach.

You can flat lay the watches, or you can use a watch box or stand. Entirely up to you. This has very consistently worked for me this year so far as evidenced by the growth in the account.

My pro-tip is to use The Watch Stand, as you can see my top posts contain it as the primary prop. You can get 15% off using the code “watchcalvin”.

2. Cleaner photography

I’ve found that a cleaner frame leads to better results. My suspicion is that it’s easier for the image recognition model to know that your content is watch related, and to push it to fellow watch lovers. If you make the frame too moody and cluttered with props, it might hinder the performance as the AI might not know what you’re posting.

Again, just a simple watch flat lay or lay them on the watch stand.

3. Different brands

I’ve found that using multiple brands helps increase the reach. If you just post 3 Seiko’s, you might restrict your audience to Seiko fans. If you’re posting 3 separate brands, now you’re possibly targeting a wider audience via multiple brand fans, which helps boost your initial engagement, which subsequently may lead to the post going viral on the Explore page.

4. Regular posting 1-2x a day

This is something that I’ve always done. For me it helps me keep consistent, as well as target different timezones. I’ve found the best results posting when EU and NA are awake (makes sense given the large population).

The other little secret bit is that you never know how the algo may function on the particular day itself - you could post the exact same content every single day, and see varying results. Sometimes it’s just luck to catch the right rocket. If you aren’t posting consistently, it makes it harder to catch that rocket.

Pro-tip is to use the schedule function if you’re trying to target timezones!