Advice about the Instagram algorithm is everywhere, and most of it cannot be traced to anything Instagram has said. That matters, because agencies build content plans and client promises on it. This article sticks to what Instagram's head, Adam Mosseri, has said on the record, and what Meta has published about how each part of Instagram is ranked.
The three signals Mosseri named
In January 2025, Mosseri said the three most important signals are watch time, likes and sends, the last meaning how often people share a post in a direct message. He told creators to track average watch time, likes per reach and sends per reach. Likes matter slightly more for reaching existing followers; sends matter slightly more for reaching people who do not follow the account.
He had made a similar point in May 2024, saying that in his experience the rate at which a post is sent correlates with its overall reach more than anything else, and that rates matter more than counts. In May 2026 he repeated the idea: judge a post by its engagement rate among the people who saw it, not by raw reach.
- Watch time: how long people spend on a Reel or a post. Hold attention in the first seconds, and keep the pace up.
- Likes per reach: how many of the people who saw it liked it. This carries most weight with followers.
- Sends per reach: how many shared it privately. This carries most weight with non-followers, and it is the best single sign that a post is worth recommending.
Comments were not in Mosseri's list of three. That does not mean they are worthless, but the popular claim that comments are the most important signal is not what he said.
There is no single algorithm
Instagram has explained since 2023 that each surface has its own ranking, predicting different actions. Meta's published system cards give a sense of the scale and the signals.
- Feed: Instagram narrows about 700 eligible posts to about 500 and scores them, predicting things like time spent, skipping, swiping through a carousel and the chance of a post being shared in a message.
- Explore: up to 1,500 items are gathered and the top 100 re-ranked, predicting follows, likes, comments, shares, saves and whether someone watches most of a video.
- Reels: about 100 Reels are scored for the next one to show, predicting whether someone watches past the first few seconds, shares it, uses the audio, follows the account, or watches more of it than most viewers of Reels that length.
Carousels, Stories and Trial Reels
- Carousels get a second chance. Mosseri said in October 2024 that Instagram often shows someone the next slide of a carousel they scrolled past, and that carousels with music can appear in the Reels tab.
- Sharing your own feed post to your Story does not help its reach, Mosseri said in April 2026. It may still be worth doing for your followers, but not as a reach tactic.
- Trial Reels, launched in December 2024, are shown to non-followers first, so an account can test an idea without it appearing on the grid. Since April 2026 they can be scheduled.
What the numbers in Insights mean now
Since August 2024, views are Instagram's main measure across Reels, Stories, photos, carousels and Live, and repeat views count. In April 2026 Instagram added share rate, skip rate and views over time to Insights. Share rate is the closest thing Insights offers to Mosseri's sends per reach, and skip rate shows how many people left a Reel in its first seconds. Both are worth adding to client reports.
Claims that are not backed by Instagram
These appear in many guides, and none of them could be traced to Instagram or Mosseri when we checked:
- That a private share is worth three to five likes.
- That two-way conversation is now a ranking signal.
- That watch time is the single most important factor. Mosseri named three signals without ranking them.
- That Instagram switched from three-second plays to views. Instagram renamed Plays as Views in 2024; the three-second measure is a Facebook metric.
- That saves are weighted three times likes.
What to do with it
- Report rates, not totals: likes per reach, share rate and average watch time, per post.
- Make content people want to send to someone: useful, funny, surprising, or specific to a shared interest.
- Hold attention in the first seconds of every Reel, and check skip rate to see whether it is working.
- Use carousels for depth and Trial Reels to test ideas with new audiences.
- Be sceptical of any algorithm tip that does not name its source.
The free Instagram engagement rate calculator on this site compares an account's likes and comments per post with accounts of the same size, and the best time to post tool shows when Gulf audiences are most active.
