I just paged through 160 “posts” on Instagram.
Of 160 posts that were shown,
- 9.4% were “suggested” still image posts from people I do not follow
- 11.9% were suggested videos from people I do not follow
- 37.5% were videos from people I follow
- 41% were still images from people I follow
In the first 67 posts seen, more than 50% were videos from people I follow.
After the first 67 posts, IG began showing more still images and fewer videos.
Thus, IG gives higher visibility to videos in your stream by showing videos first.
As most people spend short period of time on IG, this means that still photos are buried so deep they are unlikely to be seen by your followers.
In addition to images posted by those you follow, about 20% of posts are from “suggested” accounts you do not follow. These are biased to videos as well. I suspect your still photos are less likely to be “suggested” to others, even with use of hash tags.
If we combine the images from those you follow with the suggested posts from people you do not follow
- 59% are videos
- 41% are still photos
- About 20% of all items are “suggested”.
In the first 67 posts, 33 were videos, 22 were stills, 5 were suggested stills and 6 were suggested videos.
But in the last 67 posts, the ratios flipped:
- 22 videos
- 30 still photos
- 5 suggested stills
- 11 suggested videos
Why the flip? Probably because video content is still less than still posts – but IG wants you to watch videos so they favor videos by showing them first. Still photos are buried far down the streams of posts.
Instagram has stated it would like to ditch still photos – and they appear well on their way to doing that as they gradually turn themselves into a bad clone of TikTok.
