Learn the simple formula that Instagram secretly uses to get your competitors content on the explore page.
How to get on the Explore Page?
The explore page on Instagram seems to be one of these unsolved myths. Everybody wants to get on the explore page, but still, nobody really knows how to do it. So what is the first thing you would do to find a solution here? Of course, it would be to understand how the explore page works and that is exactly what you will learn today.
How does the Explore Page work?
You will be surprised how simple it is. So take a look behind the scenes and find out how Instagram selects the content that gets on the explore page and figure out a strategy that helps you get on there. All right. So let’s start with the basics.
Understand the explore page algorithm
Instagram automatically selects the content for the end-user basing on what they think you could like. Let’s be honest, it sounds kind of creepy. And it gets even worse, but in a good way. To select the content for your Explore page, they analyze a few things about you. They look at who you follow, what accounts you have engaged with, what posts you liked.
And then they create a profile from that and try to find similar content. Basically matchmaking.
they try to find content that you might like based on what you have already liked. Sounds quite simple so far, right? So of course this selection process isn’t done by a human it’s fully automated, and that’s why it’s often called the algorithm and what you should do with the algorithm? Feed it.
The Secret Formula
Now, you know what the Instagram explore page is based on, but before you take big action, let’s make sure we understand what happens next. To get the results you want, let’s make sure that you’re being strategic here. So let’s dive just a bit deeper into how the explore page works and what you can do to increase your chances to get on it.
For the explore page content, Instagram is doing two things, sourcing and ranking. You know, that Instagram has a ton of users. With a ton of users comes a ton of content. to be specific 95 million posts a day.
Instagram gets 95 million new posts a day. So out of these 95 million. How do they select the 20 posts that end up on your explore page?
How to optimize for explore page
So the question that you inevitably arrive at is: how can you optimize your content creation for this? And here is a little truth bomb. 💣 You can’t control it. There are no guarantees, but what you can do is to optimize your efforts, to increase your chances. And I’m going to share with you a technique that helps you do exactly that. increase your chances to get on Explore Page.
The Battle of sourcing and ranking
Sourcing and Ranking. Picture this as a funnel with two steps, the sourcing step and the ranking step. Picture that process like throwing all of these posts inside of the funnel, watch them make their way through all the way down to the end.
So the first step in the sourcing stage, Instagram selects 500 posts that are like preselected and now have to be validated validation means which one works best. There are a couple of ones where it works. And people actually engage with it. The rest doesn’t make it.
This validation and testing is what they call ranking. So that means that 500 posts get sourced and make it into the funnel. And of these 500 posts only 25 make it onto the explore page. The explore page works just like a championship. Of many candidates and only a few make it to the end.
Two Steps to get on the explore page.
Set yourself up to getting results. Here are the two next steps for you to do now to get on the explore page.
Step 1
Get very specific about the content that you need to create. Make sure that you know exactly who your audience is, where your audience is. What’s your audience wants what they need and the visual aesthetics that are appealing to them.
Step 2
Crank up your content creation, make sure that you get results. You can do this either by doing all the work yourself or by hiring an expert who specializes in exactly that.
Unsure what’s right for you?
If you don’t know yet, which way is right for you, that’s perfectly fine. Make sure to follow me here. You’ll find out how to make a good decision if you should do it yourself or hire someone (and who to hire).
Set yourself up for success
This is one of the most powerful, but underrated tools and marketing user persona. So for those of you who don’t know what a persona is, make sure to follow me here. Don’t miss out in the next video for, I’m going to explain that in detail. You now know that Instagram is putting together the content for the explore page basing on similarities, basing on what you would like.
So wouldn’t it be a smart move to set yourself up for exactly this? Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky said that you should skate where the puck is going to be and not where it is right now. And that’s exactly what you do by creating a user persona. A user persona does not only help you to stay consistent with your content, but it also makes it easier for Instagram to categorize your content and increase the chances for you to get on the explore page.
Create a User Persona to get on Explore Page
If you create a persona specifically for your Instagram, You could include some posts that your audience typically likes. Get a mood board done, that you can refer to when creating your own content. That makes it so much easier to have a defined result in mind, and it also helps you to work with other people, collaborate and hire creatives since it helps them understand better what it is that you want.
Using your old content
Have you already created content in the past? Chances are your content is getting dusty in your archives.
There is a way for you to refresh and repurpose already existing content in order for you to get more out of it. Your advantage? Your content doesn’t lose value.
I just finished putting together this system so you can copy it. 👇
Action Items
1️⃣ Answer these questions:
- Who is ideal customer?
- Where are they?
- What are their wants and needs?
2️⃣ Pick the right content format:
- It’s helpful for your ideal customer
- You can easily create it
🚀 Start creating content
Need help assembling your content puzzle? 🧩 Get access to an exclusive content cheat sheet by subscribing to my email list.
Summary
The explore page on Instagram is that page where everyone wants to get on, but nobody knows how the Instagram algorithm selects content for your target audience based on what they like. It works just like a championship. Instagram picks out content, tests it, if it works with the audience and then only a couple of finalists get all the way through to the explore page.
This selection process is called sourcing and ranking. You can’t control if your content gets on the explore page or not. But what you can do is optimize your efforts in order to increase your chances to get on the explore page for that, create a user persona to make it easier for Instagram to filter out your content and feed it directly to the explore page.
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