Do similar posts get similar reach on Instagram?

Hi all,
I have a very surprising observation to share with the community. I have read in a number of articles that the Instagram algorithm decides the reach of posts based on how a sample of users interact with the post.

In the past weeks, I have posted a few posts with almost similar images(attached below), almost similar captions, and exact same hashtags. I assumed that the posts would have significantly different reach based on the working of the IG algorithm. However, I observed that those posts had almost similar reach although the posts had a very different engagement.

I am wondering if there’s something “deterministic” going on behind the IG algorithm that we can learn from this observation or this is happening purely by chance. Anyone observed a similar pattern or can help me understand why this might be happening?

Thanks!

There is so much that goes on when you post.
What time of the day/ week?
Did your audience like the first one and do they like similar ones after?

How did it go well with hashtags and explorer?

On my big account I can post the same posts and get very different responses depending on the time I post and how many of my actual followers like the post within the first hour. If its a lot ill hit explore and hashtags. If its not then it will just stay low and be only my loyal fans that liked it.

I think its the same of its only your loyal fans. But once you hit explorer or big hashtags then it varies heaps.

1 Like

Thanks for the information!

The engagement on the posts is very different. And most of the reach ~70% comes from the hashtags and “other section”. I am assuming it might just be that I’ve used a decent set of hashtags since these posts also have maximum reach from hashtags from ~100 posts.

That’s a million-dollar question and I assume we can only guess what’s going on behind the curtain.

1 Like

Yeah I too guess at the end of the day we need to that :sweat_smile:

1 Like

Yes, because you can have two same patterns and opposite and different experiences about two same things. I’ve heard such cases so that’s why I say it’s a million-dollar question :smiley:

1 Like