How Instagram Detect Your Picture

Instagram Marketing
#1

Hi, I’m new to MPSocial, i just knew this amazing forum. I was active in AscendViral Forum.
thanks for all the guys who share great and educative information here.

continue to the post Golden Nugget from @pow Big Thanks For This Golden Nugget Bro! :wink:

from his thread We know that the picture we post always contains metadata that consist of:

  • Camera Info
  • Author and Copyright
  • Exif
  • Maker Notes
  • Location
  • MP
  • ICC Profile

then I started to check one by one, picture to picture, I found one influencer that has 388K followers, and I started to download her picture one by one and I found that the recent of her pictures has this ICC Profile while the others influencer’s picture does not have this ICC Profile.

ICC%20Profile
ICC%20Profile469×841 48.5 KB

and this post generate about 20.9K likes and 757 Comments.

while I track previous month of her post, the ICC Profile and other information is empty.

ICC%202
ICC%2021011×499 26.6 KB

and most of this previous post which does not have ICC Profile generated about 7K - 10K likes

From the ICC Profile I thought she is Iphone user and I try to uploaded picture directly taken from my Iphone and after it was uploaded, I try to check the metadata through here Metadata Checker and only EXIF Filled, but the ICC Profile is empty, therefore Iphone uploaded one does not guarantee ICC Profile filled like her.

I tried to edit picture taken from my Fujifilm XT20 and edited it on Lightroom, and check it with metadata checker before I upload it. Here is the result

ICC3
ICC31123×847 73.4 KB

icc5
icc5455×825 48.5 KB

All the metadata is filled from the camera info to ICC Profile, but when i uploaded the picture to instagram (Posted with Android Samsung S8+) and redownload it and check it again. All information is change, the rest of data is gone except the ICC Profile, but the whole ICC Profile information is changed, the primary platform was Microsoft Corporation and now change to Apple Inc.

ICC4
ICC4471×775 42.5 KB

My Finding are:

  1. Instagram always clear out picture metadata except for the ICC Profile if your picture had it before you upload it, but the ICC Profile will always change to Apple Inc. (Need to Check the correlation of Instagram and Apple)
  2. Even if your picture have ICC Profile before you upload it, and you edit the picture through the beautfy editor, the ICC Profile will be gone (I confirmed this when my GF edited her picture using Android beautfy editor after I edited it with Lightroom, Ohh… Girll… So Insecure :D)
  3. You can manipulate you geo location of the picture. If you picture has geo location, while you post your picture, Instagram will suggest the location exactly like your geo location. I used Geosetter to edit the geo location. You can use this website Pic2map to double confirm your picture location.
  4. Yes, the more of the metadata of the picture will help you get more reach (thanks to @pow )
  5. Becareful before you repost someone content, always check the metadata first, Instagram algorithm is insane nowaday.

So let’s try to more focus on this metadata so we can test if this hypotesis is right or not. Will it contribute in increasing our reach and engagement. Share it, if you have experienced with this metadata before :smiley:

This is my experiment with Metadata, and I still curious about how Microsoft one could change to Apple Inc after I redownload it from Instagram. What is the correlation of Apple User to Instagram? Will it give more reach and engagement?

I try to grow my level to level 2, please help me love this post if it is give you new insight :D.
Thanks Guys, you guys are rock !

32 Likes
#2

It changes that because you uploaded through an iPhone, if it’s android it will change to that.

You can change a lot of the metadata in Lightroom including geo location, and IG will use that, you can even including alt text for the image (Lightroom desktop) and it be suggested to IG.

Whatever you actually use to upload to IG will change.

5 Likes
#3

Hi, the last picture that changed from Microsoft To Apple was uploaded with Samsung S8+. While I uploaded the picture I took from Iphone directly and redownload it, all the metada is gone. Seems so weird.

1 Like
#4

probably some of the instagram image handling servers were using apples?

this doesn’t make sense tho. windows/linux servers are cheaper and easier to maintain, and apple stopped making servers already.

#5

Maybe, it will costly if the managed through Apple. Hi, I am from Indonesia BTW :grin:

#6

halo gan wkwkwkw

#7

Sorry I missed the part where it was uploaded via iPhone and then downloaded and re uploaded

#8

Very interesting post. IG using metadata to control reach makes perfect sense with their heavy focus on good original content these days. If anything I can only imagine it becoming more and more important.

#9

anak mana nih gan? :smiley:

#10

Yes, The algorithm is real nowaday :smiley:

#11

Pekanbaru, Indonesia. Feel free to add my discord rinaldojonathan#2159 wkwkwkw

Anyway, back to topic.
if we could add some metadata to the pics, would it help rank?

#12

Likely not. Mostly likely it tells IG that it’s a real photo and not copyrighted and ripped from elsewhere. The apple thing is interesting, but there could be any number of reasons for it.

4 Likes
#13

thanks for shareing your findings with us : )

#14

Thanks for sharing your research. Definitely going to be keeping metadata in my photoshop exports from now on.

#15

Your welcome Krip. Thanks for da like :grin:

#16

Yes. Apple correlaction with this, need investigation.

#18

not really help the rank, but instagram will detect that your content is original and start to expose it to gain more reach.

#19

What about stock images? They can be legally bought by hundreds of people and upload on IG.

How would Instagram treat them in this case?

#20

So if we strip all the metadata before reposting, is it bad in the sense that it shows IG that the image may be stolen and manipulated? Do you think it will hurt the account?

#21

Most of the picture in Instagram already reposted several times, and all the metadata is empty. So added some metadata into it will distinguish your picture even it is reposted.