No one will tell you the truth about how reels are ranked – because no one knows. Not even the programmers. One of them writes their part of the code, the other writes their part. And how everything works together in real life with real people – only very few people know.
(You need to decide who knows, no one or only very few people :-D)
But through indirect signs, we can make a rough guess as to how everything really works. These are my observations.
1. Algorithms do not understand well what happens in the video. They are unable to distinguish between a naked person or a woman in nude tights doing yoga. Until someone submits a complaint.
But when the complaint is sent, then the videos begin to be analyzed. If the algorithms do not understand, a human moderator can take a look.
How do I know this? I watched videos with inappropriate content several times, they gained reach and after a few hours they were banned.
This means that Instagram initially does not watch your video. It bans it only after somebody complains.
2. Most likely, videos are divided into interests. Beautiful views, sports, memes about cats and so on. Algorithms probably do not look at the video itself, but at those who watch it and write comments.
They look at you: what you write in the caption, what hashtags you use and what you watch. Look at who/what you watch and who/what your audience watches and consider the geolocation. Listen to the sound and the track of the video. According to all aggregating features, videos are evaluated and shown to those who are interested in it.
How do I know this? From my own news feed.
I often like photos of the UK countryside in the home feed and on the explore page. Plus, my own reels are videos with beautiful views of the UK. They realized that I’m interested in this topic and show me the same videos.
Here‘s a story that happened, because I watched videos with a beautiful scenery.
I once clicked on the hashtag „Switzerland“: scrolled through and liked some photos. And then by some miracle videos of the Swiss mountains and Norwegian fjords began to play endlessly in my reels tab. Apparently, those who like Switzerland also like Norway.
3. Algorithms evaluate activity.
They show videos of “your potential audience”, and if this audience rated you (watched to the end, liked, commented and shared it) – you get a boost in reach.
Instead of the usual 400, you get 4000 views.
If these 4000 also engaged with your video, you get another boost and so on and so on, until the audience ends, or you get millions of views.
If, at the very beginning, the audience didn‘t engage with your work, your video is not shown anywhere else.
How do I know this? Reels reach often grows up to a certain number. For example, once, it grew til 5000, and then stopped. Or skyrocketed to 5000, then a moment of stagnation, then another 50,000, and another 500,000. And so on up to millions.
And it looks like this applies to Instagram in general much like to Tiktok, which Instagram successfully copies.
This is all we know about the work of reels so far.
My recommendation: don’t try to fool the algorithms. Play with them, but play by their rules. They want your video to fall into a clear category: shoot the way others shoot in your recommendations to make it easier for them to define your niche. And they also want your videos to be rewarded with likes and to be watched to the end. To do this, make it interesting. That’s all.