Instagram CEO explains how to go viral

🗞️ Top Marketing News This Week

Instagram Ranking Changes

• Instagram published a blog by Adam Mosseri explaining that IG uses a variety of algorithms and processes to surface content and personalise the experience. Overall, posts are ranked based on factors like user activity (likes, comments, shares, and saves) based on the post location and the account who posted it. The algorithm then makes its own assumptions about what content will fuel more engagement.

• Key takeaway: Listen to what the actual leaders are saying. Make sure you focus on content that is engaging, shareable, and relatable. Review your IG plans for the next month – are you creating content people want to share & engage with? Are you engaging daily with your audience?

🚀 Big Marketing Moves You Can Learn From

Good brands and good marketing focus on targeting your identity. Great brands and great marketing focus on your aspirational identity. Who would you like to become?

Apple is the company we are going to pinch these tips from this week.

1. Identity. Duke University did a study where they collected a group of participants. They gave half of the subjects an IBM and the other half a Mac. Then they asked them to come up with creative ideas, and the participants exposed to the Mac computer came up with a lot more creative ideas.

2. Mimetic Theory of Desire We rely heavily on social proof and we look to follow trends and see what other people are doing. Put simply, we are programmed to want things that we see other people showing them off in a way that looks cool or interesting. Apple achieve this by putting their logo on everything. Because without realising it all that exposure leads people to see the brand as popular even if we aren’t conscious of it.

3. Loss aversion. Okay, this one IBM used to fight back at Apple. Did you know that people are more likely to use a mediocre business with a track record than a new unproven business even if they offer a better service? Why? Well, it’s because we hate losing. IBM leveraged this well over the years. They weren’t flashy or cool like their competitor the Apple Mac but they were reliable and boring. There is no risk of getting yourself fired if you bought IBM.

4. Halos for everyone. First impressions are everything. We make snap judgments about people as soon as we meet them. Those judgments can be really hard to change. The same is true for businesses. Even worse people will stick by these snap judgments and defend them until the bitter end whether it is right or wrong. To make matters worse these judgments happen in just a few seconds. But there is good news. A good first impression can have your back for the long haul. It will act like a moat around your business or brand to protect you.

5. Anchors Away. Most businesses make the mistake of trying to reel customers in with a low price. Prices starting from just $1000 - wrong ❌ This is a huge mistake. You have now anchored my pricing expectations at $1000 so anything over that now seems expensive. Instead, you want to start with the most expensive product or service you offer. Let’s use Apple again as an example of this technique in action. They will show you the all singing all dancing MacBook pro air for $3000 with more storage than anyone will use in a lifetime, no matter how many selfies you take. Then they show you the slightly cheaper options. You have now been anchored and the other options that are slightly less don’t appear as obnoxious - they actually seem more affordable and desirable. This is most likely the easiest tool you could implement today in your business.

🤭 Marketing Hack of the Week

For this week’s hack, we are sticking with Instagram. We touched on the blog post from CEO Adam Mosseri above. He also created a a video to explain how the platform’s ranking system works.

… And to steal an old Facebook term, “it’s complicated.”

Instagram has a different algorithm for Stories, Reels, Feeds, and for Explore. And, they all work together to personalize users’ experiences. Confused?

Each algorithm has the same goal—to keep users engaged for as much time as possible.

So let me break it down for you below:

• Stories: Determines which Stories users are most likely to watch based on factors like how often they view or interact with a particular user’s Stories, whether they message each other, and so on.

• Feed: Shows top content from people they follow, but also suggests content based on predictive algorithms—how likely they are to engage with the post, tap on a profile, or spend time on a post.

• Reels: Guesses which Reels users are most likely to watch or engage with using signals like Reels watch history, creator information, and similar.

• Explore: Posts popular topics based on what interests them, how often they interact with similar posts, and so on.

If you pay close attention to how the algorithms work you can work out how to get Instagram to surface your content.

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💬 Marketing Tweet of the Week