Something that most of y'all probably don't know about me is that I love stats + data. In 5th grade, when my soccer team was in the running for first place in our league, I would always check the website with our standings and analyze our goal differential, how many games we'd won compared to other teams, and our chances of winning the league. Everyone on my team would always ask me, How many points do we have now? What are our chances of winning?
Fast forward 6 years, and I still love analyzing data, especially when it pertains to social media. I find it so intriguing, especially considering how the Instagram algorithm is so mysterious. At the beginning of October, I decided to challenge myself to post to my Instagram story every day for a month. I honestly expected to see growth in my story views + impressions, but surprisingly, I didn't see a significant amount of growth numerically. I did, however, notice some distinct patterns based on what types of posts did well, so today I'm sharing everything that I learned during this past month!
Interaction Is Key. Whenever I posted a story with an interactive component, such as a poll or a Q&A sticker, it got significantly more views and impressions than my other stories. I think people love to interact with stories, making them more likely to click through and engage, which in turn lets the algorithm show the stories to more people because the stories are receiving more engagement.