The Instagram Algorithm (5 Easy Ways You Can Support Your Friends with Small Businesses)
Intuit has deemed millennials + gen z the “side hustle generation,” following a survey that found 66% of people ages 18-35 either have started their own business or have plans to start one soon. That means you likely have *at least* one friend who either has or is planning to open their own small business.
For many, this entrepreneurial pursuit may be a side hustle that they’re slowly building alongside an existing position at a company they don’t own themselves. The survey found that for the majority of people starting their own business, their motives were extra sources of income + hopes to eventually transition to focusing solely on their own business. All the more reason to support your friends in any way you can on their new business endeavors.
Any business opening its doors today will likely have social media accounts + rely heavily upon those platforms to spread awareness + gain an initial customer base. If you want to support your small business owner friends, here are a few things you can do to signal to the Instagram algorithm that their content should be distributed to more users across the platform so their account + business can grow.
Like their posts
Liking their posts is the most basic way to show your support + it’s kind of like the bare minimum. If you see a post from your friend on their business account + scroll past without even double-tapping, are you sure you’re their friend? You see them trying to build something + it costs you nothing (less than a second of your time) to drop a like. So, if you truly want to support them, why wouldn’t you leave a like?
Save their posts
Saving their posts is another small thing you can do to help signal to the Instagram algorithm that their content is important + worth showing to more folks. It’s also an invisible, quiet way you can support your friend. If you don’t want to repost or reshare their posts because you don’t want it on your page, that’s fair. These are all things you can do that make no visible change to your own account.
When you save a post, no one else knows that you’ve saved it. It goes into your saved posts (that are only visible to you) + you can even create a specific folder or “collection” just for their content to keep it organized separately from other posts you’ve saved if you want.
Send their posts to someone
The more a post is engaged with + shared, the more relevant Instagram’s algorithm deems it to be. By sending the post to someone, you’re telling Instagram that the content is valuable in some way, whether it be educational, funny, or just interesting. Sending your friend’s business post to someone (even if it’s another account of yours) helps it get shown to more people on the platform so their business can be discovered by more users.
Comment on their posts
Leaving a comment on your friend’s business page post is another level of engagement that tells Instagram the content should be shown to more people. The more engagement a post gets, the more likely Instagram is to continue showing it to a broader audience.
While some people claim only comments that are a certain length (3-5 words or longer depending on where you look) trigger the algorithm to take notice, Instagram has never stated that comment length has any bearing on how the algorithm deals with the content – it’s the comment itself that’s the important part.
As long as your comment is genuine + doesn’t seem spammy in content (no “send me this post!”), it should count as interaction. If you want to be on the safe side, stick to the 3-5+ words rule. Even if it doesn’t help, it certainly won’t hurt.
Like and/or comment on their stories
Again, dropping a like is pretty basic level stuff, but if you want to show your support + help your friend’s small business out even more, leave a comment on their story. Comments on stories show up in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen when another person views the story, so unlike responding to a story with a direct message, your comment is public + visible to other users. Like any other form of engagement, this signals to the Instagram algorithm that the content is interesting, relevant, and valuable enough to show it to more accounts.
The moral of the story is engagement is key. The more engagement a post gets, the more Instagram’s algorithm pushes it to the explore page, reels tab, suggested posts, and the top of the feed. How much you decide to engage with the content is up to you, but these are all small ways that you can help your friends grow their small businesses + none of them cost you more than a few seconds of your time.
Feeling generous after reading this blog? Check us out on Instagram + leave us a like or two. We appreciate your support.
