Find Out Why Your Reels Aren't Getting Those Coveted Likes? Instagram Reveals The Bias

How to make that trending reel? How to make most engaging videos to go viral? Is there any way to predict how Instagram works?

All social media users must have wondered that why certain people always get good views on their posts while others don't. It turns out that Instagram is strategically adjusting video quality based on popularity, prioritising high-quality streams for videos that garner more views. In other words, Instagram has been quietly helping some videos look more appealing than others.

Instagram has made this big revelation that the quality of reels and videos depends largely on the creator's popularity and their engagement metrics. High-performing videos get priority, while lesser-known creators may see their content in reduced quality. Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained that the platform priorities popular creators by allocating more resources to their videos. "It works at an aggregate level, not an individual viewer level. We bias to higher quality (more CPU intensive encoding and more expensive storage for bigger files) for creators who drive more views. It's not a binary threshold, but rather a sliding scale" Mosseri stated. This basically means that videos of influencers are more likely to be streamed in higher quality, while less popular content may be compressed to save bandwidth and storage.

Why Instagram Reduces Video Quality for Some Users

Instagram's decision to adjust video quality based on popularity is a response to the high demand for video content on the platform. Instagram has over 500 million daily active users and as more users upload videos daily, the Meta owned firm is forced to handle a massive amount of video data, which adds load on the server storage and processing power.

Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users globally. With 385.4 billion users, India has the highest number of Instagram users worldwide as of 2024. Meta the parent company, explains on its blog, "Processing video for video on demand (VOD) and live streaming is already compute intensive. It involves encoding large video files into more manageable formats and transcoding them to deliver to audiences. Today, demand for video content is greater than ever. And emerging use cases, such as generative AI content, mean the demands on video infrastructure are only going to intensify".

How to get more views and likes?

Content creators can choose to make unique content, because people love novelty. Apart from that choose trending topics to go with the flow. Creators can additionally optimise their videos by ensuring they are well-lit, properly framed, and edited to a high standard. Also, using relevant hashtags and engaging with the Instagram community can help increase visibility and attract a larger audience.

For now, Instagram will continue to propel the influencers, even if it comes at the expense of newer voices trying to establish themselves. Whether this will ultimately improve the user experience or curtail diversity on the platform remains to be seen, but the policy reflects a shift towards prioritising platform efficiency and performance over quality.