Understanding How Instagram Ranks Who Watches Your Story

Picture this: you post a brand new story to your Instagram, let it run for a few hours, then come back to see who’s viewed it. What do you see? Your ex, crazy sister-in-law and/or long lost friend from college are creeping up to the number one spot and you have no idea why. They must be stalking your Instagram profile right? How else does Instagram rank who watches your story?

Ever since Instagram launched it’s Stories feature, it’s been game over for all of the IG stalkers out there. Now, every time a new story is posted onto your account, you’re able to view every single person who’s viewed it.

While it may seem as if the higher a person is on the list, the more they’re low-key stalking you, that actually may not be the case.

If you check your Instagram story views every hour (or minute) after posting like the rest of us (we know you do), you’ll notice the order of the list will change as more and more people begin watching your story.

Yet, what bugs everyone the most about this feature is this mysterious algorithm that ‘randomly’ ranks your viewers. Seriously, why is your ex bf/gf/pal at the top of your viewer list??

No one seems to have any idea about the rhyme or reason behind it. We get who is viewing your story, but the question is, what is the deciding factor between being higher or lower on the views list? It certainly isn’t chronological!

Some seem to think it may be due to the amount of interaction you have with a person, whether that be through direct messaging, liking or commenting. Others say the accounts on top of the list are the people who stalk your profile on the reg. Regardless of what people think, neither scenario seems to completely solve the mystery of the Instagram Story views ranking system.        

To break it down for you, there are several factors that may contribute to the order of your Instagram story views.

Since Stories are unable to receive likes, it makes sense especially from a brand or business perspective, to be able to see who is viewing your story. From this data, you are able to track things like how many people have seen it or even the demographic of who is watching your stories.

If you have a business profile, you’re able to see the actions taken from the story, impressions, follows and navigation actions which include things like clicking forward while viewing your story or exiting the screen once your story is viewed. Essentially, this gives you an idea about whether your story is compelling enough to leave people wanting more, or if viewers cannot relate to your content and exit out of the story right away.

Before getting into the rankings of your Instagram story views, it’s important to know how your stories are seen because you’ve guessed it – there’s an algorithm for that too!

Similar to the Instagram algorithm of feeds, Stories are uploaded in certain order based upon a few factors. From a viewers perspective, these factors include: the probability of you being interested in the content, the time at which the story is uploaded, and lastly, your relationship to the person posting the story.

Instagram monitors your behavior the more you use the app, so the ability for the app to figure out what your interests are develops over time.

For instance, if you’re from Los Angeles and post photos geotagging LA, Instagram will begin filtering brands and profiles that are somehow linked to LA. Additionally, if you are liking content that is focused around LA, this will also alert Instagram that Los Angeles could be an area of interest for you.

Now on to how Story viewers are ranked within your viewer list.

It’s important to note that there has not been any official statement from Instagram explaining the science behind this algorithm. Rather, numerous people have carried out experiments with their stories to gather some sort of data on this peculiar ranking game.

Upon compiling the experiments together, users found some common denominators in the ranking system of Stories.

First off, when you have less than 50 viewers, the list is shown in reverse chronological order. Second, once the view count is over 50, Instagram boosts accounts to the top based upon who you have recently interacted with the most. 

However, we can all agree that Instagram will certainly throw many more factors into the mix than just the two above, to create their complex algorithm. They seem to enjoy keeping people in the dark.

Of course, for businesses and brands it’s important to understand the rank of this list. This could determine the level of interest people have when viewing your content.

Other factors that play into the algorithm according to IG Reviews include:

• A viewer’s level of activity

• The frequency of profile visits

• Viewer interaction with a creator’s account with likes, comments, etc

• Messages sent by the viewer to the Story poster

Yet, other studies show that the ranking has to do with people YOU have interacted with most. Then the list changes the more you check it out to show you new people that are viewing your story. Ultimately, the list eventually remains the same as your story reaches it’s expiration date or traffic fizzles out.

Despite the order of the list on your story, there’s one important thing to take away from it. Take note of the people viewing your stories. Why you ask?

Regardless of the order of viewers, it’s important to know who is viewing your story overall. Whether someone is 4th on your list, or 188th, they’ve still viewed your story which means they are interested in what you’re posting and what you have to say.

For brands and businesses this is a great way to gather data on your key demographic and sort out what type of person is interested in your stories.

From this list of viewers you can get a better idea of where your target audience is geographically, gender ratio and so much more.

Take a moment to scroll through your viewer list and begin engaging with your viewers. This will not only help you to connect with your fans, but keep them interested in your content.

Additionally, if you know who is interested in your Stories, this could either help you to target more people within this group or allow you to see if you need to shift your efforts in a completely different direction. Essentially this list is the key to see who your audience is and if your targeting efforts are being met.

Being aware of who your audience is, is a huge part of being successful on Instagram. While the order of the viewer list may be an intriguing case to crack, at the end of the day, the most important piece of information is having the ability to see who’s viewing your stories. Engage with those viewers as they are the people who are interested in your content!

What is your take on the Instagram Stories Algorithm? Have you conducted any experiments on why viewers are ranked in a particular order? Leave a comment below to let us know – we’d love to hear your thoughts!

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