Social Media Algorithms: The ‘Truth’ About Social Media Likes

This Might Change Your Mind About Social Media Likes Forever

The Like Game: A Look at the Percentage of ‘Likes’ of My Instagram Account Compared to the Three Most Followed Accounts, as of February 19, 2023

Are you hiding your like counts on Instagram? Or Are you tired of constantly chasing after more likes on social media? Well, it turns out that the number of likes you get doesn’t really matter. I did a little experiment and compared my Instagram account with the top three most followed accounts, including Instagram’s own account. What I found was surprising.

I was trying to figure out how social media algorithms work and then compared the top three most followed Instagram accounts with my own account.

I went to these Instagram accounts and selected one of their posts that had the most likes so far in the month of February, as of today:

1. Instagram—700K likes — 0.11% of 607 million followers
2. Cristiano Ronaldo — 16.8 million likes — 3.05% of 549 million followers
3. Lionel Messi — 13.2 million likes— 3.05% of 431 million followers
4. Massùod Hemmat — 47 likes — 4.05% of 1160 followers

The algorithm of my Instagram account appears to be far better tuned than the algorithms of the top three Instagram accounts, including Instagram itself.