Glossary
Instagram, in plain words
329 terms you will meet in Instagram’s guidance and Adam Mosseri’s posts. Each definition was written from, and checked against, the sources listed with it.
A
- A/B testing
A way to compare two versions of an Instagram feature or recommendation system by showing them to different groups of people and measuring how they perform.
- Account authenticity
Whether an Instagram account genuinely represents the person, business, or other entity it claims to represent. Instagram may ask some account holders to confirm who they are if it detects signs of potentially inauthentic activity.
- Account integrity
Measures to address account misuse, including action against maliciously obtained or sold verification. Accounts that do not confirm their information may receive reduced distribution or be disabled.
- Account recommendations
Account recommendations are accounts Instagram may suggest to people who don’t already follow them, in places like Search or Suggested Accounts.
- Account removal
An enforcement action that disables or takes down an Instagram account, so its owner can no longer use it. This may happen after repeated violations of Instagram’s rules.
- Account Status
An Instagram settings tool for checking account issues, including removed content and, for professional accounts, whether content may be eligible for recommendations to non-followers. It can also provide a way to request a review.
- Accounts Center
A settings hub where you can add accounts from Meta apps and manage some settings for them together or separately.
- Activity dashboard
A dashboard in Your Activity that shows your average time on Instagram; tapping a bar shows your total time for that day.
- Activity Off-Meta Technologies
A setting that lets you manage how information other businesses send to Meta is connected to your Instagram account, including reviewing or disconnecting businesses and clearing the data.
- Ad bids
A technique Meta has described uses advertisers’ bid amounts—the amount an advertiser may pay when an ad is shown or gets an interaction—to help rank ads.
- Ad conversions
Conversions are outcomes, such as purchases, that Meta’s ad recommendation system learns from to improve ad relevance.
- Ad eligibility errors
Issues in a Story’s content that Instagram prompts a creator to address when they allow a brand partner to boost the Story as an ad.
- Ad interactions
Actions you take on ads, such as viewing or engaging with them. Instagram may use these actions when choosing ads or suggested products to show you.
- Ad load
A technique Meta has described in patents for adjusting the number or share of ads shown alongside organic posts in a feed.
- Ad personalization
The tailoring of ads people see to make them relevant to them, using information such as their Instagram activity, interests, content, ad feedback, or information from advertisers and partners.
- Ad ranking
A process for scoring eligible ads and ordering them for display. Meta describes ranking ads using a person’s past behavior and real-time ad signals; a patented feed technique also weighs expected interaction and bid amount.
- Ad targeting
A way advertisers choose which people may be shown an ad by selecting an audience for it. An advertiser may, for example, try to reach people whose visit to its website it has told Meta about.
- Adaptive Ranking Model
An ads-ranking system that matches each ad request with a model suited to a person’s context and intent, aiming to make ads more relevant while keeping ad selection efficient.
- Ads Manager
A tool advertisers can use to create new partnership ads on Instagram.
- Ads Preferences
A set of controls that lets people influence which ads they see and what information is used to inform those ads.
- Affiliate links
A link to an eligible product that a creator can use to tag it in a Reel; people can tap the tag to shop, and the creator can earn a commission when they do.
- Affinity
A technique described in Meta patents for estimating someone’s interest in a person or piece of content using signals such as past activity, interactions, and relationships.
- Age verification
A process Instagram uses to confirm someone’s age, with options such as uploading an ID, social vouching, or a video selfie, to help provide age-appropriate experiences.
- Age-appropriate content
Rules and settings that shape what teens can see on Instagram based on their age, including filters that hide more content considered inappropriate for people under 18.
- AI-generated content
Content made with AI tools, such as AI-generated images or audio.
- Allow brand partner to boost
A setting creators can turn on when making a Story to let its brand partner boost it; Instagram may then prompt them to address ad-eligibility issues in the content.
- Andromeda
A Meta ads system that selects a small set of potentially relevant ads from a larger pool for later systems to decide which ads to show.
- Approximate-nearest-neighbor search
A retrieval technique Meta has described for finding nearby matches without exhaustively comparing every item, reducing the computation needed to find candidates. The sources do not establish that Instagram uses it.
- Audience controls
Tools that let creators choose who can see their content, such as setting an audience for a Live or sharing a Reel with Close Friends.
- Audience demographics
Demographic information in Instagram Insights about accounts that engage with your content or follow you, such as age ranges and gender breakdowns.
- Audience growth
A change in the size of a creator’s audience over time. Instagram Insights shows follower growth as the number of followers gained or lost.
- Audience matching
A recommendation technique that helps Instagram find people who may be interested in a post by looking at what people with similar interests engage with.
- Audio pages
A page for a track’s audio where people can find Reels and look for inspiration to make their own.
- Audition system
A way Instagram tests public content with a minimum number of views among people who don’t follow the creator, then shows it to more non-followers if it performs well.
- Automatic dubbing
A feature that translates speech in a Reel into another language and creates new audio that sounds like the original speaker. It can also make the speaker’s lips appear to match the translated words.
B
- Bag-of-Meaning tokens
Bag-of-Meaning tokens are a compact, unordered vocabulary of interest concepts that Meta Ads is exploring to represent a person’s interests or the interests an ad or advertiser serves.
- Best Practices hub
A hub with tips and tools to help creators make engaging, consistent content.
- Blend
A shared Reels feed in a DM that combines recommendations you and your friends may like. Everyone in the chat must opt in to take part.
- Boomerang
A camera format that stitches a burst of photos into a short video that plays forward and backward, creating a loop. You can make one in Instagram Stories.
- Branded content
Content a creator makes as part of a commercial relationship with a business. Instagram’s paid partnership tool lets the creator tag the business, and the post or story can show “Paid partnership with” and the business’s account.
- Broadcast channels
A messaging channel where a creator can share messages with followers who join, creating a way to engage directly with their audience. Members can react and vote in polls, and channels can also allow replies.
- Bullying and harassment
A policy area covering abusive behavior such as bullying and harassment toward people. Instagram may remove content that violates its rules and provides tools to limit unwanted interactions.
C
- Calibration
A measure of whether a model’s predicted rate of an action matches how often that action actually happens. For a ranking model, it is calculated as predicted click-through rate divided by observed click-through rate; a value of 1 is ideal.
- Candidate generation
A recommendation step that gathers possible posts, accounts, or reels a person might be interested in, before a later ranking step chooses which ones to show.
- Caption editing
A feature that lets you go back and edit the caption on a post after sharing it, such as to fix a typo.
- Captions and keywords
Text a creator adds to a post, which can include relevant keywords and hashtags. Relevant keywords in captions can help people find posts in Search.
- Carousels
A post that combines multiple photos or videos in a sequence of slides people can swipe through.
- Chronological ranking
A way of ordering feed posts by when they were shared, with the newest first, instead of by predicted interest. Instagram’s Following and Favorites feeds can show posts in chronological order.
- Click-through rate
The percentage of times a notification or other item is shown that results in a click. Instagram also uses predicted click-through rate to estimate how likely someone is to click a notification.
- Click-through rate prediction
An estimate of how likely someone is to click a notification. Instagram has described using these predictions to help decide whether to send story-digest notifications.
- Clickbait
Content designed to get people to click, a technique Meta has described; Instagram identifies clickbait as content users broadly dislike and may avoid recommending.
- Close Friends
A private list of accounts you choose as the audience for certain content, such as Stories, Reels, or Live broadcasts. Only you can see and manage the list.
- Cold-start recommendations
Ways to recommend posts when a person or new content has little interaction history for the system to learn from. Instagram has described starting with popular posts or connected accounts, and matching new content to likely audiences even when there are few interactions.
- Collab posts
A post or Reel co-authored by multiple accounts. Once collaborators accept, it can appear on each account’s profile and reach each collaborator’s audience.
- Collaborative filtering
A recommendation method that looks at posts you’ve liked and accounts you follow, finds other people with similar activity, then uses what they like and follow to suggest posts or accounts.
- Collections
A named group of posts you’ve saved, used to organize them and revisit them later. Some collections can be shared with friends, who can add saved posts too.
- Comment controls
Tools in Instagram settings that let you choose who can comment on your posts, stop comments, or automatically hide comments with offensive words and phrases.
- Comment filtering
Tools that hide comments based on words you choose or Instagram’s detection of offensive, bullying, or spam content. Some hidden comments may still be viewable.
- Comment ranking
A process that orders comments in a post’s thread, placing comments considered most relevant to a viewer near the top. Instagram scores comments using signals such as relevance to the post and popularity, and may rank aggressive comments lower.
- Comment replies
Responses to a specific comment on an Instagram post, grouped underneath it in a thread so people can follow and continue the conversation.
- Comments
Written responses people leave on posts. Instagram may use comments you make or comments on a post as signals when ranking content.
- Communication history
A technique Meta has described that uses records of past communications between a person and their contacts, such as how often they communicate, to help rank contacts by social closeness.
- Community Guidelines
A set of rules that define what is and isn’t allowed on Instagram. They apply to all content, and Instagram removes content that violates them.
- Community Notes
A feature that lets contributors add context to posts; the notes don’t change who can see a post or how widely it can be shared.
- Component Skip Connection
A technique Meta has described for processing very long user sequences more efficiently: it selectively activates sequence components in each layer and routes their outputs through residual connections, reducing computation while aiming to preserve quality.
- Computer vision
Techniques that let Instagram analyze photos, such as recognizing objects or concepts in them; the resulting information can help recommend content.
- Connected audience
People who already follow a creator, as opposed to people who don’t follow them.
- Connected ranking
The part of Instagram ranking that decides how content is shown to people who follow its creator. Instagram aims to show it to as many interested followers as possible.
- Connected reach
The number of people who see a post and already follow its creator.
- Content appeals
A way to ask Instagram to review a decision about your content, such as removing it or finding it ineligible for recommendations.
- Content characteristics
Properties of content that a technique Meta has described can use to rank it or compare with a user’s attributes when selecting content; this describes patented approaches, not a feature Instagram is known to use.
- Content classification
A technique Meta has described for assigning content to categories based on what it contains or its quality, so systems can use those categories to guide sharing, search, or feed selection.
- Content demotion
Reducing how widely a post is distributed or showing it lower in a ranking, rather than removing it outright.
- Content distribution
A technique Meta has described for delivering digital content over the internet to people’s devices as part of a campaign; this does not mean Instagram is known to use it.
- Content integrity
A consideration in Instagram Explore ranking for harmful, deceptive, or otherwise problematic content. Such content may be filtered out or ranked lower.
- Content interactions
Actions people take on a post, such as liking, commenting on, saving, or sharing it. Instagram can use these actions as signals when ranking and recommending content.
- Content moderation
The process of finding and reviewing Instagram content that may break its Community Standards and taking action, such as removing it. Content that is allowed but may be inappropriate can instead be limited from Explore.
- Content Monetization Policies
Rules that content must meet to be eligible for certain monetization features, such as bonuses that pay creators for views or plays.
- Content popularity
Signals of how much attention content has received, such as its engagement. Instagram may consider these signals when recommending or ranking content.
- Content preferences
A settings area where you can manage suggested content, including interests and the kinds of posts you see. It also contains the option to reset your suggested content.
- Content quality
A judgment of how engaging content may be, or whether it is problematic or low quality. Instagram may reduce distribution of content it considers problematic or low quality; Meta has described patented quality-prediction methods.
- Content ranking
A process that uses signals about you and content to order or rank what you see, with machine learning predicting what you may find interesting or valuable.
- Content recommendations
Content that Instagram selects to show someone because they may be interested in it, including posts from accounts they don’t follow. The selection may be based on their interests or content they’ve interacted with.
- Content relevance
How well a piece of content fits a viewer’s interests or the broader context. Content that seems more relevant may be more likely to get watched or engaged with.
- Content reporting
A way to notify Instagram that content may break its rules; it’s different from choosing Not Interested to see fewer similar posts.
- Content source
The person or system that supplies a content item. Meta has described filtering feeds by a content item’s source in a patented technique.
- Content type
A label for an item’s format or category, such as a photo or video. Meta patents describe filtering social-network content by type, and Facebook describes varying content types in ranked News Feed posts.
- Control group
A comparison group in an experiment, used as a baseline for measuring how results differ from a test group. Meta has described this technique in research and patents, but that alone doesn’t show it is used on Instagram.
- Conversion rate
In Meta’s page-recommendation patents, conversion rate is the number of conversions divided by the number of impressions for a page or page pair.
- Cosine similarity
A technique Meta has described for comparing vector representations—lists of numbers that represent things—to estimate how similar they are; a higher score means a closer match.
- Creator Marketplace
A tool in Instagram that helps brands and creators find and work on branded-content partnership opportunities; creators can also discover brand opportunities and manage deals in the app.
- Cross-posting
Sharing content across Instagram and another app or surface, such as posting an Instagram Reel to Facebook or a Threads post to Instagram.
- Cutout tool
A tool in the Edits carousel editor that lets creators make stickers for their projects.
D
- Daily reminder
An alert that Instagram sends when you’ve reached the amount of time you want to spend on Instagram that day.
- Decay rate
A technique Meta has described for setting how quickly a newsfeed story loses relevance over time; the rate can be adjusted based on how stale the story appears.
- Deep Learning Recommendation Model
A recommendation-model architecture that combines information about people and items to estimate how likely someone is to click or interact with an item.
- Demographic targeting
Choosing who sees ads based on demographic details such as age, gender, or location. The options available can be restricted, including for teen audiences.
- Device characteristics
Information about the device or platform someone uses to access Instagram, such as web, Android, or iOS, which can help rank suggested search keywords. Meta has also described a patented technique that uses device data such as GPS, camera, and app-usage information to rank effects.
- Digital collectibles
Digital items, often NFTs, that people could create or own and share or display on Instagram. Instagram no longer offers the feature.
E
- Edits
A standalone app for creating and editing videos and carousels, with tools for arranging photos and videos together.
- Edits app
A standalone video-editing app from Instagram with creative tools and insights into how videos shared on Instagram perform.
- Edits assistant
A feature in Edits that helps creators analyze their Instagram insights and brainstorm new content ideas.
- Effects
A creative tool that changes a photo or video or adds visual elements, such as changing how someone looks or placing virtual objects or scenery in the scene. Some effects use augmented reality (AR) or AI.
- Effects browser
A Stories feature for browsing and choosing effects; its redesigned version lets people preview effects before trying them.
- Emails from Instagram
A tab in Instagram settings that shows recent emails Instagram has sent, so you can check whether a message about your account is authentic.
- Embedding-based retrieval
A way Instagram Explore finds candidate posts by representing people and posts as lists of numbers, then retrieving posts with similar representations.
- Embeddings
A technique Meta has described for turning categories such as users or posts into dense numerical vectors that recommendation models can use.
- Engagement
The actions people take in response to content, such as likes, comments, saves and shares.
- Engagement bait
A post that prompts people to interact with it, such as by asking them to like it if they agree. Instagram lists engagement bait among content that may be unsuitable for recommendations.
- Engagement prediction
An estimate of how likely someone is to take an action, such as clicking or liking a post, after seeing it. Instagram uses these predictions to help rank Explore recommendations and notifications.
- Engagement rate
A measure of how often people who see a post or Reel interact with it, such as by liking, sending, or commenting. Creators can use it to compare how content performs.
- Entity embeddings
A numerical representation of an identifiable thing, such as a post or page, that a system can compare with other things to find recommendations. Meta has described this technique in patents, but these sources don’t establish that Instagram uses entity embeddings.
- Explore
A place on Instagram where you can discover recommended photos and reels from accounts you don’t follow. It may also show curated topics you might enjoy.
- Explore ranking
The process of ordering posts selected for Explore by how likely Instagram thinks you are to engage with them, such as liking, saving, or sharing. Explore recommendations generally come from accounts you don’t follow.
- Explore recommendations
Personalized posts, photos, and reels from accounts you don’t follow, selected to help you discover new things based on your interests and activity on Instagram.
F
- Family Center
A hub where parents and guardians can find supervision tools and resources, and view or manage some settings and activity for a teen’s Instagram account.
- Favorites
A list of accounts you choose so their posts appear higher in your Feed. You can also view recent posts from just those accounts in a separate feed.
- Feed
A place in Instagram where you see posts from accounts you follow, suggested posts and ads. Instagram predicts which posts may be most relevant to you and orders them toward the top.
- Feed controls
Tools that let you manage who you follow and adjust what you see in Feed, giving you more choice over the content and ads shown.
- Feed ranking
A process that orders posts in Feed based on how likely you are to find them interesting and interact with them, along with your relationship with the poster and how recent a post is.
- Feed reach
Turning on Share to Feed lets your reel appear in your main grid alongside your photos and carousels.
- Feed recommendations
Posts Instagram may recommend in Feed to help people discover content from accounts they don’t follow. They appear alongside posts from accounts a person follows.
- Few-shot learning
An AI technique Meta says its recommendation systems use to understand people’s behavior preferences.
- Follower growth
The number of followers you’ve gained or lost over a period of time, shown in Instagram Insights when your account has at least 100 followers.
- Following feed
A feed view that shows posts and reels from accounts you follow, with the newest first and no recommendations.
- Follows
An action that connects your account to another account so you can see its posts in Following. Who you follow can also help shape recommendations for posts and accounts.
- Friends' interactions
Actions friends take on content, such as liking, commenting on, or reposting Reels, that help people discover content and connect over shared interests.
G
- Generative recommenders
A technique described in recommendation research that treats a person’s past interactions and other features as a sequence and uses a generative model to retrieve or rank content.
- GenRecs Tokenization
A technique Meta describes for representing ads and other items as short, reusable tokens based on their meaning and engagement patterns, so recommendation models can apply what they’ve learned to new items.
- Geographic proximity
A technique Meta has described for comparing how near people, places, or content locations are based on their physical locations, rather than how closely people are socially connected.
H
- Handle
A username that identifies an Instagram account and can help people find it in search.
- Hashtag pages
Pages that show public photos and videos shared with a hashtag. People can find them by searching for the hashtag or tapping it on a post.
- Hashtags
You can add hashtags to a post’s caption or comments. They connect the post to a hashtag page, where public posts using that hashtag can appear.
- Hate speech
Content that attacks people based on protected characteristics, such as race or religion. Instagram’s rules prohibit it, including some implicit forms such as Blackface and common antisemitic tropes.
- Hook
An opening line or moment in a video that grabs viewers’ attention and encourages them to keep watching.
I
- IGTV
A video app and space within Instagram for watching long-form videos from creators, with a personalized feed of recommended videos available through Explore.
- Imagine me
A Meta AI feature in Instagram DMs that creates images of you in a setting you describe; the first time you use it, Instagram asks you to add photos of yourself.
- Instagram Direct
Instagram’s private messaging feature for sending photos and videos to individual friends or groups. Conversations can also include texts and shared posts in the same thread.
- Instagram for TV
An Instagram app for TV that lets people browse and watch Reels on a big screen, including in channels based on their interests.
- Instagram Insights
Free analytics that let public accounts see overall trends among their followers and how their content performs with audiences. Creators can also view detailed metrics for individual posts, Stories, Reels, and live videos.
- Instagram Live
A feature for broadcasting live video on Instagram, where followers can watch and interact with you during the broadcast.
- Instagram Map
A map feature where you can see location-tagged content from friends and creators, and optionally share your last active location with a chosen group of friends.
- Instagram Messaging on desktop
A way to send and manage Instagram messages from the desktop website, alongside the mobile apps and mobile website.
- Instagram Plus
A paid subscription that adds extra ways to connect and share on Instagram; the free version of the app stays the same.
- Instagram Shopping
A group of Instagram features that lets people discover and buy products from brands and creators, including through Instagram Shop and suggested product content in Feed, Reels, and Explore.
- Instagram Subscriptions
A creator offering that lets you earn recurring monthly income by giving subscribers access to exclusive content and benefits on Instagram.
- Instants
A way to share quick, unedited photos with friends that disappear after they’re seen.
- Intellectual-property policies
Rules that prohibit posting work that violates someone else’s intellectual-property rights; creators are responsible for getting any permissions needed to use another person’s work.
- Interaction history
A record of your past actions on Instagram—such as liking, saving, commenting on, viewing, or sharing posts, or interacting with accounts—that can help Instagram estimate your interests and choose or rank posts for you.
- International audiences
People in different countries who can see or watch a creator’s Instagram content, including through translated Reels.
L
- Latent space
A technique Meta has described for representing users and content as vectors in a mathematical space, where inferred characteristics help a system compare them and find matches.
- Least-interacted-with accounts list
A list under Following that shows the accounts you’ve interacted with least over the last 90 days.
- Likes
Likes show how many people liked your reel; Instagram counts likes as interactions and uses them as a signal when recommending reels.
- Limits
A protection tool that limits interactions on Instagram, such as comments and message requests, from certain groups of people. You can also limit who can tag or mention you, including to Close Friends.
- Live Archive
A section of your Archive where you can view past completed Live broadcasts and share or download them. Broadcasts are stored there if Live archives are turned on before you go live.
- Live Producer
A way to go live on Instagram using streaming software and a stream key, with options such as extra cameras, external microphones, and graphics.
- Live Rooms
A feature that lets creators go Live with up to three other people at once.
- Live shopping
A way to shop during an Instagram livestream, where viewers can see featured products and buy them without leaving the video.
- Live video recommendations
A technique Meta has described for choosing live broadcasts to show a viewer: it matches a stream’s current topic to the viewer’s interests and ranks matches by the chance they’ll watch or interact.
- LLMs
AI models that work with language and its meaning. Meta has described testing them to assess whether content breaks its rules and exploring their use to understand intent and meaning for recommendations.
- Location
Geographic information about where a person is, such as their country or area. Instagram has used it to show people locally relevant information and indicate what country an account is in.
- Location-based recommendations
A technique described in Meta patents for recommending content, places, or events using a person’s location, sometimes alongside their interests or social information.
- Login Activity
A security feature that shows devices and locations linked to recent logins to your Instagram account, so you can log out of one you don’t recognize.
- Login Request
An alert you receive after setting up two-factor authentication when someone tries to log in to your Instagram account from an unrecognized device or browser. You can approve or deny the request from a device where you’re already logged in.
- Lookalike audiences
A technique Meta has described for finding and grouping people similar to a chosen group of high-value users, so advertisers can target them with sponsored content.
M
- Meta AI
An AI assistant on Instagram that can answer questions and help with tasks such as editing photos, creating chat themes, and translating or dubbing Reels.
- Misinformation
False or misleading information posted on Instagram. Depending on the content and policy context, Instagram may label it, reduce its distribution, remove it, or make an account’s content harder to find.
- Multi-stage ranking
A ranking approach that processes candidate content in several stages, with each stage narrowing the pool before later stages select and order the strongest options. Instagram describes using it for Explore recommendations.
- Multi-task learning
A machine-learning technique that trains one model to make predictions for several goals at once, sharing what it learns across related tasks.
- Multilayer perceptron
A neural-network model made of connected layers that process inputs, with an activation step between layers. Instagram has described using a shared multilayer perceptron in Explore to capture signals common to different predicted actions.
- Muse Image
An AI image-generation model from Meta that powers some Instagram effects in Stories.
- Music
Songs or tracks added to Instagram content, such as music from Instagram’s library for Reels or songs added to Stories with the Music sticker.
- Mute
A control that hides an account’s posts, Stories, or Notes while you keep following it. Muting messages or call notifications stops their notifications.
- Mute Push Notifications
A setting that limits Instagram notifications for a period of time, so you can focus.
N
- Native affiliate tool
A tool Instagram tested that lets creators find products available through checkout, share them with followers, and earn commissions when their posts drive purchases, all in the Instagram app.
- Negative feedback
A signal from actions like selecting “Not Interested” or asking to see fewer similar posts, showing Instagram that you don’t want certain content or recommendations.
- Nighttime nudges
A reminder shown to teens after they spend more than 10 minutes on Instagram late at night in places like Reels or Direct messages, telling them it’s late and encouraging them to close the app.
- Non-followers
People who don’t already follow your Instagram account. Instagram may recommend your content to them, and Insights can separate reach among non-followers from reach among followers.
- Normalized entropy
A model-quality metric that compares a model’s average prediction error with the error from a baseline that always predicts the average click rate; lower normalized entropy means more accurate predictions.
- Not Interested
A feedback option for telling Instagram you don’t want a post or recommendation; Instagram may hide it and show you fewer similar posts or recommendations in the future.
- Notes
A short post of up to 60 characters using text and emojis that you can share with followers you follow back or your Close Friends. It appears at the top of their inbox for 24 hours, and replies come to you as direct messages.
- Notification interactions
A person’s responses to notifications, including whether they interact with them. Meta has described using past responses in techniques for selecting or delivering notifications, but its patents don’t establish that Instagram uses those specific techniques.
- Notification ranking
A process that scores possible notifications based on factors such as their type, similarity to other content, and how likely you are to interact with them, then prioritizes the more relevant ones. It can also reduce the ranking of notifications that are too similar to ones recently sent.
- Notifications
Alerts Instagram sends about activity or content. Instagram may choose which ones to send and when, based on factors such as relevance; most are sent in real time.
O
- OneShot
A technique described in a research paper for Instagram short-video recommendations that organizes videos for quick retrieval while learning which ones may interest each user.
- Organic content
Content shown on Instagram without paid placement; it can be boosted later as an ad. Instagram ranks organic content for people who follow the creator and may also show it to people who don’t.
- Original content
Content you created yourself or that reflects your unique perspective. Third-party content may count if your edits meaningfully enhance it rather than simply reposting it.
- Overlay ads
A creator monetization tool offered by Facebook that Instagram creators may become eligible to use by cross-posting Reels to Facebook.
- Oversight Board
An external body that selects some eligible appeals of Meta’s content enforcement decisions for review and makes recommendations on its policies and processes.
P
- Parental supervision
A set of tools that lets a parent or guardian oversee parts of a teen’s Instagram experience, such as setting time limits, seeing how the teen uses Instagram, and approving some changes to safety settings.
- Personalized recommendations
Recommendations chosen to be unique to each person, based on information such as their interests and activity on Instagram.
- Personalized search
A way Instagram orders search results using how well they match your search and what you tend to interact with, so results predicted to be most relevant or valuable to you appear first.
- Photo tag suggestions
A technique Meta has described for suggesting people to tag in a photo, using clues such as who appears in it, social connections, or when and where it was taken. The person posting chooses whether to add a suggested tag.
- Photo tagging
A way to link an Instagram account to a photo or video by tagging it; tagged photos can appear in a Photos of You section on a profile.
- Photos
Still images shared on Instagram, including as posts, that can appear in Feed and search results.
- Political content
Posts that mention or are potentially related to governments, elections, or social topics. The label describes what the content is about, not a judgment about someone’s political opinion.
- Popularity bias
A tendency for recommendation systems to favor already-popular items, which can create feedback loops. Meta research has described ways to reduce this bias, but that does not show Instagram uses them.
- Posting frequency
How often an account publishes content on Instagram. There’s no one ideal schedule for every creator; it depends on what their audience wants and what they can sustain.
- Previously viewed posts
A record of posts you’ve already seen; Instagram’s Reels system can use which Reels you’ve seen when choosing what to show next.
- Prioritized review
A faster review process for content or accounts reported through certain safety programs, such as schools reporting safety concerns or parents flagging posts they think should be hidden from teens.
- Privacy settings
Settings that control who can see your account or particular things associated with it, such as posts; for example, an account can be private or public.
- Private accounts
An account setting that lets you control who sees your content. Only followers you approve can see your shared reels, photos, and videos in Search and Explore.
- Product recommendations
Suggested products are items Instagram presents in Feed, Reels, Explore, or Instagram Shop to help you discover things to buy. Suggestions can be relevant to you and influenced by your activity across Meta apps, accounts you follow, and businesses using Instagram Shopping.
- Product tagging
A feature that lets creators attach product tags to posts or Reels. Viewers can tap a tag to learn about or shop for the item.
- Professional account
An Instagram account type for a business or creator, as distinct from a personal account.
- Professional dashboard
An area in the Instagram app where creators can find learning materials, achievements and challenges, and tools for tasks such as joining the creator marketplace or managing AI replies.
- Profile information
Details shown on an Instagram account’s profile, such as its bio, profile photo, or profile category. Relevant keywords in a bio can help people find the account in Search.
- Public account
An account set to public rather than private; its posts may be visible on hashtag pages and may be eligible for recommendations to people who don’t follow it.
Q
- Query embeddings
A technique Meta has described for turning a search query or its words into a numerical representation that can be compared with representations of posts or other results to help find relevant matches.
- Quiet mode
A setting that silences Instagram notifications during times you choose. While it’s on, your activity status says you’re in quiet mode and people who DM you get an automatic reply.
R
- Ranking diversity
A technique described in a Meta patent for ranking content from different providers: it scores shared content details and groups of provider-specific details, then combines those scores to choose what to show.
- Ranking event
A page load, link click, or mouse focus event that a Meta patent describes counting and weighting to help select which concepts to show a user.
- Rate limits
A restriction on how frequently an account can post or comment; doing either too often can make Instagram’s system mistake the account for a bot.
- Reach
In Instagram Insights, creators can track reach trends and see which content reaches more accounts. They can also break down Accounts Reached by followers and non-followers to see how much reach comes from people who don’t already follow them.
- Read receipts
A notice in Instagram DMs that lets other people know you’ve read their message. You can turn read receipts on or off for all chats or specific chats.
- Recency
How recently a post was shared; Instagram says timeliness is a Feed ranking factor, and newer posts may be more likely to appear first.
- Recent interactions
A person’s recent actions on Instagram, considered along with their longer-term interests when choosing Explore recommendations.
- Recommendation controls
Tools that let people adjust the suggested content Instagram shows them, such as asking to see fewer similar posts or pausing suggested posts in Feed for 30 days.
- Recommendation eligibility
Whether Instagram may show a public account or its content to people who don’t follow it, in places such as Explore, Reels, Feed Recommendations, Search, or Suggested Accounts. Eligibility doesn’t guarantee that Instagram will recommend it.
- Recommendation filtering
A technique Meta has described for recommendation systems that removes possible items that don’t meet conditions such as language, location, or eligibility rules.
- Recommendation Guidelines
Rules Instagram uses to decide whether content from public accounts may be recommended to people who don’t follow them. Content that goes against these rules may be made harder to find without being removed; separate rules determine what content is allowed to remain on Instagram.
- Recommendation model training
A process for teaching recommendation models from data so they can help choose recommendations. Meta has described training these models on large datasets, including ad content and user-engagement data.
- Recommendation profile
In Meta's patent, a recommendation profile is a profile associated with a user that can be used to tailor recommendations about what they might share.
- Recommendation retrieval
A stage in a recommendation system that selects a smaller set of relevant posts or other items from a much larger collection for ranking stages to evaluate.
- Recommendation scoring
A process that gives candidate posts or reels scores based on predicted relevance or value, then uses those scores to order recommendations. Some systems combine predictions for different user actions into one score.
- Reels
Creators can share reels on Instagram, and people can watch reels from accounts they follow or suggested accounts in places like the Reels tab, Explore and their feed.
- Reels plays
A count of how many times a Reel starts playing. Instagram’s November 2023 update says Reels Plays includes initial plays and replays, while its help page says the play count shown on profile reels excludes replays.
- Reels reach
The number of different accounts that have seen your Reels content on screen at least once.
- Reels recommendations
Content Instagram suggests to each person in Reels, personalized to help them discover relevant content and accounts they may not already follow.
- Reels translations
A feature that lets creators use Meta AI to translate a Reel’s speech into selected languages, with optional lip-syncing and review before publishing, so more people can understand it.
- Reels trends destination
A dedicated place on Reels where creators can find trending songs, see how often audio has been used, and use or save it. It also shows trending topics and hashtags.
- Relationship strength
A measure of how closely two accounts are connected, reflected in relationship information and interactions. Instagram uses a person’s relationship with an account as one signal when ordering Feed and Stories.
- Remix
A creation tool for making a Reel with your own video alongside or after an existing Reel, such as to add a reaction or commentary.
- Reposts
A way to share public Reels and feed posts with friends and followers. Reposts are credited to the original poster and may appear in those people’s feeds and in a separate tab on your profile.
- Reset recommendations
A setting that resets the content Instagram recommends, so recommendations start personalizing again over time based on the content and accounts you interact with.
- Restrict
A privacy control that lets you quietly limit how someone can interact with you: they won’t see when you’re online, their comments won’t trigger notifications, and they can’t tag or mention you or remix your content.
- Restyle
An AI editing tool in Stories that lets you change the look of photos or videos by describing edits or choosing preset effects.
- Retention
A video metric showing how many viewers are still watching at different moments, helping creators understand how long people stay with a Reel or video.
- Retention Chart
An interactive chart that shows how many people are watching a Reel moment by moment.
- Retrieval recall
A measure of how well a system finds relevant items to consider for recommendations or search results.
- Rings
An Instagram award recognizing creators for their creativity. Winners receive a physical ring and can use custom Like hearts on their posts.
S
- Saved posts
A private place on your profile where you can keep posts you want to revisit later. Only you can see the posts you save.
- Saves
An action that bookmarks a post so you can revisit it later. Saved posts are private and can be viewed from your profile.
- Scheduled message sending
A DM feature that lets you choose a date and time for a text message to be sent later.
- School Partnership Program
A program that lets participating schools and educators report potential teen safety concerns, including bullying, directly to Instagram for prioritized review and access educational resources.
- Search
A place in Instagram where people use keywords to find accounts and content, including photos, videos, hashtags, audio, tags, and places. Results are selected and ranked for each person.
- Search autocomplete
Suggestions shown in Instagram’s Search bar as someone types.
- Search query
Words or terms someone enters in Instagram Search; Instagram uses them to find and rank results that match the search.
- Search ranking
The process Instagram uses to put search results in order, showing results it predicts will be most valuable or relevant to you first.
- Search relevance
A measure of how well a search result matches a person’s query. Meta has described patented techniques for scoring and ranking social-network search results by how well they fit the query; this does not show that Instagram uses those techniques.
- Seed users
In Meta’s patents, seed users are a set of high-value users for a sponsored-content provider, used as reference points to find other users with similar characteristics for targeting.
- Semantic labels
A label that identifies what an object in an image is or what category it belongs to. The photo-description system described in the source uses AI models to predict these labels for objects.
- Sends
A send is when someone shares a post with a friend or group in an Instagram Direct message.
- Sensitive content
Posts that may be upsetting or offensive to some people, such as sexually suggestive or violent posts, but don’t necessarily violate Instagram’s rules. Instagram may make them harder to find in recommendations.
- Sensitive Content Control
A setting that lets you choose how much potentially upsetting or offensive content Instagram shows you in places such as Explore, Search, Reels, comments, and feed recommendations.
- SEO
Using relevant keywords in your display name and bio to help people find your profile through search.
- Sequence modeling
A recommendation technique that learns from the order of a person’s past actions, such as ads they engaged with or pages they liked, to help predict what may be relevant next instead of relying mainly on summaries of past activity.
- Session-based reranking
A technique Meta has described for reordering feed items during a person’s current session, using activity such as what they view or interact with.
- Sextortion
A crime in which scammers threaten to expose someone’s intimate images if the person doesn’t give them what they want.
- Short-form video
A type of brief video content; on Instagram, Reels are short-form videos that can include music, audio, effects, and text.
- Show More / Show Less
A feedback control that lets you tell Instagram whether you want to see more or fewer posts like the one you’re viewing, helping shape future recommendations.
- Sigmoid
A mathematical function that maps a model output to a value between 0 and 1, which can represent the predicted probability of a click.
- Signals Platform
Shared infrastructure that lets Instagram teams create, deliver, store, and monitor information about photos, which Home and Explore can use to recommend content.
- SilverTorch
A recommendation-retrieval system Meta describes, built as one neural network to find content matching a person’s interests, check whether it can be shown, and score likely engagement before passing candidates to ranking.
- Similarity scores
A technique Meta has described for assigning values that indicate how alike two users or items are. A system can use these values to group or rank them, but the sources do not establish that Instagram uses the technique.
- Skip rate
A measure of how often people skip a post soon after it starts. For Reels, Instagram Insights can show the drop-off rate in the first three seconds.
- Sleep mode
A setting that lets people choose hours when Instagram mutes notifications. On Teen Accounts, it also turns on message auto-replies and reminds teens to close the app.
- Social proof
A technique described in a Meta patent for showing people’s interactions or other endorsements alongside an ad, giving viewers social context about it.
- Social vouching
An age-verification option that lets you ask three mutual followers to confirm how old you are; each must be at least 18 and respond within three days.
- Sponsored content
Paid promotional content marked as sponsored, rather than an unpaid organic post. Instagram says the sponsored label alone does not cause it to be ranked lower.
- Stickers
Visual additions creators place on Stories photos or videos to make them more creative or add context; some are animated or let viewers respond.
- Stories
A feature for sharing everyday moments and viewing stories from accounts you follow. Instagram orders the stories shown to you using signals such as what you watch, how you engage, and your relationship with the creator.
- Stories ranking
The process of ordering stories available to a viewer, using signals such as their viewing and engagement history and predictions about which stories they’ll find relevant.
- Story replies
A response sent to the account that shared a Story, such as a message or a photo or video reply. Story replies are handled through Instagram Direct.
- Story staleness
A technique Meta patented for estimating whether a newsfeed story is becoming less timely by comparing its current engagement with the engagement expected for it.
- Subscriber growth
An increase in the number of people who subscribe to your Instagram subscription; promotional tools and offers can help creators bring in new subscribers.
- Subscriber-only content
Posts, Stories, Lives, or other material a creator shares only with people who subscribe to their Instagram subscription.
- Subscribers
People who subscribe to a creator’s paid offering and can access exclusive content and benefits.
- Suggested accounts
Accounts Instagram may recommend to people who don’t follow them, as possible accounts to follow. They can appear in places such as Suggested Accounts and Feed.
- Suggested Content Control Center
A centralized place on Instagram where you can customize controls that influence the content you see.
- Suggested posts
Posts Instagram recommends because it predicts you may be interested in or engage with them. They can appear in Feed, Reels, and Explore, alongside posts from accounts you follow.
- Suggested search queries
A technique Meta has described for showing possible searches, sometimes as cards, to help people decide what to look for. Suggestions may be tailored to a person’s interests or context.
- Support Inbox
A place in Instagram where you can check updates and statuses for reports and review requests, see whether your posts may have violated policies, and find ways to appeal decisions.
- Support requests
A place in Instagram where you can check reports you submitted, see their status and history, and find updates about reported content or violations involving your posts. You can request a review of some decisions there.
T
- Teen Accounts
An Instagram account experience for teens with built-in protections that limit who can contact them and what content they see. Teens under 16 generally need a parent’s permission to make these protections less strict.
- Teen safety
Protective settings and measures for teen accounts that can limit unwanted contact, shape what content teens see, and help them manage their time on Instagram.
- Terms of Use
An agreement between you and Instagram that sets out each side’s obligations, including that you must not violate Instagram’s Community Guidelines.
- Threads
A text-focused social app from Instagram where people share posts and join conversations. A Threads post can be shared to Instagram Stories or Feed.
- Time spent
The amount of time someone spends using Instagram or a particular part of it, such as Explore. It can describe activity more broadly than time spent watching a specific video.
- Tokenization
A way of converting content or other model inputs into smaller units called tokens, which recommendation models can use to represent items and signals. The SlimPer paper describes using tokens as inputs to a recommendation model deployed on Instagram Reels and Feed.
- Top Live
A section in Explore that let people browse live Stories broadcasts happening at that moment.
- Topic affinity
A technique Meta has described for representing how interested a viewer is in a particular topic. It may be used as a signal when recommending content or grouping audiences.
- Transfer learning
A machine-learning technique described in Meta research that reuses what a model learned on one task to help it perform another; the sources do not establish that Instagram uses it.
- Treatment group
In an experiment, a group that receives the change being tested, so its results can be compared with a control group.
- Trial Reels
A Reels option that shows a reel to non-followers first, so you can see how it performs before deciding whether to share it with your followers. It won’t appear to followers in Feed or Reels unless you share it more broadly.
- Two-factor authentication
A login security feature that asks for an extra check, such as a code from your phone or an authenticator app, when someone tries to log in from a device Instagram doesn’t recognize.
- Two-tower model
A recommendation technique with one neural network for a viewer and another for an item. It turns each into an embedding—a set of numbers—and compares them to find candidate posts likely to interest that viewer.
U
- User activity
A person’s actions and interactions on a social network. Meta patents describe using this activity to estimate interests, personalize bookmarks, or select media to show someone.
- User attributes
Information describing a person, such as their friends, likes, photos, or interests. Meta has described patented techniques that compare these attributes to select content or people.
- User context
Information about a person’s situation—such as their location, interests, profile, or activity—that Meta’s patents describe using to guide content suggestions. A cited paper also describes using user context and engagement history to find videos for Instagram short-video recommendations.
- User embeddings
A numerical representation of a person, built from information such as their features or interactions, that a system can use to rank or select content. Meta has described this technique, but these sources don’t establish that Instagram uses it.
- User feedback
Information people give Instagram about what they want to see, such as marking recommended content as interesting or not interested or changing content controls. Instagram can use these signals to shape recommendations.
- User intent
A person’s apparent goal on Instagram, such as finding an account or exploring a topic. Their search input can help Instagram understand what they’re looking for.
- User interactions
Actions someone takes on Instagram, such as liking, commenting on, sharing, or viewing content, that can help ranking systems estimate their interest and decide what to show them.
- User interests
Topics Instagram associates with a person based on what they choose or what its algorithm thinks they like; these interests can shape the content shown to them in Reels.
- User satisfaction
How well people feel an Instagram experience meets their needs and interests. For recommendations, this can mean showing content people find relevant over time, rather than focusing only on immediate likes.
- User tower
A model component that turns information about a person into a compact numerical representation, called an embedding, which Instagram Explore can use to find similar content.
- User-content affinity
An estimate of how likely a viewer is to be interested in a particular piece of content and to watch or engage with it. Instagram can use audience matching to show content to people most likely to be interested.
V
- Vector index
In a paper about Meta’s ads recommendation system, a vector index stores item embeddings, or numerical representations of items, so the system can retrieve likely relevant candidates.
- Verification
A process for confirming that an account is the authentic presence of the notable person, brand, or entity it claims to represent; a badge helps people recognize it.
- Video
Moving-image content that people can record and share on Instagram. Instagram Video combined Feed videos and IGTV videos into one format.
- Video ranking
The process of ordering videos for people on Instagram by predicting which ones they may find interesting. For Reels, Instagram considers what people interact with and what viewers of similar content seem interested in.
- Video recommendations
Videos Instagram selects to help viewers discover and watch content, including personalized recommendations based on their interests.
- Video views
A count of how many times people watch a video or view other content. For Reels, replays count toward the view count.
- Viewer drop-off
A measure in Reels Insights of how often viewers stop watching a Reel; it can help show whether the opening captures their attention.
- Viewing history
A signal used to rank Stories that reflects how often you view an account’s Stories, helping prioritize accounts Instagram thinks you don’t want to miss.
- Viewing speed
A measure of how quickly someone scrolls through content, such as the average number of items viewed per second or minute; Meta has described using it to adjust content order during a session.
- Violations
A violation means content or account activity broke an Instagram policy and may lead to content removal or account disablement.
- Visual search
A shopping tool that uses AI to help people find similar products by tapping an image of an item. Instagram said it was starting to test the tool.
- VRS multiplier
In the research paper’s system, the VRS multiplier adjusts an advertiser’s bid before an ad auction, affecting the ad’s total bid.
W
- Wallet connection
A link between a digital wallet and Instagram that lets someone share digital collectibles from that wallet on Instagram.
- Watch time
A measure of how long people spend playing a video. For Reels, total watch time adds together playback time across plays, including replays, while average watch time is the average playback time per play.
Y
- Your Activity
A section in Instagram settings where people can see and manage their previous interactions in one place.
- Your Algorithm
A tool that shows topics Instagram thinks influence your recommendations and lets you add interests or ask to see more or less of them; those choices can update recommendations across Feed, Reels, and Explore.
A network of relationships between Instagram accounts, such as who follows whom or which accounts have mutual friends. These connections can help shape suggested-account recommendations.
Topic pageSourceInstagram Suggested Accounts AI system (Transparency Center, Mar 2025)