Ranking

In the context of social media, ranking refers to how platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube decide the order in which posts, images, videos, ads, or comments are seen by users in their feeds, explore pages, or search results. It's a behind-the-scenes process that essentially determines the visibility of content. And while most users probably spend little time thinking about it, for content creators and businesses, understanding ranking is crucial.

That's because what gets seen and what doesn't have a massive bearing on a creator's life and the kind of reach they can achieve. For example, on Instagram, a user could potentially see part of a carousel of photos that a business has just posted—a ranking fail, if you ask us—before they then scroll down in their feed and see posted video content, which has been algorithmically handed an extra edge. That's how, on a fairly basic level, two pieces of content shared by the same business can have very different experiences when it comes to making appearances to different users.