How To Tell Who Viewed Your Instagram Story First

Evan Gower May 6, 2019

Instagram’s algorithm works in mysterious ways. Many people have tried to uncover its many secrets with very little success. While there are some interesting theories, it’s really hard to tell for sure how certain features work.

How To Tell Who Viewed Your Instagram Story First

Stories are a perfect example. Admit it – you can’t stop checking after posting a story to see who and how many people have seen it before it expires. The whole point of posting a story is to get people to see it, and in particular, you might have that special someone that you hope like hell would check out your story.

So, how do you know who was the first person to look at your Story? Let’s dig into how this supposedly works.

Can You See Who Saw Your Story First?

Yes and no. It all depends on how fast you are. You see, there’s more than one factor that Instagram uses to order your Story viewers. As long as there are fewer than 50 people on the list, it’s in reverse chronological order. So if you scroll to the bottom, the last person on the list would be the person who saw your story first.

In a sense, this is pretty straightforward and there’s no secret to how it works. But what happens after you go over 50 viewers? Well, this is when things get a bit more complicated.

How Does Instagram Rank or Order Your Story Viewers

Right off the bat, it should be said that there isn’t a clear answer to this. Instagram hasn’t revealed the secret of their algorithm, and not even most people who work there know the full answer (they might only know one small part of the algorithm).

However, there are some theories going around that might give us some semblance of an answer. The prevailing theory might disappoint many people.

As the story goes (no pun intended), the dominant factor that influences how people in your list are ranked is interaction. More specifically, your interaction with their profile. Instagram knows your every tap. It’s how Instagram knows who and what matters the most to you. Many reputable sources believe that this determines the order of your Story viewers.

Now, you might be thinking – “But I don’t even like or make any comment on their profile”. The fact is that you don’t have to. Just visiting their profile counts as an interaction.

Fear not, there’s more to this story.

Reddit Experiments

A while back, there were a number of Reddit users conducted experiments with the purpose of figuring out the way Instagram Story viewers are ranked. They would create fake profiles and use them to visit their real ones to see what would happen.

The results were the exact opposite of what many people claim to be true. The fake profiles started to show up near the top of the Story viewers list. For some, this happened after a few days, while for others it might take up to a week or so. Nevertheless, it’s safe to assume that the amount of time someone spends looking at your profile influences their position on the list.

How to Make Sure Someone Looks at Your Story

If you have that one person who you desperately want to see your story, there’s a hack that can make this happen. It might seem a bit weird, but many users have found it worked for them. Here’s what you have to do:

Go to your Story and tap the three-dot More icon at the bottom right corner.
Go to Story Settings > Hide Story From and select the person that you want to hide it from.
Go back to your story and from the same menu, unhide the Story from that person.

This will ensure you’re first in the Story bar at the top of the home feed. It doesn’t matter how many people you choose to do this for. You’ll appear first on their home screen.

The Final Peek

To recap, you have to be quick to see who viewed your Story first, especially if you have a large number of followers. If you get there before the list goes over 50 people, simply scroll all the way down and you’ll have your answer. And if you want to make sure someone doesn’t miss your story, you now know how to do it.

So, have you anything to share about Instagram’s Story algorithm? Don’t hesitate to share them with us in the comments below.