The history of social media algorithms goes way back. In 2010, some companies deleted their websites and focused their communication efforts on Facebook.
At that time, there was a promise that you could talk to all your fans on Facebook, thus increasing your brand's reach.
The promise was impossible to fulfill because of an economic problem: “There is more content being produced on social media than time available for people to consume that content.”
Did you know that Brazilians spend an average of 225 minutes per day on social media? On Instagram alone, it is common to follow more than 300 profiles, and that time is still divided among LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, among others.
How do social media platforms solve this problem? With an algorithm!
“An algorithm is a finite sequence of executable actions aimed at obtaining a solution to a particular type of problem.”
In communication, the algorithm has become synonymous with how social networks organize their content.
How do social media algorithms work?
To understand how to beat social media algorithms from the perspective of someone who publishes content, it is important first to understand how they work from the perspective of someone who consumes content.
Since users do not have time to read everything that has been published, the algorithm begins to select content using 4 basic criteria:
1. It only selects content from the people, brands, and hashtags that the user follows.
2. It orders it by the profiles the user interacts with most (comments, likes, shares, etc.)
3. It highlights the formats the user consumes most (a follower who interacts more with videos will see more videos in their timeline, a follower who interacts more with articles will see more articles, and so on).
4. It prioritizes more recent content over older content.
Based on this information, I imagine you have already figured out many of the tricks they promote out there, right?
For example, there is a trick for Instagram Stories recommending the use of polls. When your follower answers a poll, it counts as an interaction (criterion 2 above). This increases your engagement and ends up moving your profile closer to the beginning of your followers' Stories queue.
It is worth noting that there is no way to say for sure how each network uses these 4 criteria; this is a closely guarded secret.
There are thousands of lines of code to deal with prohibited content, blocked users, and other problems, but let's focus on these 4 criteria that are more universal.
What to do to beat social media algorithms?
Before publishing your next piece of content, be sure to read these 5 tips.
Use popular hashtags
Many networks allow users to follow hashtags. If you choose the right hashtags, this can introduce you to many new followers.
There is a very good tool for recommending hashtags called Display Purposes. You enter a hashtag, and it suggests several others organized by popularity.
Some tips for using hashtags:
Don't overdo it; 3 to 6 is enough
There are studies showing that above 6 hashtags, your engagement drops. The networks may mark you as spam, or you may come across as desperate for your audience's attention.
Only use hashtags that are genuinely relevant to your content
You may be marked as spam, reported, or blocked by followers or social media algorithms if they think your content is unrelated to the hashtags. Artificial intelligence algorithms currently have a general understanding of text and images.
Combine more popular hashtags with more specific hashtags
If you are not a digital celebrity, it is difficult to stand out in the most popular hashtags. In more niche hashtags, you are competing for attention with fewer people.
Publish frequently
Since algorithms take the post's timing into account, if you always have new content, you have a better chance of appearing at the top of your followers' timelines.
However, remember that engagement also counts!
If your content does not receive much engagement, this can penalize your profile as a whole. Social networks generally show your content to a sample of followers who are more engaged with your profile. If they interact a lot, they expand the reach to more profiles. If you receive little engagement, you are shown to an increasingly smaller sample of followers until you become irrelevant.
So before publishing your content, ask yourself if it will generate a lot of engagement from your followers. If you think they will simply scroll past your timeline without even stopping, then it is better not to publish it.
Use attention-grabbing headlines and images
If, while the user is scrolling through their timeline, they stop to look at your post, that already counts as engagement for some networks. Your phone knows whether you are looking at the screen or not, and networks use this to your advantage.
The same rules for hashtags apply here. Do not use images and headlines that are unrelated to your content. Reports from followers or artificial intelligence analyses can restrict the reach of your content and, gradually, your profile as a whole.
Try different formats
You have followers who prefer videos, others who prefer photos, others articles, or Stories, etc. Diversifying formats will help you reach all your followers.
When you focus on a single format, you begin to lose the reach of followers who liked other formats.
The tip here is to try all formats, see which ones generate the most reach and engagement, and use them more frequently, but without completely eliminating the other formats.
Try different times
If most of your followers access your content in the morning, it is better to schedule the content to be published in the morning than to publish it the night before.
Since networks prioritize time-based content, content published in the morning will get more visibility than content published the night before.
Be careful with generic research that points out times when there are more active users. Publishing according to your consumer's behavior makes more sense. What time of day does your follower want to read your content? Publishing during the networks' "prime time" only makes sense for very popular consumer brands, such as Disney and Netflix.
Interact with your followers
Engagement is no longer analyzed solely by the number of likes; the "type of like" (reaction) is also taken into account. If someone likes happy ???? or emotional 💖 content, this can affect the algorithms' filters.
But perhaps the most significant change is that algorithms now also read comments and highlight meaningful conversations. In other words, that "Cool" or "Thanks" comment no longer has much of an impact.
Updated social media algorithm tips by platform
Now that we understand the basic concepts that work for all networks, let's analyze some platform-specific criteria.
Remember to be on as many platforms as possible. Since algorithms change frequently, your reach or engagement can drop at any moment. Having other channels to lean on while you figure out the changes in that platform's algorithm is essential.
Ask questions in your posts and focus your interaction in the first hour after publishing.
Instagram has been prioritizing very recent content with high engagement. Asking a question encourages comments. Liking and replying to those comments will stimulate even more engagement, benefiting your post in the algorithm.
YouTube
Always take a minute to ask your audience to click the like button and leave a comment. I know it may seem a bit pushy, but it is the formula that has worked very well to increase engagement and, consequently, the reach of your video.
Remember that YouTube is the second-largest search platform after Google, so make sure your title, tags, and description are top-notch. Use all the SEO techniques you know for your website/blog content.
Focus on keeping the audience engaged in the first few minutes. If you lose the audience early in your video, its reach on YouTube will be seriously compromised. Think of it as a lecture where people are not ashamed to leave the room, since no one is watching…
Promote your video immediately on all your other networks as soon as it is published. The audience peak right after publishing is important for getting visibility within the platform.
On Facebook, posts in groups have been gaining more visibility. To benefit from this algorithm adjustment, you need to post from a personal account. Only do this if one of the company's spokespeople can genuinely engage using their real profile.
One of the changes in social media algorithms, in Facebook's case, is that it created this visibility for groups. This is because, today, content from friends and family takes priority over brands.
Encourage all company employees to publish and create content that generates conversations.
Some tests on the platform have shown that company profiles and large influencers have been losing reach, while regular users who have a good LinkedIn profile have been gaining more visibility, especially if they have many comments.
Publish visual content and use all 280 characters if possible; make your post very informative. Twitter has been prioritizing content with many retweets, and visual and informative content tends to receive more retweets.
Ask questions and interact a lot. Comments also increase the reach of posts, as they often appear in the timeline of people who follow the person who commented.
Publish high-quality images and use relevant descriptions that help users in their searches.
Quality images increase the likelihood of your content being shared within the platform. In addition, many people use Pinterest to search for images and inspiration. To reach social media algorithms, especially Pinterest's, the description helps you be found, and the clicked image can generate traffic to your website.
TikTok
TikTok is perhaps the only network that speaks openly about its algorithm, so my recommendation is to go straight to the source: How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou.
I hope these tips help you better understand social media algorithms, and always remember that the most important thing is to create content that makes a difference in your followers' lives.
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* Originally published on the Digital House blog.
