Marketers are always in a state of war, trying to identify the best ways to get their social media algorithms to work for them because they govern whether their uploads are noticed by their customers.
The purpose of the algorithm is to use machine learning to customise the users' newsfeed to show relevant content instead of them being bombarded with irrelevant content, especially for users following a large number of accounts.
The algorithms are fulfilling their primary purpose but are not perfect, which is why they have turned into barriers of sorts between businesses and influencers and their organic reach.
To help you break these barriers, we have put together a list of 5 things you must know about them.
Most SNS sites may have shifted from the reverse chronological order for newsfeed organisation but the time of posting still matters as the algorithms include it in their calculation, picking the freshest post to show to the followers of that account under the condition that other conditions such as quality of the post are satisfied, this metric’s usage is common across all social media platform algorithms.
The algorithms reward engagement with visibility, which is why the type of engagement like the number of likes, comments, shares, or retweets your post gets becomes a major factor in determining whether it will turn up on the feed of your customers.
So it is important to create relevant and high-quality content. Posting your customers are likely to be active and interacting with them is also important.
There are various types of content that marketers use, ranging from video content, blog posts, and articles, while other types of posts do get recognised by the algorithms.
It is a well-known fact that video content is favoured by them. Carousel posts are also known to get more engagement on Instagram.
Overall, the content that is the most relevant to your customers and is attractive gets priority
The algorithms work hard to eliminate content that appears as spam such as links to content without calls to action, video content that is linked from other platforms, monotonous posting, reposting content from other platforms without edits, overly transactional and business-focused captions are amongst the things that the algorithm does not appreciate.
The ranking signals that the algorithms used to sort through content are similar across most platforms, with the exception of a few.
- Facebook’s algorithm highlights posts of friends and family to stay true to its original cause and avoids content that is business-focused.
- Instagram’s algorithm is known to be the most comprehensive one, taking into account user preferences and browsing behaviour.
- LinkedIn’s algorithm also stays true to its purpose and focuses on networking instead of engagement. It also gives you the option to chronologically order your newsfeed
- Twitter’s Algorithm functions similarly to Facebook but also allows you to order your timeline chronologically, like LinkedIn.
However, newsfeed curation was not always algorithm-based, Most of us still remember when Instagram switched to their algorithm and how different accounts were requesting their followers to turn on notifications for their posts in hopes that their organic reach would not be affected and content not hidden.
The hopes of Social Media marketers are the same, but their execution has changed tremendously due to increasing knowledge and understanding.
Our Digital Marketing experts also know all the ins and outs of getting the algorithm to work for them, so they are just the people to approach for your algorithm-related queries, Click here To get in touch with them now!
