Grow 1%: Know Your Algo

Pick one of these newsletters every day, spend 2 minutes reading and 8 minutes implementing the lesson (1% of your waking day) and your socials will get 1% better.

Don't buy growth hacking classes. Save your money. Do this instead.

Understand the algorithm, but don't obsess.

Every social media platform surfaces content through a mysterious algorithm.

It's the reason why you haven't seen your mom's posts on Facebook in two years but for some reason, you've seen that video of the cheerleader falling over 6 times.

And if you're immersed in social media culture you'll hear a lot of chatter about what the algorithm 'prefers'.

As someone who has worked at a major platform, trust me when I say that many of the top social media experts discussing the algorithm are often wrong.

Same for people who claim to be shadowbanned.

Or have a hack to get a million followers in 30 days.

The truth is, the algorithms that guide social media feeds are often pretty boring.

In short:

• They understand content based on metadata or what's in the actual content.
• They assign value to the content based on the historical performance of the content on a profile, the recency of the post, and the performance of the content when it's exposed to people.
• They surface the content based on who is most likely to watch the videos, engage with the content, 'dwell' on the post, etc.

This is a vast oversimplification, but these are the broad strokes.

So how should this affect your content creation?

Not nearly as much as you probably think it should!

The goal is to retain your brand voice, grow an audience that likes your uniqueness, and make great content.

Obsessing about what the algorithm 'likes' will turn your content into dreaded clickbait.

So instead, focus on the high-level factors of a platform's algorithm.

For example, YouTube surfaces content heavily based on watch time, so longer content optimized to keep viewers sticking around is a good thing.

Also, most content is shown when someone first sees the title and thumbnail, so that should be well-designed.

Finally, descriptions and other contextual data should be thorough and accurate so YouTube better understands what the content is about.

This gets you 95% optimized in the algorithm. If you want to nerd out about the algorithm you can dive deeper, but I don't recommend it for most people.

Especially if it starts to greatly affect your creativity. Chasing algorithmic perfection can leave your content as soulless as the equations themselves.

My mission for you: before you put up your next post on any social platform, do a quick search on the algorithm. Most websites will agree on the high-level best practices.

Then see if some simple changes to your content can help your content surface a bit better.

That took 2 minutes. You have 8 minutes left. I'm glad the algorithm showed you this newsletter! Now go grow 1% right now!

Thank you to our sponsor BrandArmy!

About the Author

Phil Ranta, is the CEO of Spree a curated shoppable video media company and platform focused on the health and wellness space. A 2021 LinkedIn Top Voice in Innovation & Tech, Phil has been creating content for the internet and building internet businesses professionally for nearly 20 years, starting on MySpace and riding trends to the present. He was the Head of Gaming Creators, North America at Facebook, the first network lead at Fullscreen, the COO at Studio71, and spent 10 years as a working comedian (including 2 years on cruise ships). He's a husband, a dad of two littles, and an insufferable digital media wonk.

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