Linked In or Locked In?

Did you enjoy the release of Brahmastra? I did. I mean why would I miss on my introduction to the Astraverse. The world is connected after all. For those who have witnessed Part 1 of this block buster, did you watch it because others watched it, or because you love the movies or you simply couldn't resist another story slip your hands because you were too tied with work?

There's no right answer and as far as my judgment is concerned, that shouldn't matter. Not in this case, atleast. Right? Let's say, that is debatable. In a world where we have shoutouts to awaken our internal souls, much larger emphasis on meditation and being our true self at the workplace, are we really practicing what we preach? I swear I'm not a recent Asatraverse convertee but let's be real as we open this for discussion. Amidst the millions of posts on digital platforms every single day, do you post to be seen or do you post to be part of the community or do you post because that's your source of income. If you chose the last option, I'll spare you the time of walking you through if a social media algorithm is capable of influencing the influencer (assuming you'll know about it) but for others, let's take a walk, shall we?

Time changes, so does social media penetration, consumer needs and social media trends. This, in turn, works in sync with the dynamic equation of a social media algorithm and a content creator. Every social media platform follows its set of processes to learn what their users like and prioritize what they might see. Speaking of which, did you know Youtube has far more daily active users than Facebook? Thanks to connected TVs, these apps found a new way to get into your homes, literally. While your news feed may display curated content based on personalized rankings or videos watched, social signals on Facebook play along to keep you scrolling on the app for hours. Enter the not-so-secret TikTok affair where people fell in love with bite sized content and hopped, skipped and jumped from one video to another. This was heavily endorsed by the reels and stories phenomenon that just kept you tapping your phone to view the next content you could participate in a discussion about when you spoke to your friends.

Wait, did you just accept that your social media feed influences your daily interactions? So, it's established that social media has genuinely found a way to your home, figured you out better than your mother and knows your deepest secrets even when you went incognito for a while but went on a guilt trip with those cookies (pun alert). My next question to you is, have they influenced the Gen-I yet? Are we on the brink of surrendering to the algorithm that makes us happy only when we top the leaderboard? What would you choose? A world where everyone knows you've been there and done that or where you do things your way and share what you want to, with people that matter.

How far are you willing to go for entertainment? How far would you go for your community? Would you be entertained and advised by a community that cares about you or side with entertainment that may be reaching your feed at a cost? We are all connected but this popularity bias that pushes content to inch closer to the top rank in the leaderboard may expose you to content you didn't sign up for. Don't worry! What's happening is that the social media algorithm is maximizing engagement with different content pieces to figure what you like. The main thing that we should be careful about as creators and consumers is that people may be exposed to the content they hadn’t even subscribed to/ followed. People see content because the algorithm recommended them a set of content pieces based on their behavior. But just because you're interested in a brand, would you blindly invest in each product they launch? Would you follow influencers for the brands they endorse or invest your time for the value they bring to the brand? But, here's where the loophole lies in social media algorithms.

If you run a poll and most people opt for banana as their favorite fruit, you move on to flood their feeds with content around that popular option. Does it benefit everyone? No. Because, you discount the options chosen by the other survey takers. Doesn't that mean brands have to keep up with consumer trends? Does it mean content virality is a sprint you choose to run everytime you post? Does that mean algorithms were never part of the larger plan/ marathon?

Ever wondered why this piece has so many unanswered questions? It's because your answers will not remain constant over time just like any social media algorithm but one thing will, your willingness to add value to the community. Disclaimer: This post is not sponsored by LinkedIn. When you form connections on LinkedIn, you connect to learn, adapt and share with the community you network with. They are not your friends for a reason but you form a community to fall back on or engage with, when you no longer have the bandwidth to stay locked in by algorithms. Why am I biased to this school of thought? Because, in the marathon of ranking on search results, we give in to ranks and keywords so much that the intent behind the content goes for a toss.

It's time we create for the tribe and not for the bribe. You're a succesful creator if you stay with them even after they have consumed your content or you encourage them to think a certain way they weren't exposed to earlier. If I do this the Reddit way, how about we decide what's hot, trending, rising or controversial and let the algorithm learn and not manipulate.