Slave to the algorithm
Keith Smith
MD, The Advertist new biz expert, Director SuperTalent Creative, podcast host | Linktree - keithjsmith
Marketing and technology practitioners are partly responsible for the sudden rise in poor mental health in the creative services channel.
A controversial view, I’m sure you’ll agree but I say this because I have recently been suffering from my own personal burn out, having deliberately (and foolishly) used myself as a live experiment.
Please understand, I do not take this lightly, although I might deliver it in a light-hearted manner.
As most of you know, since 2020, I have been fully invested in the world of podcasting – an additional responsibility to my day job.
In this world of advertising saturation, content production is a valuable route to market, but along with the upsides, come the downsides.
Not just the need to make every effort to produce good-quality programming, but also to make sure that it’s always visible.
I’ve lost count of the amount of great podcasts, Vlogs and blogs that have never breached the visibility threshold. And visibility equals more potential opportunities for growth.
If producing content to attract greater and greater numbers of listeners of viewers is the objective, then you soon enter a whole new world of hurt.
The algorithm
Before my experiment began last year, I was pushing out podcasts every 2-3 weeks, depending on guest availability and how much time I had to create, edit and produce the show.
But, after consulting with experts above my pay grade, I was advised that the art of visibility was a combination of accessibility and frequency i.e. how interesting the content was and how often you published it.
The former is a subjective, human KPI, the latter is a digital one.
Because as content creators, it is drummed into us that frequency is what the algorithm likes. If the algorithm sees that you’re producing content on a weekly or daily basis, it is far more likely to promote you to its audience.
The more you feed the beast, the more it rewards you.
Size matters
On LinkedIn, we’ve all had experience of this – the helpful “Your connections haven’t heard from you in a while..” prompt.
It’s the same mechanism that underpins the engine of Spotify, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and X.
It’s really pretty rudimentary. It’s exceptionally lazy as a solution but once you understand it and comply with it, it makes a real difference to your numbers.
I did a combination of both, I switched up my content; working with more authoritative guests on more interesting subjects, and I increased my frequency. to one show a week.
After just over six months of intense content creation, I began to notice my audience numbers increasing impressively.
This corresponded with an increase in talent value – high-quality guests on the show, and so, almost without noticing, the virtuous cycle picked up and I embraced this model.
I was also going through a major reorganisation with The Advertist - New business development platform as well so it was pretty full-on.
But I was also letting my personal life take a back seat. Weekends became either quality time in the studio or quality time in the office, with a sprinkling of domestic bliss thrown in where available.
But it was all for a good cause, right?
During the course of my podcast interviews with some of the world’s finest creatives, we discussed mediocrity; how, in the world of advertising, we’ve replaced creativity with frequency. It is now completely possible to flood the content platforms with mediocre advertising and content, instead of taking time to be creative and memorable.
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As Sir John Hegarty said:
It takes a lot less energy for a great piece of creative to stick than it does a bad one.
These days, we have the ability to make a bad one stick if we do it more frequently.
And this brings me (eventually) to my point.
The point
Unless you have a big team of people to support you, the workload of content creation will eventually burn you up, or it will drive you to creating poor-quality content more frequently.
It is impossible to be highly creative to a daily or weekly timetable.
But that’s what the algorithm demands, otherwise, you’ll be relegated to a publishing backwater, out of sight of the main traffic.
The solution
What’s needed is a greater level of understanding from the consumer’s perspective; if you like one thing the content creator is doing, subscribe to it.
Whether it’s a YouTube channel and podcast stream on Spotify or iTunes, just click the button, and the technology will let you know when the creator has published new content.
It doesn’t cost you a thing and it really helps us podcasters!
I’m now going to revert to my original publishing schedule, damn the algorithm and focus on good content, less frequently. If it’s good enough I will encourage listeners and viewers to subscribe. I might even incentivise it!
It doesn’t cost you anything, but what it does is take the pressure off the content creator, so that they can publish a podcast, Vlog or blog once they’ve done something wonderful.
End slavery and help promote creativity.
Subscribe.
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Founder and CEO: The Great Pitch Company (Helping businesses win).
1 年Keith Smith etc. Thanks for sharing Keith both about the LinkedIn algorithm and the pressures it brings. Take care.
Human centric communication strategies for you and your teams #speaker #author #chatshowhost
1 年Great article Keith. Here's to a world filled with quality and not simply filled.