Social Hack: Feeding the Algorithm Beast is Destroying Creativity

“Going viral” has been the modern obsession most business owners and marketing execs hunger for, as well as the most cringe sound for agencies and creatives in our industry. From Gary Vaynerchuk ’s years of talks and content on social platforms to Jonah Berger ’s best seller, Contagious, experts have done their best to remind their clients that “going viral” isn’t a strategy, nor should it be an ask for their creative teams.

With that said, too many social hacks have been able to accomplish just that, hack the system by tapping into algorithms rather than purposeful, creative and strategic branded ideas. I recently hacked Instagram’s Reels for my benefit, and I wanted to share my experience with you because I’m afraid feeding algorithms is destroying creativity.???

Experiment backstory

Instagram launched Reels in 2019. Understanding this seemed like their response to TikTok, I began testing the product in the summer of 2020 — August to be specific.

At first, I began sharing nonsense in the middle of the pandemic, as well as tons of my music, foods and experiences with little to no traction. But, as the product matured, I began noticing endless versions of the same thing “trending.” I had a gut theory that IG began to pivot the product to combat TikTok’s rise — especially floating-head “remixes” and sounds.

2013 live under Reels, which it’s interesting because they sunsetted IGTV and rearranged their whole app around Reels. Clearly, this is part of their platform’s future.

Why did I do this??

I’ve been a long-time fan of social media led campaigns, content creation, and conversation-based creative versus the old model of communications. As a creative strategist and consultant, I became genuinely concerned about the lack of creativity I began to see from creative juggernauts like Oreo and others.?

For example, the icon who gave us the iconic blackout tweet during the 2013 Super Bowl, as well as the pride cream Oreo cookie, began jumping on “trending sounds” rather than developing their own ideas.

Listen, not that there’s anything wrong with reacting to culture, we’re all doing that in one way or another. However, some brands thrive in reacting to culture, others create culture, and the best revolutionize culture. Seeing this shift from creating and revolutionizing culture, into jumping on trends seemed like a negative shift in my professional eyes.

This bothered me because that’s what most social media creators have been doing for the past few years: Copying what a few true creative folks do, getting “famous” doing it, and ripping the dollars from those few. (This has been a huge problem, especially with creators of color being ripped off by white creators. See this 2021 article from NPR,?Black TikTok Creators Are On Strike To Protest A Lack Of Credit For Their Work, for context.)

As you can imagine, seeing such massive brands that I’ve looked up to for years shift towards this move got under my skin. But, in the process, I picked up on the trends of how these algorithms were picking winners and losers. So, I decided to take my experimentation to the next level.

I began remixing myself onto trending sounds. (This means reacting to specific trending videos.) Basically, I took two of the algorithm’s favorite tools (trending sounds and remix reactions) and smashed them together. 4,000 views became 8,000; then 13,000; 17,000; 50,000; and boom — 8,000,000. (Yes, eight million!)

What happened??(Results)

By the numbers

Not only did I get insane viral numbers, but I surpassed the original video/sound. It went so viral that other accounts downloaded and reuploaded my remix to their account to gain hundreds of thousands of views themselves. (They hacked my hack! It was absolute insanity for me. I still can’t believe it.)

I knew things were out of hand when a barber at my shop recognized me not because I’ve been going there for seven-plus-years, but because he saw me on Instagram’s Explore section.

But, it wasn’t all good. I actually pissed off quite a few people. And, the more viral the video became, the meaner comments got.

“Why do we need the reaction on the right ? Pretty cringe” – justhariz

“True because he want to earn some money from insta better watch the original video right?” – anoop_abraham_george__

“@its_just_a_snowflake_ I hate these leaching ass reaction videos, idk why I always see them before the originals. Unless you’re gonna be like the drummer who actually added to the video” – thecaposoulja

“Why do we need the guy in the corner, just lookin at us. You didn’t do shit dude, why are you in this video??” – mando_mike_

“So u can take someone else’s video, contribute nothing but fake reactions, cuz seriously this is good but no one laughed, and you can get 441k likes? Really?” justingrblr

Lessons?(And an odd surprise.)

Going Global

If you didn’t know, now you know: When going for global audiences, viral means more. This is what many of us in the multicultural space have been trying to say for decades. Finding human truths across multiple cultures, especially outside of the US, leads to a larger margin for success. Leaving bias and prejudice aside helps businesses unlock more creative opportunities and bring more financial and brand success in the process. (Think about this, the video is three Hispanics rocking out to a metal rock remix of a reggaeton song. This is what I mean when I say that “we’re living in a remix society.”)

Latin v. American Audiences?

In my experiments, I learned that Latin audiences leave more comments and American audiences leave more likes. I found this really interesting because the conversational nature of Latin audiences helped the content go exponentially more viral due to the fact that they were tagging and engaging more people rather than just liking the post, which mostly affects the platform/algorithm.

Engagement

Engaging the conversation is still key in social today as it was back when I began managing social communities in the early 2000’s. (Think AIM groups, LiveJournal communities and MySpace pages.)?

For the first two weeks, I liked every single comment that was left on the post. And, for everyone who left a hateful comment, I explained to them the background of why I was doing this experiment in the first place. (None of them answered back by the way.)

For the platform, this means that the engagement isn’t only by those leaving comments, but the creator (me) was also keeping them longer in the content/platform. This has always been the magic of social media, so I was delighted to see it succeed in real time as a viral moment.

Sentiment

Even though negative comments finally found their way to the content, the truth is that they’re less than one percent of the engagement. I may agree with a lot of what they were saying, but the fact is that most people simply found the content hilarious, entertaining and/or worth sharing.

This type of sentiment analysis is critical for brands because brand managers and leaders will need to make a choice between quick wins and gains like these versus long-term, brand-building strategies and creative executions that will turn their audiences into consumers and customers into profits.

Surprised?

Ok, I hacked Reels. I picked up on the platform trends, I tested my hypothesis, and I went globally viral multiple times. That all tracks because math is math.

However… why the follows? (I’m up to 13,000+ followers as of late Dec. 2022!)?

Why would you follow me for doing something this dumb? I went from 2,500 to nearly 14,000 in a matter of weeks. This makes no sense to me.

Outside of “people are irrational,” which made Economics professor, Richard Thaler, a Nobel Prize winner in 2017, I struggle with why anyone would follow a stranger doing something as asinine as laughing at a video.?

In the NY Times article,?Nobel in Economics Is Awarded to Richard Thaler, they speak about how “he showed that people depart from rationality in consistent ways, so their behavior can still be anticipated and modeled.”?Honestly, this insight from Professor Thaler was part of my inspiration for the experiment in the first place.

People like seeing themselves on screens. (This is why Snapchat opens to a camera versus a feed and why faces perform better across digital properties.)?It seems like an irrational reaction to social and digital platforms, but it’s pretty well documented these days. Facebook reps even encouraged this as a creative mechanism several years back at one of my former employers.

My only theory as to why someone would follow me is that of value. Perhaps people believe that my small corner of the internet will bring them entertainment moving forward, therefore following me would be valuable for their content consumption.

Point of View?(Who do you want to be as a brand?)

Brands need filters as a strategic and messaging/conversation guide. Having a point of view as a brand is how you react to culture, as well as create or revolutionize that culture. (Full circle: This is the difference between Oreo back in the Super Bowl blackout days versus Oreo today.)

Ultimately, I’m concerned that the hunger for views, numbers and “virality” is affecting creativity. And, it’s the reason why “creators” keep stealing ideas (or hijacking fresh ideas) by gaming algorithms. I believe this isn’t good for brands, especially those trying to have a purposeful point of view for their audiences and communities.?

What do you think??Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

*Originally published on our blog: https://sosaic.wordpress.com/2022/12/27/social-hack-feeding-the-algorithm-beast-is-destroying-creativity/