Finding Favor with the Algorithm: A Rant About Social Media
If you’re a small business owner struggling to create or maintain a following on social media, please trust me when I say you’re not alone. Social media can feel like a game that’s rigged against you - and to an extent, that’s because it is.
Facebook and Instagram (or Meta) are governed by an algorithm that does not favor small businesses. “The algorithm” heavily favors personal accounts, and the accounts of influencers over small business or corporate accounts. This is part of Meta’s central goal, which is to “encourage genuine interaction” between users - it also allows them to charge businesses to run ads, which don’t always guarantee results.
So, the only ones who can really “win” at this game are (A) the trendy influencers who already have an edge and are able to spend ALL their time creating content or (B) large corporations who have buckets of money to throw at ads so they can purchase the algorithm’s favor. This leaves small businesses in the unhappy middle-ground (also known as the “lurch”). Unfortunately, this is still a game that you have to play if you want to keep your business relevant and connect to customers. If you post very rarely or inconsistently, a user who stumbles across your profile might ask “are they even in business anymore?” Conversely, constantly posting can make you look desperate, and also turn off potential customers.
Okay, looking back at that last paragraph, I know I sound really doom and gloom, but I suspect that there’s at least a few frustrated readers who fully agree. Chances are, you’ve done some research trying to find a solution to growing your following, or been approached by other social “gurus” about “organic growth,” or been spammed on Instagram with messages that start with “want to grow your account by 10k followers?!” Now, there are lots of different things you can do to improve your social media performance, I’m not saying that the gurus and articles are totally devoid of wisdom. But the truth of it all is that there is no single, easy solution to finding favor with the algorithm. Even if there was, the algorithm is always being updated and changed in ways that aren’t always made public knowledge.
Meta will always encourage you to boost your content or create ads to promote your page. While ads aren’t totally without merit, using them doesn’t always get you the results you want. If you create an ad through Meta and set the objective to “get more followers,” Meta will just show your page to the people who are most likely to follow your page - which doesn’t mean the people who are most likely to engage with your content or to purchase your products. Bought followers are not very valuable or engaged followers. So when you look at a competitor’s page and see that they have lots more followers than you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that their page or their business is better than yours.
As someone who creates and schedules content everyday, here are my general observations and some tips for the other small business owners out there looking to up their game on social media.
General Observation #1: Creating great content is NEVER a waste of time (Even though it may feel like it sometimes)
Yes, you should try to create the best content you can with as much time as you can spare to create it, BUT you need to remember that you are at the mercy of the algorithm. So it doesn’t matter if you create the perfect post - if the algorithm isn’t feeling generous, it won’t show your post to anyone except your Aunt Muriel. That’s not an excuse for going on autopilot and creating mediocre content day in and day out, because on those occasions when the algorithm does decide that it likes you, you want to put your best foot forward when your posts are shown to new faces.
General Observation #2: Use variety in your posts
If you post generally the same types of posts using the same elements with the same settings day in and day out (in other words, if you are on autopilot) that tells the algorithm “I’m not interested in engaging with viewers, I’m just doing the bare minimum.” Now sometimes, the bare minimum is all you can do, but you have to be willing to put effort into creating variety in your content if you want to see results. Meta wants to see that you are utilizing the full arsenal of tools that they have made available to you (largely for free) to give your audience an interesting, engaging experience. When I plan out social media for clients and myself, I make sure that I’m doing my best to vary post types between single and multi-photo posts, reels and videos. Frequently posting stories is another great way to take advantage of the tools available to you to potentially reach a different audience.
General Observation #3": Create a not-routine
There are all kinds of articles, calendars and even prompts from Meta that encourage you to post during certain windows when people are most engaged with social media. I’ve tried them, and… they don’t really make any difference. As I stated above, if your posts fall into a pattern that is too easy to recognize, the algorithm will decide that you’ve gone on autopilot and lower the potential reach of your content, so unless you have a massive following that is willing to follow a schedule, you need to vary when you post and you need to vary how often you post. Generally speaking, posting multiple times a day or several days in a row isn’t necessarily better than posting every couple of days. From my experience, your day-to-day content is “allotted” a certain amount of reach (unless your content receives a lot of engagement, encouraging the algorithm to boost it’s reach), and your posts tend to average the same number of impressions (give or take). But this “allotted” reach isn’t per post, it’s often spread across your posts. So posting several times in one day will often yield lower reach per-post than a single post on one day, and the overall results for your content will end up being the same. My recommendation: creating a single, high-quality post every couple of days is much better than several mediocre posts spanning the same time period.
Observation Number #4: Always be willing to engage with your followers
Meta tracks how long you take to respond to instant messages and comments and rewards you for being engaged and responding to queries in a timely manner. If someone comments on a post, respond to their comment, or at the very least, react to it. If someone sends you a message, unless it’s spam, you want to respond quickly. This tells the algorithm that you’re engaging with your audience, and that they should show your page to more potential followers.
Bonus Observation: Expect glitches (and you won’t be disappointed)
In order to implement all the advice above, you’re going to have to rely heavily on Meta’s native software which is maddeningly glitchy. Meta is always changing, updating and looking for new ways to screw you. Okay, that last one is a little harsh, but that’s honestly how it feels sometimes. I once discovered that a scheduling feature I frequently utilized wasn’t actually an intended feature - it was a bug that suddenly got “fixed.” I highly recommend that you take the time to occasionally glance over your Facebook and Instagram pages to do a little “audit” to make sure that everything is in order and everything is where it’s supposed to be. You might discover, as many pages have yet to do, that Facebook has shortened the number of characters allotted for your page’s bio, and your once thorough page description has been cutoff in the middle of a word. Or your business address might disappear. Or your Instagram handle. You never know. Zuckerberg likes to keep you guessing.
If all the above sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. If you have come to the end of this post and aren’t looking forward to trying to do all this yourself, I’ll leave you with my business card, and direct you to the social media section of my portfolio.
Cheers,
Mary
This article was written by a HUMAN BEING, not an AI bot.