Are You Having Trouble Growing Your Social Media Accounts?

It’s Not You – It’s the Algorithms

If you’re sharing relevant, and interesting or meaningful content, you should be getting the engagement that you want right?

Not necessarily.  Let’s take a look at why you might be missing out on some of the followers and engagements you need to move your business forward.  Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites have left their message board roots and grown smarter, forcing us social media managers to learn and become smarter too.  If you have been having trouble acquiring new followers or engaging the ones that already follow your platforms, it could be the algorithms.

Behind the Jargon.

If you’ve been working on building your social media presence you have probably heard people talking about algorithms before.  But what are they and why are they hard to understand?  Great questions.  Algorithms are social media’s attempt to learn user behavior, and deliver them more of what they like, to increase their enjoyment and thus retain them as users.  Social media platforms are a relatively new environment but they have been around long enough to spot trends.  One of the first to achieve viral popularity was Twitter.  Twitter had a swift rise to popularity, but then Facebook came along.  Users jumped from Twitter to Facebook.  And just when we were getting comfortable on Facebook, we were hit with Instagram, all the photos and captions without the ads and politics…so of course lots of people jumped ship.  (Then Facebook bought Instagram and started making changes there too).  If you were Twitter, or Facebook and were losing users to other social media platforms like SnapChat, what would you do? You’d try to make sure that your current users had a really positive experience so that they would stay, and maybe even get some more users to sign up.

This is where algorithms come in.  Think of them as an equation or formula that is used to give users more of what they want, by tracking their current behavior or engagement on social media.  To quote Social Media Report:

“These algorithms are developed by recording user interactions and developing a mathematical model that is updated on a regular basis. In short – it is a social media company’s attempt to quantify human behavior. The end result is a social media feed based upon what is determined, mathematically, to be of interest to the end-user.”

Social Media Report

While some accept that this is truly an attempt to help deliver social media users the content they way – which is also a benefit to advertisers, because you don’t want to waste time and energy shouting your message to just anyone, some believe it’s more of a money making effort on behalf of social media, requiring you to pay for your posts to be seen by your audience and followers.  Ironically Facebook began to overhaul their use of algorithms after going public and receiving a demand from shareholders for an increased stream of revenue.  I think there is a bit of truth in both camps.  But regardless of whether you love them or hate them, it looks like they are here to stay.

So What is Someone Like You to Do?

The first key is don’t despair, don’t give up hope.  The second, is to go organic.  Just like finding the right fruits and veggies takes a bit more time and effort, you may notice that this approach will take a bit more time to pay off, you will reap the rewards.  You will be able to attract followers and engage them, it may just take a bit more time and energy to do so.  If you want engagement, start engaging yourself.  Yes, it will require you to spend more time on your channels and to monitor much more closely, but there will be a reward in doing so.

1. Invite Them In!

When someone likes a post, but doesn’t yet like your page, click on the “likes” for the post and a box will pop up.  Next to their name, you’ll be able to send them an invitation to like your page.  This is great because they already are interested in the content that you are sharing, and you are giving them the opportunity to get more of the same.

2. Respond to Comments

No comment is too inconsequential.  Anytime someone comments on one of your posts, respond.  You have the potential to start a conversation and this will help to sway the algorithm in your favor.  After all, you need more people to engage with your content in order to be seen by more people, so lead those that are already engaging to do so more often.

3. Tag people, brands and other profiles

By tagging other users in your posts, they’ll get a notification of that post and are likely to respond directly.  You may even get some of their other friends and followers to begin engaging with the post as well.  Be respectful in these posts, making sure only to tag people when it’s relevant or you’ll risk annoying them.  Tagging too frequently can make you appear spammy so do this artfully.

4. Use Quality Visuals

We’re busy people, and have a lot of different people and profiles vying for our attention.  This means we tend to scroll and scroll until something really catches our eye.  Professional, or quality images are key to grabbing user’s attentions and getting them to “like” your posts.  Sites like Canva are great tools for creating visually stunning posts, quickly and without breaking the bank.

5. Use What You Know

One benefit of the increase in paid advertising and promotions, is that these platforms have better analytics than ever before.  Its easy to click into your analytics and see what posts got the most engagement.  You’ll want to create similar posts to keep engagement up, therefore reaching more people.

6. Make it Easy for People to Follow You

Create a card, or flyer with your social media handles and any branded hashtags that you use, and hand them out to your customers.  You can also remind them to follow you via email newsletters.