The algorithm is designed to seamlessly improve your browsing experience and it is constantly also learning from users, which is one of the reasons why it is not entirely predictable. The thing is that we’re not predictable: our habits shift and change. In fact, the tech magnate Elon Musk says that it’s a slippery slope from here to a full-blown, artificial intelligence, robot-run future. He told this to Joe Rogan on Rogan’s immensely popular podcast series back in September 2018. Episode #1169 went viral for another reason – they smoked weed together – but the bit about search engines and algorithms, getting to know and predict our most intimate habits and preferences, was the most fascinating takeaway for me.
Simply put, the algorithm is deciding what features and what doesn’t. And how does the algorithm decide on whether something makes the cut or doesn’t? It takes its cue from you and from the network itself. You can’t control the network, but you are teaching the algorithm what to show you without even realising that you are doing this.
The algorithm makes selections on your behalf, based on who you engage with and which keywords feature in the content that you read, view, share, like and comment on. Every time you fall down that rabbit hole of aimless browsing, you’re leaving another series of breadcrumbs in a trail that you’re constantly building for the ghost in the machine to follow, effectively telling the algorithm: this is what I like; I don’t want to miss any of this or that kind of content; please give me more ...
Do you ever see the same person’s Instagram Stories pop up first at the top of your Instagram home feed, over and over again? Perhaps your bestie, your significant other, your favourite celebrity or that influencer you discovered the other day. In fact, run your own experiment: make a point of finding and watching all the stories from any one account that you follow on Instagram. Search for them if the account doesn’t come up and make sure you watch their stories every single day. Like every single one of their posts and drop a comment as well. Keep doing this for a few days and, before long, you’ll see them popping up earlier and earlier in the carousel of Instagram Stories at the top of your home screen every day.
But where does that leave other platforms like TikTok? Wian “Magic” van den Berg is a 25-year-old magician and influencer from Frankfort in the Free State, who is one of the top influencers on the video-sharing platform. In fact, he is in the top 1% of the most followed creators, having built a following over roughly two years.
Wian explains the TikTok algorithm really creatively:
When you upload a video, TikTok sends it to a sample of users. Let’s say 100, but no one knows ... Then, if 10 of those people like the video, it’ll just perform okay for you. But if 90 of those people like it, it’ll be seen by another 1 000 and if 900 of them like it, it’ll be seen by a million people. When I hit a million followers, my brother still remarked that he wonders if it’ll feel as if my growth slows down, because then you only see it tick over with every 100 000 followers, not in tens of thousands or even in thousands any more. And yet, it felt like it picked up speed after a million. I think that’s simply because more people have a chance of seeing your video. It takes a few failures to realise what a great post requires; you just need to keep going and keep looking for a hit.
Cross-promotion is one simple way of ensuring you diversify the variety of platforms your audience follows you on. Share your Instagram feed posts on your stories and vice versa. Also, tease your TikTok/Twitter/Facebook followers about your Instagram content and vice versa.
In early 2020 Instagram released some information on what the Instagram algorithm looks at and this is useful across platforms, because it outlines some pretty universal truths about how platforms compile the feed you’re presented with:
Interest: How much attention a post generates from those who see it. This is measured by how many likes, comments, shares and views your content attracts.
Timeliness: How quickly the post generates this interest. The quicker you start gaining reaction immediately after you’ve posted, the greater the chances that it will pop up in more feeds.
Relationship: Your friends and family tend to tag you in their posts and comment on yours. They direct message (DM) you and they search for you in the explore tab. If followers do this with an influencer’s account, the account will start popping up in their feed as often as a friend’s would. You need to build such close behavioural links with followers that the algorithm considers you friends. This means the reactions need to flow both ways, so you need to like and reply to comments.
Frequency: People who open the app often are less affected by algorithm ranking and see their feed in a more chronological fashion because they consume more content. Instagram wants to ensure that their regular users don’t see the same post twice; the same with TikTok and Twitter. If your ideal follower browses any of these for only a few minutes every day, they will see a highlights-reel feed curated for them by the algorithm.
Following: If you follow more people, the algorithm will play a stronger role in selecting whose posts you see and which ones slip past you entirely. People who follow fewer accounts will see more of what those accounts post.
The following is more detailed Instagram-specific feedback:
• The platform also clarified that the algorithm
