(ThySistas.com) Watching my Instagram stories the other day, I came across an image that said something along the lines of how …..creatives can break the algorithms – together. If you run a business or blog and use social media to help drive traffic to your website, then you know how irritating those algorithms can be!
If you’re unfamiliar of what the heck I’m talking about, here’s a quick overview about algorithms: Social media algorithms are a way of sorting posts in a users’ feed based on relevancy instead of publish time. Social networks prioritize which content a user sees in their feed first by the likelihood that they’ll actually want to see it (Sprout Social, 2019).
So just because you post on your feed, doesn’t mean your followers will see your content. How rude! Of course, because we don’t pay for these social media platforms, we are limited to what we can do about this dilemma we face. As creatives, we have to collaborate more and that’s the only way we can break the algorithms. 
How does one do that? Engage in every/more posts by your follow creatives. Turn on notifications to ensure that you get ALL of their posts. Really engage in the comments other than posting emoji’s and words like “Nice.” This will keep their content at the top of the feeds. You can purchase sponsored ads to ensure that your content is being seen, repeatedly with a specific target audience to help you gain new followers that will convert to paying customers or readers on your blog.
Without using those basic methods, the social media algorithms will continuously control the order of how your content is shown. Creatives who partner together can with no doubt, beat the algorithms together. Although I am still learning and researching the algorithms, I have seen an increase in engagement within a period of six months. Whoever created this way of calculations and data processing for social media usage for businesses and creatives, was genius, I’ll admit. I only say this because it creates income for the platform. Again we don’t “pay” to use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. But in hindsight we are, when we have to use other ways to get our content seen by purchasing ads.
It’s no different than buying ad space in a magazine or newspaper or on television. The old ways of marketing….. so it’s no different now, really. Your business can make millions of dollars from Instagram, look at the success story of social media influencer @supa_cent who made one million dollars from marketing on social media once her make-up launched. Clearly she beat the algorithms. So it’s totally understandable to me that the owners of social media platforms get their coins also because their platforms are producing millionaires literally.
I just wish that we could go back to the old days when we can create a post and all 500 people that follow you, could see your content and engage with you. Now, unless you slide in someone’s DM’s and ask them to like, share, comment, etc., only about 20 of your followers will see your content. Sad I know. Creatives I’ll leave you with this, continue to create your content don’t be allow the rules of social media algorithms dictate you are as a creative. You are a creative online and offline, and don’t let any data processing systems tell you anything different.
Staff Writer; Felicia T. Simpson
One may also connect with this sister online over at; FTSimpson.com.