Building a social feed that fills your cup
“Why haven’t I been seeing your content recently?” – I regularly get messages along these lines. So let’s break down why this might happen.
A lot of people use socials, but not a lot of people understand how they work. To be honest, before getting into socials from a practitioner/creator perspective, I had NO idea either!
The information below explains (in very basic terms) how the algorithm works and how you can shape your social feeds to show you what you want to see.
Socials (mostly referencing Instagram and Facebook here):
Engagement is QUEEN.
What is engagement?
Engagement is when you like, share, comment, or save a post or story. Or when you like, comment or interact with a sticker on stories.
Why does it matter?
If you see a post from someone whose content you like, but you don’t engage with it, then the algorithm doesn’t know you like it. It assumes that you aren’t into that content and that often means it will decrease the amount of content you see from that account.
Engagement helps creators know what YOU want
If you see a post or story and it is helpful, but you don’t engage with it then the creator assumes that content was not needed or enjoyed.
Engagement is free
Engagement doesn’t cost you anything. But the knock-on impact that engagement has for accounts is HUGE. If the content is engaged with, then the algorithm allows more people to see it, which in turn helps people see the content. If no one engages, the algorithm doesn’t push it out, why would it?
Engagement in stories vs posts & reels
Engagement in stories is different from reels & posts. If you see a sticker (a poll, quiz, question box, emoji sticker etc) on someone’s stories, try to use them (if you enjoy their content and the sticker is relevant to you).
A lot of people get weird about using poll stickers or taping emoji symbols, but they let an account know that you want their stories and that lets the algorithm know that the stories are worth pushing out for more people to see.
If you enjoyed a story you can also tap the heart at the bottom, share it with friends or reply directly to the account.
The crux of this blog is this:
If you enjoy a piece of content and have time, it is nice if you can engage with the content. In saying that, you don’t have to interact with EVERY bit of content an account creates, but if you want to keep seeing an account’s content you need to engage with it semi-regularly otherwise it’ll drop off your home page.
I hope you found this helpful?! Feel free to flick me a DM and let me know what you think about it!
Over and out,
Ainslee