(bright music)
- You probably know social media newsfeeds aren't organized
in chronological order.
Instead, each platform has its own algorithm
for how it ranks and displays content.
Algorithms take into account usage analytics,
personal relevance, timeliness, and more.
Before going into specific platforms,
I want to mention a few algorithm boosting things
about video in general.
First, it's almost always better to post native video
instead of embedded video links.
Each platform wants users to spend as much time as possible
on its own site,
so you're generally rewarded for using native video
over embedded YouTube links, for example.
And the bonus is that you'll get access
to better integrated performance analytics
related to the specific social media platform.
Also, it's important to accompany meaningful text
along with your video.
So make your headlines and captions count.
Your audience needs a reason to stop scrolling
and watch your video,
and reading a caption that provides context
is often a great way to accomplish this.
Also, algorithms often prioritize videos
with more available metadata
and specific text is a great way to provide that.
Now let's dive deeper into two social media platforms:
Facebook and LinkedIn.
The reason I only want to touch upon two
is that each platform's algorithm changes all the time,
and chances are by the time you're watching this,
things may have changed again.
So just check the most recent algorithm reports
and engineering blogs to get a hint of what gets priority.
First up, Facebook.
Its algorithm is sophisticated,
and nobody except Facebook truly understands everything
that goes into it.
But one major hint they've released
is that it prioritizes content that spark conversations
and meaningful interactions between people.
This includes things like likes, replies,
comments, and shares.
It especially means posts
with lots of back-and-forth discussion.
That said, Facebook deprioritizes content
when you are blatantly asking your audience
for likes and shares.
That's where the meaningful interaction comes in.
It's got to be organic and real,
creating spaces for your audience to communicate.
To naturally encourage this type of interaction,
know your target audience and be a conversation starter.
So post that thought-provoking text,
like a question or a quote within the video.
And don't just focus on getting people to watch the video.
Find ways to get them to interact
and share with one another.
Also, if you can go live,
you can also take advantage of some higher engagement,
with live videos having about six times the interaction
as other videos.
Facebook's algorithm
goes beyond bumping high engagement posts to the top though.
It digs into each user's individualized formula
of personal engagement statistics.
It predicts what you want to see
based on your past interactions.
So the more you engage with certain people or brands,
the more likely Facebook will show you their posts.
All of that said,
Facebook has declared that it will show less public content,
including videos and other posts
from publishers or businesses.
So that may seem a little defeating
in terms of brand marketing,
but this just means that you should strive
to get your existing followers
to engage with your video content
in terms of those meaningful interactions,
spur back-and-forth commenting,
and focus on interactive posts.
Much of this is also why brands
that associate with influencers often get big boosts.
Influencers are real people
who command huge social followings.
So audiences are more able to spark
those meaningful connections
as they engage with the content.
Let's also talk about LinkedIn's current algorithm.
As you can see from this flow chart,
it details a four-step process
for content distribution and amplification.
This may be a lot to look at right now,
but I'll briefly break this down.
Step one is a content quality filter,
and it just makes sure you aren't posting spam.
If it's spam or low-quality content,
it gets shut down in this filter.
If not, it moves on to step two.
In step two, the content moves on
to an initial smaller sample of users in your network,
and the algorithm analyzes
how people begin interacting with it.
If this smaller audience likes, comments on, and shares it,
then it's likely to make it through to the next filter.
So it's really up to your network
to engage with your post to keep it alive.
For this reason, many people send their post
to a core group of supporters
to ask them for their social support.
In step three, the algorithm looks beyond the content itself
to decide if it should continue showing up.
It analyzes various characteristics of you and your network
to determine if it's worth keeping it around
for further promotion.
And in step four, actual humans enter into the process,
which is a cool, unique aspect to LinkedIn's algorithm.
LinkedIn editors are able to boost content
to a wider audience if it's doing particularly well
within its own network.
And as long as it continues receiving high engagement,
your content will often stay around.
Recently, content rooted in personal storytelling
seems to have been getting boosted quite a lot,
which all comes back to creating
that meaningful content that others will care about.
(bright music)