Key Takeaways
- Adapt your social media strategy faster than others by closely monitoring platform updates and industry trends.
- Measure your social media success by consistently analyzing engagement data like comments, shares, and likes.
- Connect genuinely with your audience by creating valuable, high-quality content designed for their interests on each platform.
- Learn how social media algorithms tailor your feed using your viewing habits and search history.
Achieving success online means being versatile. This applies to how you manage your website and your social media presence.
But versatility isn’t always easy. Social media platforms are continually changing their features and the ways they serve content to users. Strategies that were used to pull in more views years ago are now likely ineffective. Many of these shifts are attributed to new “improvements” in social media algorithms.Your willingness to adapt your strategies based on these algorithms – whether they’re welcomed or not – is what will allow your business to improve its user engagement long-term.
The Impact of Social Media Algorithm Shifts
Ever notice how your social media feed always seems to know what interests you? This is all thanks to algorithms. They pick up on your search history, the content you view, and what you share. All of this informs you of what information to put on your feed. This works the same way Google does when knowing which search results you’re likely to click on. It all comes down to data.
While this makes for a smoother experience for users, it can create a bit of a rollercoaster for businesses. For companies, these algorithm changes can make or break their visibility online. A favorable algorithm shift might mean a large boost in visibility and engagement rates. This can result in additional leads and increased sales.
Other changes, however, may not be so profitable. Some platform changes could seriously hurt a company’s overall reach, potentially impacting its bottom line and creating consistent revenue declines.
How Platform Changes Impact User Behavior
Modern websites and applications are highly dynamic. This allows them to continuously make user interfaces more user-friendly or even fun to use. They also address important user needs, such as easier navigation or quick search features.
Think of these platforms as retail storefronts. Once in a while, they might move around some furniture or store displays. All of these changes are to help increase foot traffic and maximize sales.
The same concept applies to social media platforms. They have specific goals they hope to achieve with a redesign. They want to draw focus to certain features of the platform or get more users to try new things.
These changes, small or large, can impact how users find or interact with different brands. Recognizing the impact that these design shifts have on your overall business structure is key. It helps you to adapt your strategies to keep your business relevant and engaging.
How to Stay One Step Ahead of Social Media Changes
Optimizing your social presence takes patience and a keen eye on what platforms are doing. Below are a few ways you can stay one step ahead of changes that can impact your business:
Be Proactive About Following Updates
Staying proactive is an important way to avoid surprise dips in social traffic. This means paying attention to current events and tracking if and when new changes are coming down the pipe that you should be aware of.
Social media platforms can tweak their algorithms at any given point and without much notice. However, companies that pay attention to these changes have a much better chance of adapting before any negative consequences occur.
To keep your business informed on these types of changes, follow social media sites directly and subscribe to any developer updates on the platform. You should also track what some of the top social media marketing companies are doing. Seeing how other businesses are changing their campaign strategies can give you valuable information to improve your own.
Leverage Data Analytics
Looking to help your content stand out? Then you want to track your metrics. Comments, content shares, and like counts can tell you a lot about how effective your strategies are. Most social media platforms already have built-in tools for collecting this data. You can track who engages with your content and your brand’s overall reach.
You can also find out what the most ideal times to post are throughout the day. This lets you maximize visibility on new posts and helps you increase the likelihood of your content being shared with others.
Focus More on High-Quality Content
Generating high-quality content should be your ultimate goal. People spend multiple hours a day online. There are literally thousands of places they can go to find good content, including social media. This makes it absolutely essential to deliver meaningful content that grabs your audience’s attention.
Instead of creating the same content for each platform, take a different approach. Think about what’s most valuable for platforms like YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. This lets you maximize each individual platform to its full potential. This strategy helps to develop content with purpose.
If your focus is TikTok, you’ll want to grow your follower base through quality content and higher posting frequency. Simply running paid advertisements only helps you so much and won’t be a sustainable strategy in the long term.
Use Different Content Formats
To drive more traffic and viewers through social media, you have to change things up and diversify your content. Avoid limiting yourself to just blog posts. Create videos, live streams, Q&A sessions, or other mediums. This keeps your messaging interesting.
Varying the types of content you publish also makes you less susceptible to specific algorithm changes. If one format drastically decreases your visibility, chances are it won’t impact all your formats.
Get Better Results From Your Social Media Marketing Initiatives
Want to get the most out of your social media marketing? Flexibility is the way to do it. With social media platforms constantly changing, the brands that are most adaptable will experience the best benefits. By following the strategies discussed, you’ll keep your business more agile to social media algorithm changes while limiting the impact they can have on your online visibility.
Author Bio
Name: Keith Kakadia
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithkakadia
Keith Kakadia, founder and CEO of Sociallyin, has been at the forefront of transforming the social media marketing landscape for over 13 years. From humble beginnings at Mississippi State University to building a world-class agency that serves clients like Samsung, Carnival Cruise Line, and Nikon. Keith has earned a reputation as a trailblazer in leveraging social media to drive brand success.
