How To Beat The Social Media Algorithm for Every Platform

10 min readSep 24, 2021

To check out the original blog post, click here.

If you’re on the lookout for social media algorithm tips that’ll make your account stand out — you’ve come to the right place.

At 8:45 AM on a Monday, there had already been 304,803,918 tweets sent today. And by the time I finished writing that previous sentence, 34,808,493 pictures had been uploaded to Instagram.

If you want to gain attention online, you must know how social media algorithms work and what you can do to win a spot on your audience’s news feeds. Without knowing what each platform wants to see, or how to beat the social media algorithm, you’ll have trouble growing organically online.

How Do Social Media Algorithms Work?

Algorithms are sets of mathematical rules specifying how a group of data is going to behave based on the data that is input into their formula. When it comes to social media, these algorithms help maintain order and assist in ranking searches, feed posts, and what advertisements you might see.

As you can see, major adjustments have happened over time; including new features, new ways to detect and get rid of spam, and new ways the algorithm shows its users content it thinks they want to see.

While these updates may seem constant and everchanging, social media algorithms really only have one thing on its mind — does anyone want to see this?

While most platforms have restricted organic (unpaid) reach down to a minimum, it actually may be a blessing in disguise. Overall, when your content is liked, shared, reacted to, or saved, the algorithm sees that you’ve produced good content, and it extends its organic reach to audiences other than your own.

So let’s get into how to expand your organic reach and beat the algorithm platform by platform…

How To Beat the Facebook Algorithm

You know that one friend that only ever talks to you when they need something? They’re the worst, right? That’s exactly how Facebook sees businesses.

The platform noticed a lot of businesses constantly asking their audiences to do something — click here! Grab this discount! Sign up today! It never ended and consumers got tired of it.

Because of this, Facebook drastically changed and decreased its business organic reach in early 2018 and instead focused on content that their audiences were engaging in in a “meaningful way” by reaction versus just liking.

In order to create an account that is going to actually reach your audience, we recommend doing the following…

Avoid outbound links. Facebook doesn’t like any type of content that is designed to take a user off of its page and onto a different platform.
Facebook is prioritizing posts in Groups and Events. Their redesign puts more emphasis on these, as they are “the two biggest reasons people visit Facebook every day.”
Engage with groups and pages that are filled with your target audience, but don’t be spammy! If the algorithm even thinks you’re being spammy, they will restrict your reach.
Post video content as often as possible. Facebook admitted in 2015 that they were going to start ranking live videos, videos with a higher watch and completion rate, and videos that were unmuted higher in the News Feed.
Do not post more than once a day! Hubspot found that pages under 10,000 fans experienced a 50% drop in engagement per post if they posted more than once per day.
Post to your stories. While they may not be the most popular type of Facebook content, they have recently started posting stories into the News Feed.

How To Beat the Instagram Algorithm

Instagram is one of the best platforms to grow your business. It’s one of the only platforms that have the ability to help businesses and marketers “go viral” when it introduced Reels in 2020.

Many users, businesses, and creators saw huge growth when they started using Reels as a regular part of their marketing strategy — we’re talking about gaining tens or hundreds of thousands of followers over the span of just a few months.

While a traditional, in-feed video for the Chelsea FC earns anywhere from 200,000 to 600,000 views, their Reels have earned an average of 2.6 million views.

Other ways we recommend taking advantage of to reach your audience organically…

Reply to all comments on your posts ASAP. Besides being polite, replying to comments can improve your chances of ranking as a Top Post for your hashtags.
Experiment with your hashtag strategy! Not all content should have the same hashtags and they should always have less than 150–200k posts. Don’t forget to always post your hashtags in the caption, not in the comments.
Create content that is designed to be saved and shared. This kind of seems like a no-brainer, but many small businesses out there don’t create content that is actually meant to be saved. Does your content solve your customer's pain point? Is it something they can relate to? The more saves and shares you get when you first post, the more the algorithm will show it to other audiences.
Don’t forget to put a call-to-action in your captions or content! Don’t be spammy though, the algorithm will notice. Instead of focusing on CTAs like “buy now,” use ones that are more direct and draw interest such as “explore your options” or “get started.”
Post at least two stories a day that are more than 6 hours apart. Instagram stories is the best way for your audience to see you since they are the first thing you see when the app is opened. Plus, your stories are moved to the “front of the line” when new ones are posted. By posting at least twice, 6 hours apart, you’re getting two unique chances to be seen by your audience.

How To Beat the Twitter Algorithm

Twitter can be one of the hardest platforms to get started on, especially since the average life of a tweet is only 18 minutes. Furthermore, they have one of the lowest overall engagement rates out of any social media platform sitting at just under .05%.

But with 187 million daily active users, there’s still a big audience you can reach.

Twitter’s description of the algorithm is simple enough; tweets you are likely to care about most will show up first in your timeline and are chosen based on accounts you interact with most, tweets you engage with, etc.

One of the best ways to make sure the tweets your crafting following the current Twitter trending hashtags and topics at this link.

Some other suggestions we have for trending on Twitter are…

Post multiple times a day. Different blogs will tell you different amounts, put the general consensus is between 6 and 12 times a day is best. Dan Zarrella of HubSpot actually found that the most-followed Twitter accounts averaged 22 tweets a day!
Engage, engage, engage! Every time a user clicks one of your tweets, plays a video, likes a tweet, retweets, or comments, that user becomes more likely to see future tweets from your account.
Twitter prioritizes retweets over likes, so create content that is designed to be interacted with. If you’ve ever seen tweets that say something silly like “close your eyes and type your name,” it’s because people will respond. And those responses tell the algorithm that this content is valuable. Is it actually valuable? Probably not, but Twitter only cares about the fact that it’s being interacted with.
Don’t overuse hashtags on Twitter. One to two relevant hashtags per tweet is the sweet spot so you can keep your message concise. It’s best practice to keep every tweet focused on one specific message, rather than trying to communicate multiple ideas.

How To Beat the LinkedIn Algorithm

LinkedIn is one of the oldest social media platforms out there and consistently one of the best for certain industries. It has over 730 million total users, with an average engagement rate of .35%, almost 7x that of Twitter.

With almost 50% of the posts on LinkedIn being images and 38% being articles, LinkedIn is a great platform to help build your brand awareness.

Here are a few easy, doable ways to beat the LinkedIn algorithm…

LinkedIn prioritizes content from those who post on a regular basis. So even if you have no engagement on your posts — keep at it!
Create content that is designed to get long comments. LinkedIn favors lengthy comments over a high volume of reactions, so ask your audience a question, their opinion, or to explain why they voted a certain way in your poll.
Connect, engage, and build real relationships. LinkedIn is not like Facebook or Instagram — its users do not want to be sold to. Instead of focusing on “how can I sell to this person,” focus on “how can I create a loyal relationship with this person.”

How To Beat the Pinterest Algorithm

Pinterest saw the highest growth in revenue in Q4 2020 vs. other social platforms and has over 5 billion searches per month.

With most of the world being in lockdown for the majority of the last 18 months, monthly active users rose 30% to 478 million by the first quarter of 2021 as consumers found themselves with more time to search for inspiration and for their next online purchase or adventure.

Unlike Facebook, Pinterest understands that a huge amount of it’s traffic and pins come from businesses and brands, so your reach won’t be limited just because you’re not using a personal account.

But with that being said, it still de-prioritizes accounts that post “spammy” or “clickbait” types of content.

Here’s how you can make sure that doesn’t happen…

Pinterest images and quotes receive the highest amount of repins on the platform, so creating this type of content is a safe bet.
It’s recommended to post roughly 10 to 20 pins a day. This might seem excessive, but Pinterest prioritizes fresh, recent pins over content that has been re-pinned over and over. If you need help scheduling all this content, try Tailwind; the number one Pinterest scheduler.
Make sure you’re using the right keywords with your content. Pins are often searched for using hashtags and keywords, so doing a little bit of research into what your target audience is physically searching for will help increase your awareness and engagement.
Use your website to create content and authority. By posting content directly from your website, Pinterest is able to detect the popularity of your pins. The more popular the pins, the more Pinterest sees your website as a source of high-quality content.

How To Beat the YouTube Algorithm

YouTube is one of the most popular websites on the internet, sitting just behind Google and Facebook.

Before 2012, YouTube outlined video success by the number of views alone, regardless of the time that was actually spent watching a video. This singular YouTube algorithm led to an abundance of clickbait videos with inaccurate headlines and thumbnails to earn views, with most viewers jumping ship immediately.

But a lot has changed since then, and YouTube now focuses on three major algorithm factors; relevance, engagement, and quality.

With this in mind, let’s focus on how you can beat the algorithm and get your videos seen by a wider audience…

Make sure your channel and content is SEO optimized. YouTube made it explicitly clear in their algorithm explanation that content-relevant keywords, descriptions, captions, and tags all matter when you’re optimizing videos for search.
Keep in mind the Four Rs of Responsibility: they Remove content that violates their policies, Reduce the spread of harmful misinformation and borderline material, Raise up authoritative sources for news and information, and Reward trusted creators.
YouTube has the highest engagement rate of all the platforms at roughly 4%. Make sure your CTA is loud and clear, and ask your followers to like, comment, and subscribe.
Similar to LinkedIn, YouTube rewards brands that post consistently. The more you post, the more likely it is your content will show up in someone’s feed.
Use other marketing channels to get views and engagement on your videos within the first few hours of posting such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or your email list.
Make the first few seconds and the first few minutes of your video engaging and to the point. Don’t ramble, or you’ll have high bounce rates and low watch time.

The Social Media Algorithm is Forever Changing

But we hope some of these tips and tricks will help you increase your brand awareness, your organic reach, and your overall engagement online.

Don’t worry about needing to stay up-to-date on all social media changes, that’s what we’re here for! Our social sites are chock of handy tidbits to help small business owners like yourself scale.

Instagram I Facebook I Twitter I Pinterest I LinkedIn

PS.

We’ll be on YouTube soon! So make sure you subscribe to our Newsletter on the blog main page to be informed of when that happens.