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Social media is generally intuitive; and it can be said that the more intuitive an algorithm is, the more popular it will be. We see this in Instagram’s popularity over Snapchat, Youtube’s unbroken dominance, and then Tiktok’s popularity over…everything, causing every other platform to copy its content style in some way.

However, there had been short-form, vertical-resolution content before Tiktok as well. What’s really so revolutionary about Tiktok, as most avid users will tell you, is its algorithm. This algorithm is so effective that just about every other platform has been trying to emulate it—even the yet-unchallenged Youtube.

That algorithm—and its copycats—runs on simple math. However, given the sample size of these platforms and the innovations of AI, their simplicity has become extremely influential. Because its process is so simple, we can quickly learn to make it work for our content if we build the habit of noticing when and how it’s being used on us.

How is it used?

Imagine if you, your best friend, and I all have brand new accounts and scroll through 6 social media posts.

For this example, let’s pretend we all follow the same people, so the algorithm has no data on our specific preferences yet.

We watch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 videos, for example—shown to us specifically in whatever order.

Let’s say you like 1, 2, 3, and 4; your best friend likes 1, 2, 3, and 5; and I like 1, 2, 3, and 6. 

Because we all liked videos 1, 2, and 3 within a similar timeframe, you’re going to shown 5 and 6, your best friend will be shown 4 and 6, and I will be shown 4 and 5.

You can imagine how, at a scale of billions of people viewing, liking, commenting on, and sharing billions more posts every day—with years of data already tracked in many cases—social media can so  disturbingly predict our patterns as if it’s watching our thoughts.

That’s all there is to it…basically. The subtlety and mystery is, as always, in the details. An example of this is when we say one ‘likes’ a post. It has been a while since ‘liking a post’ exclusively meant tapping the ‘like’ button. While that’s definitely has a more direct effect on your algorithm’s pattern recognition than other factors, things are more intuitive now, especially due to the more subtle patterns AI can track. 

As far as algorithms are concerned, ‘liking’ can simply mean you spent extra time on a post, or you re-visited it after scrolling away, or you posted (or merely read) a comment—all these details, and more, are tracked and regularly tested (by tracking your reactions to other content) in different ways to help the algorithm get in your head and predict your behavioral patterns.

While these are just the basics, it’s really all you need to develop mindfulness of  when it’s being used on you. As you get a better sense of how it works and how you end up seeing different kinds of content (from all kinds of account sizes), you’ll be able to see clearly how your content is (or isn’t) being engaged with and what kinds of patterns you need to fit to improve that. You can click this sentence for more specific instructions on how to rank higher in social media algorithms, but to actualize those instructions, it’s more important to first get in the habit of noticing these basics in your own timeline.

Here are some of the other patterns which are recorded to influence your algorithm:

• How long did you stay on the post?
• If it was a video, did you skip through some parts, and what parts?
• If it wasn’t a video, did you screenshot it or zoom in?
• If it was text-heavy, did you press ‘read more’ on the caption?
• If you skipped by the post entirely, did you come back?
• If you came back, did you stay?
• What interactions did you make that might imply why you stayed?
• Regardless of how long you stayed, how long were you on your FYP/timeline/explore page before clicking on this specific topic, intro, or thumbnail?
• What else was on your FYP/timeline/explore page at that time that you didn’t click?
• Did you look at comments?
• What comments did you like?
• Did you like comments without liking the content?
• Did you read comments without watching the content?
• How much time did you spend on comments versus content?
• Beyond topics, what kinds of words catch your eye? (comments is important for this too)

And more…

If you will react differently—in any way—to content tracked as political, political-humor, humor, angry, sad, happy, etc. (which can be tracked as such just by the patterns of people who interact with it)…it will develop a pattern to recognize your specific reaction habits (whether skipping video, checking comments,  etc) to these different topics, compare them to others like you, and then target you accordingly.

What is it targeting you for? To make you happy? Satisfied? Educated? Relaxed? No. You are being target for one reason; to keep you on the app for as long as possible, by any means necessary. If this can be done be depressing and stressing you, then it will be as long as it keeps you hooked.

In conclusion, it gets more complicated and, frankly, repulsive the further you analyze it; but the basic process of the algorithm is so simple and becomes intuitive by observing how it’s used on you. When it’s intuitive, you will be much more successful in accumulating organic engagement on your platform.