2021 has been a landmark year for personal branding and content creation. With the rise of short-form content, new platforms, and organic audience growth, everyone is trying to “hack the algorithm” and “go viral”. As someone who has grown my organic audience on social media to gaining 10k views per post with under 5k followers, I’ve tried all of the top “tips and hacks” and would like to share what advice people should stop following:
- Posting everyday. This commonly held belief favorited by the
“social media gurus” is less and less effective as platforms as Instagram and TikTok are doubling down on engaging short-form video content, focusing on quality, not quantity. The Instagram spokesperson even went public recently to state that “Instagram is no longer a photo-sharing platform, and is a platform for creators”. - Spending hours commenting on other people’s posts. In the age of bots that can comment and like others’ posts, engaging with people authentically in the direct messages (DMs) will not only allow you to create that “know, like, and trust factor”, but will make your content more likely to be seen by them.
- Focusing on trending music and text-in-video, instead of the first of the first three seconds of a video. Although popular music and text-in-video can help drive engagement, the most accurate measure of a video’s success or chances of going “viral” is whether or not viewers watch past the first 3 seconds. To make sure your video passes the “3-second test”, it must have one of the three E’s (emotion, experience, entertainment).
As more people use social media platforms to grow their business and personal brands than ever before, it’s important to understand how consumption is changing and focus on what will actually grow your audience and engagement. I’ve been able to grow my account from zero to a combined 1 million+ views in the last year.
I am happy to share my first-hand experience “hacking the algorithm” and testing out the popularized methods experts promote. I can be reached on Instagram at @iamspiffy_ or at https://contact.spiffydarko.com/ to discuss these trends, insights, and where I think social media content is going in 2022.
Warmest,
Spiffy Darko
Instagram – @iamspiffy_
https://contact.spiffydarko.com/
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