How to Boost Social Media Algorithms with Fan Engagement

Picture this: You have spent hours creating beautiful social media posts to share with your followers. You post them, but they receive minimal engagement. Was that time well spent?

Every social media marketer can relate to this scenario. And, with social media algorithms making for more challenging for your content to be seen, it can be frustrating. One way to help boost your social media performance is to first encourage your board members, employees, or team to engage with the content on their pages. Here is what you need to know.

What is a social media algorithm?

You may have heard the term “social media algorithm,” but what does it mean? An algorithm in this context is a complex computer programming function that determines what content gets shown in a social media feed. They can adapt results based on several factors including what posts you interact with and what time of the day you are scrolling through a social media app.

According to Sprout Social, key signals for social media algorithms include:

• User engagement
• Relevance
• Timing and frequency
• Recency
• User interactions
• Profile authority
• Location
• Content type
• Virality
• Watch time (for video)

Why should I care?

If you own a local non-profit, business or organization and use social media as part of your marketing strategy, it is important to understand how social media algorithms work and how you can use them to your advantage. For example, if a post has a lot of likes, comments or shares, the post will be shown to more users. This applies to popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Here are three additional algorithm fast facts:

1. The Facebook algorithm boosts content with a high number of likes, shares, and views, as it signals higher engagement.
2. On Instagram, information such as how many users liked a post, when it was posted, its length, and where it was posted also impacts its visibility in feeds.
3. On LinkedIn, early engagement is the second most important ranking factor, which determines whether a post should be pushed higher in the feeds.

How can I boost my social media engagements to fight the algorithms?

When deciding a strategy for social media engagement, do not forget a great resource at your disposal – your fans! Whether it is your team, employees, board members or even family and friends, simply asking for a like, comment or share can go a long way to help boost your content. Task these individuals with the following to get started:

• Following your page on all platforms that are appropriate for your industry (including the big dogs: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok).
• Liking, commenting, and sharing your pages’ social posts.
• Adding posts to their story on Instagram and/or Facebook.
• Sharing your posts to their Facebook or Instagram story.
• RSVPing to company events on Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Inviting their friends to like the page on Facebook.
• Creating their own social content at board meeting, events, etc., and tagging the page.

With a staggering 61.4 percent of the world’s population active on social media according to Data Reportal, it’s no surprise that we use it to promote our businesses and further our non-profit causes – even though getting posts seen by your target audience feels even harder than ever.

Remember that social media platforms (especially Facebook) put emphasis on building community. Your fans already believe in your mission, making sharing your content is an easy ask.

By getting the people who are care about your cause, product, or business to have your back with a little social media engagement, you will strengthen those relationships and add new social media fans (while using algorithms to your advantage) along the way.