When our agency first started working on social media in 2012—I was kind of afraid of the Algorithm. I was obsessed with asking questions and trying to outsmart the social media platforms in order to ensure best coverage and engagement for our clients. I am over it now as it became clear to me that every day of my life, I am a walking algorithm. Simply put, all the routine things I do in life are part of the algo—tying my shoes, going to the office, following a recipe, bedtime sleep routines, shopping for groceries. All these routine chores are part of an ongoing algorithm in my life. Simply put, social media platforms like routine and ongoing exposure to become comfortable. When we stop posting, tagging, engaging, and sharing videos social media platforms stop performing—they stop pushing content out to your feed that you care about.

I will share a few rules we live by at Creative Marketing Arts. Here are 5 protocols to start your social media algorithm.

I hope to push out more content about this subject over the next few months. The first thing most new clients ask us is how do you handle the algorithm?

Algorithm 101:

“Quick Tip: If you are posting a story about where to dine, try to set that time for 3pm when guests go online to find a place to go for dinner.”

1. Consistency

Post at the same time and the same days of each week. If you are running stories, try to make sure you set them for the same days and times as well.

2. Outbound Links

Avoid unnecessary outbound links—sharing links that are not related to your content from websites confuse the algorithm and end up weakening your content. Links that are correlated to your store/center/content will improve your SEO/algorithm.

3. Answer the Question

Never leave your social media guest hanging—if they ask questions answer them quickly. We try to never wait more than 24 hours to respond to our platform’s guests. Some social media specialists suggest BOTS are a good choice to answer questions timely, however we disagree. We cannot use BOTS with our shopping center clients as the BOT would not know how to answer things like bathroom locations or is Nordstrom open on Thanksgiving, etc. The BOT would send a link and frustrate the customer. Answering in “real time” is very time consuming but the reward is ongoing loyalty from our users who have given most of our sites a 60-100 percent response rate.

4. Leverage Videos

This is a topic for a BLOG in the future—the quick answer is providing interesting video content that leaves the guest wanting more—they will ask questions about where and how to attend an event, give props for a fun experience in watching the video. Keep it clean and interesting—keep it consistent when you post your videos/Reels. People think you can create a video and run it through “Reels”— it can work that way, but it should be a video production with edits, voiceover, music, etc.—a mini-TV commercial for your product.

5. Stay Relevant

Post current events such as new store openings, trends in decorating, news stories that might be affecting your community.

Conclusion: Find interesting content and deliver it in a consistent, creative format and keep on ROCKIN the algorithm.