SOCIAL MEDIA CRASH COURSE
MODULE 2
Increasing your Outreach
You have now learned about the basics of twitter, instagram and facebook and how you can use their features to your advantage. But now that you have ideas on how to write or further polish you accounts and posts, you might wonder: How will I get more people to see the things I post?
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This module gives you a brief overview of how posts on social media re seen, or not seen, and provides you with some advice once you have decided on what you want to achieve.
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ABOUT ALGORITHMS
The hidden brain of social media
Facebook, twitter, and instagram all are platforms that display information to their users. Have you ever wondered about why you see certain things when you scroll down your feed on facebook? Or how the instagram posts you look at are selected? The answer is: through algorithms. It is important to understand this basic structure, or the hidden brain, of social media, to understand what you can do to pop up on people's screens.
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Basically, algorithms are sets of steps to accomplish a task (click here for an illustrative video explaining algorithms and why they are so useful for computers). All social media platforms use these sets of steps to determine which posts users see depending on how relevant and interesting these posts are to them, rather than just the time they have been published.
These algorithms work slighly differently for Instargam, Twitter, and Facebook, but they all have this same goal: Show people things they find interesting. Why? Because then people stay longer on the website and the platform can show them more advertisements, which is how they make money.
WHAT ALGORITHMS LOVE
Sounds simple enough - but what does an algorithm need to categorise something as relevant or interesting for others?
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First of all, it depends on the user. By using a social network, you give the network data about you. Which posts you comment or like, or even which posts you look at for longer, will tell the algorithm what you are interested in, so that it will show you things that are relevant to you. This also means: whatever you post is more likely to show up on people's feed i fit is in some way related to what they previously have been interested in.
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That said, algorithms in general like what most people like, as that will make people stay on the platform longer:
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good quality and original content: High quality pictures, taken by yourself, will be more appealing to an algorithm than low quality or shared material.
funny or emotional material: if something evokes reactions, more people will engage with it, so algorithms prefer this
educational rather than promotional material: Content that is authentic, educational and up to date will be preferred by algorithms over promotional or fake content.
videos: a video makes people stay on a website longer, and the provider can even set an advertisement at some moment in the video, so algorithms really looove this!
material that others engage with: This is only one factor, but interactions matter! Algorithms like posts that other people like, share and comment.
material that is easy to understand for the algorithm: We all love simplicity, and so do algorithms. If it is really clear what your post is about, it is more likely to be shown on someone's feed. Hashtags help a lot here (#supereasy), and if you have content or a link that you share, make sure to add a brief description about what it is you are sharing.
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​So even if your material might not be super relevant for a lot of people, there are still some things you can do that will make it more likely for people to become interested in it!
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Want to know more about this?
This video explains most of the above comprehensively in three minutes, have a look! There are many more tutorials on youtube explaining algorithms and increasing outreach specifically for your favourite platform, just put in "social media algorithm" and hit search!
Apart from that, this blog explains social media algorithms and how to work with them in greater detail. Again, if you want more specific information for a certain platform, google is your friend.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?
Three simple steps
Before you post something on social media, you should always go through these three steps:
What is your aim? What do you want to achieve? Do you want more people to know about your organisation in general? Do you want to promote an event? Do you want people to donate? Do you want to raise awareness for something?
Who do you want to achieve this with? What is your target population? Young adults? Families? Journalists? Different people use different platforms. Google which platform your target group is using most and then tailor your post to this platform.
Once you know what you want and with who you want it, think back to what algorithms and people love: How can I make my post appealing to others and the algorithm? Create original, high quality content that is aesthetic and/or emotional or funny, describe your content, use hashtags, ask people to share, comment, like... There are many options! Make sure you use them to get what you want and need.
SEE IT, READ IT ... DO IT?
In this module, you have learned some things about how to increase the outreach of your post. However, "outreach" only means that people see a post. But does that mean people also read it and think about it, or even act on it? Probably not.
If you would like to know more about how you can get others to engage on and off social media with your post, go to module 3! We promise it will be interesting ;)