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For short form video (Tiktok, IG Reels, Youtube Shorts), what determines when something will get a chance at the FYP/reels feed/shorts feed?
Despite being all different platforms, lumping them all together because they all seem to use similar algos for short form videos (seemingly with IG/YT trying to follow TT). Not asking about my content in particular, but more so what technical factors do the algos take into consideration regarding what/when to push or not to, in what order, to how many non-followers/subscribers, etc. Cause it often seems a lot like a slot machine; outwardly arbitrary, but likely has some logic behind it.
Like I’ve seen claims for Youtube that all shorts will have a chance at the feed, but it can take 24-72 hrs, but I’ve had shorts up over 72 hrs with still 0 views from shorts feed (and YT seems to have the most accurate/detailed metrics to see this). I’ve also noticed the longer it takes to hit the feed, the worse it’ll do. For the most part (for me, after starting shorts on a new YT acct), starting to get views on the shorts feed in the first 10 min usually gets me around 50k views, first 15 min 10k-50k, first 30 min 1k-10k, anything beyond 30 min just never gets shorts feed views (and gets some small amount from other features like searches). In the past month, far fewer will ever hit shorts feed and those that do often don’t for 30 min (only getting 1k-10k or so). Sometimes (esp with scheduled posts), I’ll come back to find one hit the shorts feed that was posted after another that didn’t (so it doesn’t seem to necessarily be in order). And sometimes that’ll happen with the same short (like the same vid/content), which won’t get shorts feed exposure but then will on a repost shortly after.
Tiktok – which I easily had the least background with when starting – seems to be the most reliable (as in they almost always get a shot within the first 30 min of posting and are easier to compare which people seem to like more). Even when just starting, when there was a slight but notable difference in views (like 1-10 vs 10-100 views), I read a video had to be 5+ seconds to make the fyp. Once I tried making sure they all were 5+ sec, they almost all get on the fyp somewhere within 15-30 min of posting. I think 2 vids since still got like 1-10 views since (and then will gain views at roughly the same rate as those that seem to be just views from my profile directly), so I’m guessing for those there was some similar factor that disqualified them (but unsure what that may be yet). In one case, I reposted the same vid (dif filter and tags/caption) maybe an hour later and it didn’t get on fyp either. Then I posted a few other vids and tried the same vid with a different song a few days later and it went to fyp (so the video content/length/etc. didn’t seem to be the issue). I’ve noticed some seem to get a pop some days later (and those get a better chance at running for longer), but that’s not in lieu of that initial fyp burst. I had one I was going to make private (it did fine, just that others did better) and it randomly started running (not super quickly, but very consistently and hasn’t stopped since, now roughly a month later).
I’ve also noticed something similar on IG not long after (where one of my reels is running a lot longer than any of my content on IG has before), but that one popped earlier on and then kept running (it slowed after the initial pop but kept steadily going). Prior to that one, once they got that initial pop, they never picked up after (aside from like views from my profile). IG was the only one I started with a decent audience (whereas TT/shorts I started on fresh accounts with no followers), but I’ll find quite often plenty of followers never even get the content on their feeds (mostly based on those friends you have that will like anything you post or asking someone if they saw something), or at least not shortly enough after posting for it to have any benefit as far as getting more views earlier on (and therefore helping it gain exposure). Sometimes it’s like days later, so having the analytics of when your followers are active really doesn’t help there. If I don’t post it to my feed (just the reels feed) it seems to have a better chance at getting more reach to non-followers, but obv doesn’t get as much engagement overall. Whether or not Meta is struggling to compete doesn’t change the fact that bookings and various irl gigs ask for my IG when submitting (not TT/YT), so I’m more inclined to pull anything that doesn’t do well because it doesn’t help my chances at other work.
Kinda annoying process to keep having to reassess how to even get content to get exposure. I’d rather just create and know what people like and what they don’t and go from there, but that gets progressively harder over the years. Not expecting anyone to know outright the ‘answers’, but any insight would be great!
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