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Why has social media been so horribly BAD this year?
I (and a lot of other creators) suddenly got low views/reach at the start of the year and started losing followers and still losing followers to this day when we didn’t do anything wrong. What’s wrong with social media this year? It can’t just be our content, when it still did so good in December of last year.
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1 Reply
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Social media platforms can and do change their algorithms to generate money. Your content keeps folks on the platform so they can sell more ads… But letting you distribute that content organically (that is, without paying for it to show up to your followers) is eventually a lost revenue stream for the platforms.
Way back in 2013/2014, for example, Facebook business pages were the thing for small to medium sized businesses. You’d use it as a replacement for a standalone website.
(This tactic was especially effective since your audience was already on Facebook. As a business owner / content creator, you would want to meet your prospects where they already were, without taking them to an entirely different website.)
However, Facebook quietly changed the algorithm so that after a certain level of success, they’d throttle your organic reach to single percentage points of your total follower count, rather than the full opportunity they gave businesses in the process of building their pages.
Anyone who had a decent following on a business page was forced to pay to boost their posts to get anything close to their old reach.
Frankly, you’re building a house on rented land, and the fees can change at any time. You will eventually pay for access to that audience. It’s why content creators should eventually build their own lists and ways to access their audience outside of the original platform used to build the brand.
That way, creators can weather changes like what you’re describing. When you’re building an audience, it’s fine to concentrate on a single platform. Eventually, though, you’ll need to diversify distribution.
If you’re interested in learning more about strategically building up owned communities, I highly recommend the second edition of *Content, Inc.*!
They go into how to build an audience *away* from rented land social platforms in detail. But overall, it’s a solid read — and the 2nd edition refresh has more recent case studies and relevant platform examples.
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Essentially, there are two significant contributors. 1. People’s attention spans are shortening the more that they watch short form content (they get bored with a reel that pops up on their foryou page and scroll past before they’ve given it the time of day). 2. IG changed their competition strategy with TikTok. Initially they were rewarding any and everyone by pushing their reel content because they wanted people on Instagram to start using the reels feature. Over time they pushed less and less reel content and stopped rewarding creators who were making reels and started only rewarding creators who can capture and hold attention. Their CEO has come out and said that their goal is to keep people on the app for as long as possible. The biggest metric to pay attention to is your watch time (you can find it in the “view insights” icon on your reels) the higher your average watch time, the more that IG will push your content. Followers reading your captions or commenting are also going to prompt IG to start pushing your content as well.
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You need to align your goal with that of the platform. Facebook will reward you if you can keep their users on the platform and keep them engaged.
That said it might feel like its impossible to start because you get no reach so how can you keep them on the platform if you can even reach anyone?
In the beginning you want to go quantity over quality. You need to be seen you need to interact and you need to produce content.
There is a certain point you will have to find where you can make content fast bust still decent quality (quality meaning engagement and reach aka. Quality form the eyes of facebook and users not objective quality).
You can get reach as a total of all your posts and the better the engagement they will get together it will slowly start to take off. Plus they way they give you reach is almost a bit random. Sometimes your old posts will get pushed a month after it was published.
So as you cant have any reliability in the beginning you need to just put stuff out there to compensate.
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What is social media? It’s made out of people. The better question is why people have been so horribly BAD this year?
Oh.. which year are we talking about? -
Simple, it’s saturated, and content consumers are being more picky about who they follow to tidy up their feeds.
I personally always knew it was coming, and I’m pretty glad. There were far too many shit cunts under the illusion they could earn their living on social media without actually having to work a regular job or try very hard to be good at something other than shit posting.
Social media still has its place but is a supporting platform for businesses, brands, public figures, comedians, sports personalities, etc. The days of being a content creator without any real foundation or skill set are over.
Hallelujah! It’s time for many people to wake up and smell the coffee, the bubble has burst!
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I blame the beautiful summer we’ve had. Social media is meant to make people want things. So when creators make people want to go outside or travel then the viewers go do things and don’t watch social media.
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Been seeing great success. Making a lot of money from it and seeing huge reach (over 1.5 million frequently from an account with just under 20k followers). Engagement rates have remained strong.
Truth is, your content isn’t as good as you think. People believe their own baby is far more beautiful than it really is. It prevents them from seeing the problems.
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I call them ghost watchers. They may watch your every move but won’t comment like or engage. Good luck!
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The fluctuations in social media engagement can be frustrating, but you’re not alone in experiencing this. Social media algorithms are constantly evolving, which can impact reach and engagement. Sometimes, factors beyond your control, like changes in platform algorithms or shifts in user behavior, can affect your performance.
To adapt, consider staying up-to-date with platform updates and trends. Continue producing quality content and engaging with your audience. Sometimes, these fluctuations are temporary, and consistent effort can help you regain traction. Dedication to creating valuable content will ultimately prevail in the ever-changing social media landscape.
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