A simple guide to ranking highly with social media algorithms

Social channels such as Instagram and Facebook earn their income through businesses paying to run ads on their channels. This means, they make it their main objective to keep users on the app for as long as possible, so you are more likely to see one. How? Well, they created social media algorithms that rank the most relevant, engaging content and boost it to the top of the feed.

We have researched some simple ways to rank highly with social media algorithms 

Create sharable and savable content

Likes and comments used to be the best way for a post to perform well on social media, now, not so much. The focus is now on shares and saves. The algorithm knows if you take the time to share or save a post then the content must be worthwhile or engaging. Savable content is particularly favoured as it means you are likely to re-open the app to read it on one or multiple occasions.

It is still worthwhile to encourage engagement on your posts by asking questions in your caption, however, you will rank higher if people are tagging others in the comments section of your post and sharing to their stories too. To achieve this you will need to create informative or humous content or graphics. Competitions and giveaways really encourage these types of interactions, providing you stipulate clear instructions in your caption.

Tagging others and your location

Quick wins. By tagging other businesses and accounts in your posts, it helps to grow your network. If people open up your post and see another account tagged, they are likely to click on the other account, extending the amount of time they are on the app, hence why the algorithm favours tags.

Secondly, social media algorithms love authentic content, when you tag a location, it helps to legitimise your post. It also helps pull you up in location-based searches.

Use the right hashtags 

Hashtags index your post and add it to a category. As it currently stands, using 7 hashtags is the most effective.

Jumping on hashtag trends is a great way to encourage new followers however to gain relevant and loyal followers you will need to research the best hashtags in your field.

Once you’ve done your hashtag research you can keep using them over again, just make sure you are checking every couple of months for any newer, more relevant hashtags.

Don’t use filler posts 

Filler posts are really damaging for your engagement and will compromise the success of your real posts with social media algorithms. On days where you have no informative or quality content to share, it is better to just not post at all.

Look back through your old posts and take a look at the ones which had the widest reach, not engagement but reach. Take a note of the time of the week and time of the day and use this to your advantage to make sure you’re posting your best content at this time.

Video content

To step it up a notch and really boost your profile and following, you need to invest time and potentially money into videos. Currently, videos are the best way to rank highly with social media algorithms and people too! This is always changing of course and this week’s trend could be next week’s faux pas. However, creating professional videos is tricky and time-consuming, they are not suited to every business but you would be surprised at what people like to watch. Just one successful video on your channel could have a very positive impact.