You’re not alone if you feel like your head is spinning from all the social media algorithm changes taking place. In a recent livestream, Zoetica founder Kami Huyse reviews what’s happening and how to navigate this shifting landscape.
Increased Competition for User Attention
The reason social media platforms are once again tweaking their algorithms is to win the ongoing war over users’ attention, she explains.
“Everybody is trying to grab the eyeballs, your eyeballs, and the eyeballs of the people that look at social media and that do social media management and that watch social media,” she says. “They want more people to spend time on their platforms.”
Two Important Macrotrends
Kami mentions two important trends to pay attention to.
1. Social media traffic to news sites is decreasing.
“The reason this is happening is because almost all social media sites [like] LinkedIn and Facebook, are depreciating links out of a platform,” she observes. “Some of that has to do with the competition to keep you on site, some of it also has to do with regulations that are being put in place around the world [due to] mis- and disinformation.”
2. The rise in artificial intelligence creates search competition.
“The social media platforms… were not having a war with search engines necessarily at first, but right now they’re starting to do that,” she says. “So, a lot of people have said, younger people have said, that they use something like TikTock for search rather than that they try to find out things on Tik Tok, rather than on any kind of platform like Google.”
Meta has Depreciated the API for Groups
If you’re a heavy Meta user, you’ll likely have noticed having had to change how you share content.
“I'm sure if you have a group you already know this, because you cannot live stream into a group anymore,” Kami notes. “Those of us who use a third-party tool like the one I'm using now for example, which is Streamyard, to stream into a group, it doesn't work anymore, it doesn't work at all anymore…. We're going to be starting to have these situations where we're going to have to do a lot more work.”
Meta Removed Third Party Livestream Scheduling Capabilities
Pre-scheduling livestreams has also changed, with third party tools no longer able to help creators schedule videos, she shares.
“Another thing that [been] taken away, besides the [third party] live streaming, which has kind of been the big talk, is that you can't schedule into a group anymore from a third party tool,” she explains. “They've taken it away, that is, the entire API, which means you can no longer automate things into those groups unless you… do it through Facebook directly.”
Meta’s Threads Now Has More Daily Users than X
For the first time ever, Meta’s Threads has more daily users than X (formerly Twitter), a huge shift in the microblogging space. Whether Threads will become as powerful as Twitter has been historically for breaking news and a way for the media to share content remains to be seen.
Kami will definitely be watching developments since, as she notes, “Twitter was always my jam.”
TikTok’s New Notes
Kami also has her eyes on the new TikTok Notes. Considered a direct competitor to Instagram, TikTik Notes is an app that encourages users to share content through photo posts.
“It could be a big deal, just like [Instagram] reals,” she says.
LinkedIn Has Tweaked Its Algorithm As Well
LinkedIn is an increasingly big player on the social media scene. Not only is it a professional networking site, it “has become also maybe a replacement platform for a couple of other platforms, Kami says. “I know some people that were really, like, sort of X (Twitter) users [who] have come to LinkedIn – that would be me. There's people that were Facebook users… and they have come now to LinkedIn… We're leaning into it as maybe a preferred platform.”
Yet, she observes, with LinkedIn’s “personal profiles, the impressions are down by 30-40%, follower growth is down by 35-45%… [and] engagement is also down by 70-80%.” To increase visibility, she therefore recommends encouraging comments, noting “comments are huge on LinkedIn because that’s where we're connecting with each other and the algorithm is learning who likes who.” She adds, “personally I think DMs also pretty important.”
How to Adapt Your Social Media Strategy to Stay Ahead
“I'm sure with all this competition there's a little bit of fear, and I get that,” she says. “What I think is the most important thing for us to really lean into during these huge algorithmic changes is… community.” She strongly believes that “community becomes so much more important to us than almost anything else.”
“If you're not building an online community – and I don't mean just people that follow you or listen to your stuff… but people that you're actually getting in there with and having conversations with and growing with,” you’ll lose out.
Kami’s System for Building and Growing Community
Kami teaches her method for mastering social media and growing influence as a business leader, as well as building and nurturing community, through the Pathway to Mastery system’s six unique stages: Explorer, Connector, Architect, Creator, Attractor, and Innovator.
To introduce people to this powerful system, she is offering a free hour-long Spring Open House Brand Voice Blueprint workshop where participants learn how to create an authentic and powerful brand voice that resonates with their dream clients. Free registration is open now.
Watch Kami’s full livestream for more information on the top social media developments to be aware of, and check out the links to all the original resources she mentions.