By trying to appease the algorithm, you’ll inevitably end up betraying your most authentic self.
Rule number one in marketing:
Not all algorithms are created equal.
Applying what works for one platform to another one will always be the number one reason why you’ll always fail to grow on any of them.
Just the thought of trying to understand them as if they’re all algorithms, and are supposed to be all the same thing with the same purpose, asking yourself why on earth would they be any different from the ones you already encountered, will keep you misunderstanding every single one of them. Just the thought of trying to understand algorithms as if they’re all one and the same will always make you get them wrong.
It will only make you come up with what could be described at best as a misrepresentation of how algorithms work.
Each platform has its own version of algorithms. They can’t be the same, even if they had the same goals. They can’t all use the same algorithms, even if they wanted to.
By the way, the notion that they show your posts to a bunch of people, and then they show them to more because it got good engagement is misleading. The algorithm stops sending your posts out to people prematurely even if it does well, if you’re below a certain threshold or rank of importance to the platform. They know who will appreciate your stuff. It still is not enough to mobilize the algorithm in your favor. The algorithm protects other people from being showered by posts they don’t care about. It is not designed with helping you to grow in mind. They just don’t want to scare people away from their platform multiple times in a row. It’s like when you browse the good old TV and find nothing to watch on all 200 plus channels. They don’t want that to happen on their platforms. Not on my watch. They try everything in their power to keep you over there. Imagine the nature of how high the turnover of the understanding of the algorithm to what type of content is your favorite actually is. They will reset multiple times in a row in one sitting, trying to appease you by any means necessary.
And you still think the algorithm is here to serve you. It’s designed with the consumer in mind, not people like me and you.
You need to use your imagination, not statistics.
It’s just business, nothing personal.
You cannot calculate your way into how algorithms work.
And no, they are not as ever changing as you think they are. Only your perception of them is ever-changing too much. And that affects how you think they currently are, and sometimes what you believe tends to prove itself to be the case, or to be the truth, even if it’s entirely false.
They most likely didn’t change anything about the algorithm. It was all in your head. It started to work in your favor a little bit more and you started noticing growth because you took action, and you remained consistent for quite some time, because you believed this time the balance will finally be tilted in your favor. You believed the rumors, and thought the results you were getting were because they turned out to be true.