STAY HUMAN - Overcoming Algorithmic Addiction

Welcome to Attention Matters, the newsletter from Storythings which gives you practical insights and tools on how to tell better stories and grow your audiences’ attention.

This is the third post in our campaign exploring the seven signs you might be about to become a B2B Zombie. We’ll cover the symptoms, the cure, and simple steps to success. And read to the end for a useful reading list (we know from our stats you all love a reading list).

1 - How to avoid Generic Thought Leadership Disease
2 - Escaping from Buzzword Dependency Syndrome 
3 - Overcoming Algorithmic Addiction (that’s this post!)
4 - Curing your Corporate Voice Affliction
5 - Moving away from Template Dependence Disorder
6 - Breaking out of Risk Aversion Paralysis
7 - How to cure Engagement Entropy Rot

Our campaign is getting lots of shares on Linkedin and responses via email, so thank you to everyone who has shared or got in touch with us. If you’d like us to help you de-zombify your thought leadership content - whether that’s podcasts, video, editorial, or reports, hit reply and we’ll organise a call.

1 - What are the symptoms?

Have you ever found yourself doing anything on the list below? If so, you might be suffering from Algorithmic Addiction:

• Keyword stuffing that makes content read like it was written by a robot

• Blog posts that are clearly written for Google, not humans

• Same exact meta descriptions across multiple pages

• Content calendar driven entirely by search volume

• Every headline follows the same SEO formula

Ever since social platforms became the gatekeepers between us and our audience, the role of the ‘algorithm’ has attained mythical status. Here’s just a few results for a search on how to beat the LinkedIn algorithm - notice how many of them refer to specific years or updates, because chasing the algorithm is an endless task:

Before social platforms, we’d be trying to work out how to get real humans - newspaper or TV editors - to boost our stories, but now we have to try and work out the mysterious demands of a bunch of code instead. As a result, theories and conspiracies about what ‘the algorithm’ needs are performed like rites in a magic ritual to the gods.

You must include links in your comments, not the article. You must include a human face in the thumbnail. You have to include a reference to a trending topic. Comment on three articles before publishing your own. Include all the hashtags. Your video must be under 30 secs long. Or over 45 mins long. You must publish every month. Or every week. Or every day…

Let’s have a reality check. The algorithms that platforms use to organise and present content in everyone’s personalised streams are so complex, even they don’t fully understand them. They are driven by complex AI that sometimes reward specific hacks or tactics to get attention, but as soon as these are discovered, they get overused by creators, so any advantage is quickly erased.

2 - Take The Test

Is this sounding familiar? Are you slightly wincing in recognition? Take our test to find out how if you’re already addicted to the algorithm. BTW - If you’ve posted something on LinkedIn with an ‘authentic’ selfie, that’s double points. I don’t make the rules, I’m just saying.

3 - Here’s the cure

Of all our symptoms of Zombie B2B marketing, Algorithmic Addiction is possibly the hardest to cure. Because nobody really understands what the algorithms on social platforms really want, and there’s nothing more depressing than publishing something and getting a tumbleweed response. There is just so much stuff out there now. It’s surely not bad to want to try and give your content the best chance of success, even if this feels a bit like content strategy astrology?

It’s absolutely fine to consider what kinds of formats or content features will give you a fair chance of being seen, but the problem comes when this is your main focus. Nobody wants to give their attention to something that was designed for a bunch of computer code instead of a real human. So the cure is simple- never forget you’re telling stories to people, not algorithms.

4 - Our simple steps to success

If you want to overcome Algorithm Addiction, here’s a couple of things you can do that won’t cost a lot of time or money:

• Give the algorithms the crumbs, not the cake - if all your content formats are designed as native content for social platforms, you will quickly succumb to Algorithmic Addiction. Instead, see the platforms as distribution platforms for content formats that you control. Put your money and effort into something that is absolutely the best thing you can make - a podcast, video, or editorial format - and then create cuts of that format to distribute on social platforms.

• Be the first person to break the rules - If all your competitors are producing content that uses the same algorithmic tricks, be the first person to try something new. The worst that will happen is that you’ll stand out from the crowd, so if you do end up in your audience’s feeds, you’ll instantly get attention.

• Build your own rhythms outside of the algorithm - If you base your content strategy around the algorithm, you will quickly get trapped in a loop of having to find more and more things to say. You’ll get exhausted, your content will get exhausted, and your audience will get bored. Instead, create your own rhythm. If people love what you do, give them a way to subscribe to you directly, outside of their algorithmic feeds. There are still platforms - like email and podcasts - where your audience can directly subscribe to you, and you can be sure they will get your content when you send it, not when an algorithm decides to show.

4 - Go Deeper

How This Creator Broke The Algorithm By Ignoring It- This is a great interview with Youtuber Jenna Stoeber, who has found unique ways to hack the Youtube algorithm to make content the way she wants to make it. Particular genius is her video that is 9 mins long, but also an hour, as Youtube were rewarding longer videos.

Let’s Just Admit It: The Algorithms Are Broken - If you’re not already a subscriber to Ted Gioia’s brilliant Honest Broker newsletter, then subscribe immediately. This piece starts with a rant about how algorithms have made most digital platforms useless, diverts into a history of algorithms, and ends with a prescription for how we can make them better. As Gioia says, “The algorithm is not designed to help me—it just wants to manipulate me for the platform’s benefit.”

How One Writer Escaped The Algorithm - This is my now obligatory link involving Kyle Chakya, the author of the excellent Filterworld book about how algorithms have flattened culture. In this 2024 GQ interview, he shares what he learned when he spent two months deliberately avoiding all algorithmic platforms: “I felt less influenced by what was showing up in the feed; I was much more self-aware about my consumption of those things; I was better able to separate what was on the feeds versus reality.”

We hope you’ve found this this valuable - if you have, we’d love to hear from you! Please reply to this email to get in touch, or share the article on Linkedin tagging Storythings.

Matt