I was initially going to talk about consistency, which is quite an important factor in the "social media" realm. It's natural that if you aren't consistent, your readers drop off after a while, but I don't think it's as bad on Hive for many reasons, one and the main one I suppose is the "algo".
The algo overlord
There's probably a pun in there I didn't come up with, but I remember when youtube's algo got "leaked" way back in the day and people started noticing that likes were really very important compared to just sharing the video around and getting views. The algo would care a lot more about likes to then take those videos and recommend it to others in relevant feeds, after other videos stopped playing, etc. And what did we get?
An era of content creators quite literally begging their viewers to like the content, frankly to the point where I personally never like any videos ever just because it was so overdone it annoyed me to no end. They knew however that this is what appeased the algo as it could mean new viewers, new subscribers, new future viewers, viewers on older videos, more engagement, more shares, more sponsorships, more adrevenue, more potential future earnings, etc.
We're now seeing some of the same things play out on twitter, where up and coming "creators" if you will, are constantly replying to any comment they get, aren't sharing links in the main tweet, etc, etc, anything to appease the current algo.
Have you noticed how the "for you" section on twitter is the default filter they show you? It's because they want their algo to be the decider in how you view your feed and where you pay attention. And if you go to the "following" filter, they only recently added the "recent" or "popular" list to that filter, so before you had to just rely on popularity of the algo of your own followers or your personalized algo, i.e. based on how often you interact with certain accounts, etc.
There was a lot of drama recently because the "crypto twitter" crowd started to notice that their reach was diminishing and it turned out that this was being done on purpose. They simply altered the algo to "nerf" reach of crypto related tweets by 70% or something.
Can you as a hiver imagine that? If you went to your feed and posts you'd like to engage with that are about Hive or other crypto were simply not there? You'd have to keep scrolling and scrolling to maybe eventually see it.
It's a bit hard to imagine the algo as hivers because the only one we have is "trending" and "hot", which is simply based on total rewards pending by the last 24h or 1h (I believe), other than that you have your personal feed which is always based on when posts were distributed. So if you're looking for a specific author you'd just have to scroll down to the timing when they usually would post and there would be their post, not hidden behind an algo or even downvotes.
On Twitter however this means a lot of different things, because these tweets can literally go hidden from sight to actual demand. It's like hiding something in hopes you forget it exists because you just don't see it that day. You may think maybe my favorite content creator didn't tweet that day but you can't be bothered to go check their profile page out as you're scrolling. Eventually this happens more and more and you may wonder what happened after some time only to notice that your content creator who kept tweeting about crypto has been receiving a fraction of views, likes and shares as they usually would. This is a sole person/team/entity deciding on the reach of the people.
What does consistency do if people can't see you?
What's worse is that we may never know exactly how these algo's work, do they hide certain users/keywords to accounts with a bigger reach more than those with smaller reaches? Do they simply censor some accounts completely if they call the CEO a dummy?
You can say what you will about freedom of speech or how on hive some times some people may not speak out because they're afraid of repercussions but at least nothing gets hidden from view here. Most people who get downvoted to 0 were never on trending anyway so it's not like they're losing out on new subscribers/followers because of that, if anything they're more likely to check out reblogs from relevant readers who wanna place attention to downvoted users because of what they're saying and their posts will always exist on your feed whether downvoted or not.
Modern corporate social media is crazy addictive because of the Algos. I used to doom scroll almost every day. I would be up until 3am regularly just reading some nonsense on Twitter 🤣
I never doom scroll with HIVE. The closest thing I do to doom scrolling is when I’m curating late at night or leaving comments on posts that catch my eye.
One thing that is super interesting about HIVE is we are not in a political echo chamber. Every corporate social media platform has some political bend based on who is running the algo.
But on HIVE that doesn’t happen. I get exposed to all sorts of people here (left wing, right wing, socialists, capitalists, communists, etc)
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You can file me under "Too Old For This" but the highest level effect of it all is that actual content tends to take a back seat to "content that fits the most people's preferences," aka trolling for views.
It tends to become bland because everyone focuses on appealing to everyone (a little bit) instead of building a base of actual supporters, where you are OK with being popular to a small niche, rather than just being oatmeal to the whole world.
Over the years, I've watched really interesting YouTubers cave to seeking broad popularity instead of sticking to their niche... and very few are worthwhile anymore.
But again, I write because I enjoy writing and not because "Sharing THIS particular set of words will maximize my chances of getting the most readers, regardless of what garbage I'm writing."
I personally can't stand Twitter and only had an account to market Hive, then stopped using that when the rednecks took over. The algorithm I am exposed to most is meta because of running a marketing company with social media practice. We study it constantly for developments and opportunities for our clients but it is always a guessing game at what goes on behind the curtain with corporate platforms.
A neat one to watch will be tic toc as the North American ownership has slid to another billionaire controlling social media. I have already heard reports of previously popular content creators having their content plummet in reach because they might have an opinion different than the agenda/portfolio of the new overlords.
I sometimes wonder what benefit an algorithm would be on Hive. The Trending and Hot sections are almost useless to me and I have to hand crank My Friends almost blindly searching for content and community members I want to support. It is called networking I guess. Couldn't imagine having someone I follow disappear from my feed because they had a change in habits or schedule. Glad for that.
Rage against the algorythm!
I think the only algos id be in favor of is something personal. Like scanning the chain to check who I interact with the most and suggesting me their latest posts or comment interactions they may have had. Other than that I'm fine with what we currently have.
as far as Global/site-wide algos, not sure, maybe recommending newer accounts that are active in posting and engaging and deserving of some curation rather than to have to look for them constantly.
On a lot of platforms, the algorithm categories views under quite a few different metrics. The one I found most interesting was small channels vs large channels. Some viewers prefer smaller, more “niche” channels. While others are more into the bigger brand mainstream names.
So, depending on the viewer's habits, certain channels are in fact not being shown unless the user goes out of their way to look for them. For instance, smaller channels start to show up at a higher frequency for a mainstream viewer once that viewer focuses in on a niche and has run out of mainstream content to consume. The more niche content they consume, the more smaller channels in other categories that view enjoys starts to show up as well.
As far as people doing calls of actions. It’s always going to be around as it works even if it’s annoying to see over and over again. As the average consumer of content needs to be reminded during their endless train-fueled binge of content to stop what the algorithm is pushing to them to do something other than have their brains rot out of their skulls 24/7.
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HIVE honestly does feel like it has been nerfed quite a bit lately, but I think a lot of it just has to do with how depressed everyone is with the markets. We get this pretty frequently where the price drops and people just leave making it feel like a wasteland for a bit. Then things turn around and it's jumping again for a while.
I also think due to current events people are just plain depressed. And also the month. January has the highest rates of suicides and mental health crises in Canada.
Yeah, that could be part of it. It's bleak and cold in my neck of the woods!
Same here. Today is the first real day light I've seen in around 2 weeks.
The few times I've seen folks get downvted to zero on hive there were spamming which isn't how you get real followers anyway.
I've pretty much given up on mainstream socail media other than reddit, and reddit has only survived cause it's got several really nice art communities and thanks to hiveposh.
Consistency is great but I think it's hard to have when it comes to posting. At least for me. I don't like posting for the sake of keeping a streak.
I think with the idea of consistency comes the technical skill growth alongside.
I think if you're just consistently uploading lame, grainy videos of yourself discussing your favourite wallpaper of the week with no charisma, you're unlikely to grow. If you consistently improve on your niche, however, that's when you eventually start to get noticed.
Not that I've ever done such a thing - I hate the idea of being well-known XD
I bloody hate when on YouTube people at the start of the video beg for a like and a subscribe, fuck sake, show me the video and if it's good I'll do it, begging for it will just make me NOT doing this
I also don't like the "content for you" features, let me pick what I like... I don't use Twitter really but Facebook does the same, some pages get shadowed because they are not aligned so you think they are dead when they are not...
At least on hive there's no algo besides hide low reputations comments or posts, but not even in all front ends
Right? at the end of the videogive a quick "Hey if you liked this subscribe for more!"
and that's when i close the video and don't do it 😂
Saaame man same.
yeh lol like thanks I know how to use youtube
Right? Also GET TO THE GOODS.
there's been times I looked up tutorials for something in a game I was stuck in, or to see if it's possible to save an npc in a game(or if the script is just like, nope they dead), and it's like, this is a 5 min vid, and 2 are you talking about not game related things. Just show me the thing so I can get on my way.
It's right up there with the cooking blogs that write an essay about their childhood before giving the recipe.
yep and the lame buildups you can hear from a mile away leading to sponsorships, ugh xd
Or the super cringy way they try to make it sound like it's just a natural review of a product.
I think part of the algo was authors trying to make more tweets diminish their visibility so there's a limit to how many tweets per day they can do on their page before it gets nerf. The rationale was trying not to flood a follower's feed with their recent posts and give way to other posts. I understand this idea. I've unfollowed some hivers in the past because they posted often and used the platform like twitter, not their fault just not the right visibility meant for Hive.
Why wouldn't you let people decide themselves though? Why does someone need to intervene, maybe some like the spam from one account, etc.
I've done the same on hive if they reblog spam or post too often and here it's public, they can track when someone unfollows you and maybe reflect on what they may have done to cause it.
They could decide for themselves, it just takes a few more steps if they really wanted to try. But I think twitter is more like a few minute peek or a doom scroll session that tries to hook you into spending more time in the app and the algo tries to push posts with more engagement thinking it's interesting so that you'd stick longer to check out what that interesting is then multiple by few more similar posts based on your behavior just enough to make it a worthwhile scrolling session.
I follow artists and cosers there, and I don't have the time to see each of the daily posts OR have the memory to remember all names. And I may not have the time to discover other content creators showcasing my similar preferences so the algo does me a favor by shoving me content I might like and more than half the time, it works. The algo's way may not be your type but it's working for those belonging to the middle of the bell curve, for now.
On Hive sometimes my curators stop curating my post. That is okay. Some curators go away while some new appears. For a good while I was getting curated by a few silent curators. Now it seems that they no longer interested in my posts. But at least my gaming posts recently got support from a new big curator.
I have not been on twitter in ages. I also often think that there is no point in posting on facebook/ youtube because it feels like my content is barely visible for people. But on Hive most of the time regardless of how big or small rewards are I get some comments so I at least know that someone saw/ read my post.
I'm just sick of algos. They're made just to serve the platform (aka investors and advertisers) and not the users.
I'm sick of social media becoming less social every day.
I'm tired of all this. They're making money on our limit of tolerance
Additionally if you post something they don't like on one of these platforms just once you are forever banned. And getting back by simply opening a new account is not that easy, means you need to clear your cookies and use a VPN which sometimes get blocked as well...