I Reversed Engineered Social Media Algorithms transcript

Today we're talking about how social media algorithms actually work. If you want to get more views with less effort, the easiest way is to get the algorithms to push you more for free. Now, 5 months ago, I made this video on the basics of how algorithms work. It has over 800,000 views. So, in this video, I'm going to go much deeper on the tactics and explain exactly how to tweak your content to get more of that free algorithm push.

And I'll break down the strategies across both of the main social media games, going mega viral and authority-driven conversion. So, no matter what your main goal is on social media, this video will tee up the exact content formula you should use. Now, the information in this video is based on a ton of outlier data as well as comments made by the Instagram CEO himself. So, this is the latest and greatest for what to actually follow if you want to activate the algorithm.

And by the way, if you don't know me, my name is Callaway. I've millions of followers. I've done billions of views. And content is all I do all day long. All right. Now, before I get into the two different scenarios, let me just quickly recap how social algorithms work. And again, if you want the full breakdown for this in detail, I'll link that video below. The algorithm's only job is to keep viewers on the platform for longer.

To do this, it tries to match the right videos with the right viewers. When you post a video, the algorithm creates a digital fingerprint to try to understand what that video is about. It watches it, it looks at the transcript, and it listens to the audio. Now, based on that fingerprint and assessment, it creates a fit score, a prediction for who it thinks will like it the most. It then pushes your video to a small sample group of about 200 people that are highest on its fit score prediction.

Some of these 200 are followers, and some of them are non-followers. Now, based on how that initial 200-person sample group responds, the algorithm will either nuke your video, retest your video, or amplify it. Being stuck in 200-view jail just means that first test sample group is not engaging with the video well. And a 2-million-view super-viral video comes from the first 200 and then 2,000 and then 20,000 and then 200,000 all liking the video.

And it literally keeps pushing it to new orders of magnitude until it runs out of people that want to see it. So, really the whole game of content, if you want to hack the algorithm, is getting that first test sample group of 200 people to really engage well with your video. Now, to make that sample data come back strong, there's really two things you want to do. First, you want to help the algorithm build the right fit score on your content.

And second, you want to make content that people actually watch and engage with. And so, that brings us to the two different strategies for how to activate the algorithm differently depending on the game you're playing. Because whether you're going for pure virality or lots of conversion, the game you play and the strategy you use actually differs wildly. So, now let's go through each of these two scenarios and I'll explain exactly how to make your content so that you can activate the algorithm as much as possible.

All right, the first scenario we're going to cover is the personal brand high authority conversion game. So, in this game, your number one goal is to build high authority and trust around you as the personal brand so that you can sell a product, service, or offer. And by doing this, your most important metric is dollars generated. You only care about views and followers so much as they help you build trust and generate more dollars.

In my opinion, this personal brand conversion game is the most lucrative you could play on social media and it's the easiest if you actually have real expertise. This is the game I'm personally playing on my Callaway Marketing Instagram page where I've gone from like zero to 95,000 followers in about 5 months. But way more important than the followers, I've generated 40,000 emails and over 100,000 in attributable profit in the first 3 months of that channel.

So, this asset is now a compounding cash machine. What I'm about to share for how I've hacked the algorithm to drive more leads and sales is the exact strategy that I have run on this channel the last 5 months. Now, if you look at my page and you filter the videos by views, what do you notice? Not a single one of those videos has over 1 million views, and that was by design, completely on purpose. Because when you're playing the conversion game, your goal is to make sure the algorithm fills up that 200-person sample group with as many potential buyers as possible.

The truth is, I don't really care about reach. I want to use the algorithm as a hunting mechanism to find more of my ideal buyers. So, the name of the game in this strategy is consistent precision. And I'll explain what that means and how to activate the algorithm to do that right now. So, the real question we're answering here is, what is my content strategy and how do I make the individual videos to create this algorithmic hunting effect?

The very first thing is topic mix and topic selection. When we're going for high authority and conversion, we need to be extremely disciplined on the topics we choose to make, way more so than if you're trying to go super viral. We really only want to make topics that say yes to these two questions. Number one, will this bring new value to my target buyer? And number two, when they watch this, will they feel like I have extreme expertise in this space?

These are the filtering questions you should use when deciding which topics to make and which to skip. Now, in order to answer those questions yes, we have to have extreme clarity on who the target buyer actually is. Cuz without knowing this, you're kind of just guessing on whether or not this topic and your substance will actually be valuable. Typically, the people that I've worked with haven't actually gone through the exercise to define their target ideal avatar.

So, to help you with this, I've linked my niche interviewer Claude skill below. It's completely free. All you have to do is download it, drop it into Claude, answer the six questions that it prompts you with in detail, and it will print you this one-page positioning statement all about your avatar. This doc should then become a filter for you whenever you pick topics and ideas moving forward. All right, so we have clarity on the avatar.

We now have the filters we should use on picking topics. Now, we need the content mix. If we're going for conversion, should every video that we set up be super narrow to that avatar? No. If every single one of your videos are extremely narrow, it makes the algorithm feel lazy and sleepy. And by that I mean, it's almost like it has permission to not hunt harder to find more buyers for you. And I realize that phrasing is just anthropomorphizing the algorithm.

What I really mean is the topic selection being too narrow is not what we want. There's actually a Goldilocks zone that we want to hit when it comes to topic specificity if we're going for conversion. To find that Goldilocks zone, you actually want a mix of broader and narrower ideas. Some people do the tofu mofu bofu thing. I just like to simplify it to two, broad and narrow. The broader ideas are still meant to say yes to those two filters, but they're more broadly positioned so that they would activate literally every potential buyer in our slice.

The narrow ones are meant to be pinpoint accurate, a bull's-eye for your exact target buyer. Literally saying the exact words, pain points, and examples that they have in their heads. They're just like they're nodding along. You want a mix of those. And here's why. Imagine you had a pie of 100 million people. Anyone that could potentially be a buyer for you, let's say 2 million people, is a slice of that pie. The broader ideas are meant to fill as many as we can in that slice and nobody outside.

Now, within that 2% slice, let's say only 200,000 of those are actually our exact buyer avatar, a sub-slice in that slice. The narrow videos are meant specifically for them. So, for example, let's say I'm a plastic surgeon, Dr. Callaway, in my practice, and I'm trying to make content to drive new clients via leads so that they book surgeries with my clinic. And let's say I specifically only do facelift procedures. A narrow piece of content would only be about facelifts or some topic in the facelift family.

A broader piece of content would be something like ranking all of the neck up plastic surgery procedures you could get and talking about how well or little it would impact your appearance. Both of those types of videos still accrue trust to me as a plastic surgeon. As long as I have valuable commentary, I will still be seen as an expert and it will be uniquely valuable to the viewer. But what you're really doing by adding in some of those broader videos is that you're expanding the reach to some people that might be interested in a facelift that the algorithm just hasn't found yet.

So in a way, using the broad plus narrow strategy is expanding your surface area for luck so you can find more of the people that would become buyers. Okay, so it's crystal clear audience avatar, extreme discipline on the topic selection using those two question filters, and a mix of broad and narrow content. What else do you do? On formats, you want to use formats and visual layouts that signal default trust on their own.

All of us have seen these kind of junk food formats that have a lot of views but definitely don't accrue trust and we have no idea who that person was as soon as we scroll away. You don't want to do this. When you're going for high authority, you want to use any advantage you have to subconsciously influence. If you're a surgeon, wear the lab coat in the content and be in your office. If you're an accountant, be at your desk.

If you're in real estate, show the real estate property or be in a real estate office. Also, the quality of the content matters, especially if you sell high ticket and you're currently unknown. You're trying to subconsciously signal to the buyer that you care. So film it in 4K, make sure the audio is dialed. That quality actually matters. Now this is really important. The substance of what you say in the video should be one click above the sophistication level of your buyer.

If you're targeting beginners that are a two or three out of 10 in your space, then your content should only be at a four or five level. If you're targeting experts that are more at a seven or eight out of 10, then your content better be coming in at an eight or nine level of complexity and sophistication. And that doesn't mean confusing and not clear, it just means the quality of the information and the depth that you go needs to match one level above where your buyer sits today.

For example, on my Instagram channel, most of these videos are positioned at like a four to seven out of 10 level. This means sometimes they go over a pure beginner's head who's at a one out of 10, but that's fine because those beginners are not my target buyer. Now lastly, if you want to activate the algorithm for conversion, your goal is to drive as many CTA comment activations as possible. The comments will drive the algorithm share loop and also it's exactly what you want, emails, booked calls, and DM conversations.

So in summary, here is how all these moves that we just went through actually affect the algorithm. In the conversion game, it's very critical that as many of those 200 people in the sample group are not only aligned to each other, but also exactly on target with our buyer avatar. Now all the things we mentioned about defining the avatar, the topic selection, coming up with the content mix, that will help make sure we recruit the right 200 people.

Now once those 200 start watching, we obviously want extremely high engagement from them. And to get that, we're going to use embedded signals in the format to prove we are who we say we are. We're going to use specific words in the hook and body that signal their pain points, desires, or outcomes. We're going to frame the substance one click above the sophistication level that they're at, and we're going to drive a ton of CTA action to spur the algo, but also extract the leads.

All of those things will help drive better sample data so the algorithm actually pushes that from 200 to 2,000 while finding the 2,000 that are like our target buyers. Now in terms of number of views, it's very important. If you're in a niche space and there's only a million people that might buy your product, then getting 10,000 targeted views on a video is actually extremely good. So you need to anchor your expectations on views, apples to apples.

You're not playing in these major categories if you have a very niche offer. So that in a nutshell is the recipe for activating the algorithm if you want conversion. Now before I go on to the mega virality, if you're a business owner and that's exactly what you're going for, you want to make content to drive leads and sales, this is the exact system that I install in SFA. If you want to work with me one-on-one and get the exact same blueprint that I'm using, as well as what we've put in place for dozens of business owners, I've got links below to work with me.

All right, now the other game is what I call category virality or mass virality. If you're trying to go truly mainstream like Logan Paul or Mr. Beast, I'm not going to cover that here cuz chances are you're not watching these videos and I haven't done that myself, so it's ingenuine for me to give you the playbook. I also don't think that's what 99% of people watching this actually want. What I'm referring to here and what most people want is category virality, where you go super viral in a single category, build a lot of authority and a huge personal brand to monetize via brand deals.

You can think of people like Dad Social in the parenting space or Oren in the marketing space or even me in the AI space. This is what me and someone like RPN have been running on our tech channels. This mass virality playbook positions you as high authority and highly influential in your space, which creates a lot of downstream opportunity. Now, like I said, on my @ callawaychannels on Instagram and @kingcallaway on TikTok, this is what I'm doing.

I've over a million followers collectively, I've done billions of views, I've a seven-figure annual profit business on that side. So, I also have this formula dialed very well. Now, the main difference with this game is that we're really going for max views and max follower growth. We're not optimizing for conversion, we're optimizing for views, follows, and engagement rate. And I can't stress this enough, it is a completely different game, completely different strategy, completely different intention.

Now, if you are playing this game and you want to go for max virality, want to rip bangers, this is the exact formula for how to hijack the algorithm on that side. First, on the actual sample targeting. Here, you actually don't need to be as disciplined on the 200 people that come into the sample. Now, you don't want to make topics all over the place. You don't want sports and tech and dating and culture, that's way too broad.

But, as long as you stay within your category bucket, you have a lot more liberty on who exactly those people are that watch the video. So, on the topic selection, the one filter question I run on this side is will the video I make match the promise I'm stating in my bio. Typically, in your bio, you're summarizing in a punchy way the topic or category that you cover. So, as long as the content idea fits within that promise, you're good to go and the sample group should be aligned.

To prove this is true, if you actually look at my tech channel right now, I have over a million views on all these different topics. Life-size floor plans, space mirrors, computers grown with brain cells, Elon's Terafab chip building, a breakdown of ASML the company, a breakdown of the sphere, a random headset device to let you control your dreams. It's all over the place topically, but it's all within the broad bucket of tech and AI, which is why it works.

Now, when you're approaching broad virality, you're just trying to get bangers, you actually want to look at each video individually a lot more than you want to look at the collective portfolio the way you would on the conversion side. So, all the rest of the tips I'm going to break down for the algorithm are all about each individual video. Like, how do we take one rep and just rip it to a million views? First off, if you want a million or more views, you're going to have to get that initial group of 200 and the next group of 2,000 to really love the video explosively.

So, how do we do that? The first thing is we want to broaden the topic TAM as much as possible. You have to have this topic appeal to as many people as you can. If you want max virality, broad, broad, broad. It's broader, it's wider, it's bigger. So, this means instead of making a video about some niche robot in a small category, we're going to frame it about how this robot's going to take over this entire industry. You're basically trying to resonate on super broad issues that lots of people can understand.

Now, second is the angle framing. To go super viral, you need to have a very novel angle on your video. Either you're the first person sharing something super new or you come up with an original take on an old thing that is very non-obvious. Now, one way to go much broader faster is to use names of celebrities, brands, or any proper noun that the average viewer already has an embedded understanding of. For example, if I said, "This is the robot version of the UFC." That brand name UFC already has embedded meaning to millions of people.

It means fight. It means combat. It means sports. It means Dana White. It means Conor McGregor. It means Khabib. All those terms are loaded, compressed into that one term, UFC. So, by saying that word in the framing, I get to coast off the embedded understanding, and the comprehension goes up for a lot more people. Now, there are tons of exercises I've come up with to help people figure out how to expand the TAM, but that would be one good example.

The next thing you want to do, the absolute best way to drive insane virality, is to create controversy in the comments. Ideally, you want to have a super bold contrarian take that creates a visceral emotional response in a lot of people at the same time. Either they're for you or against you. They're for the topic or against it. You don't want them to be in the middle ground. So, if you're going viral, when you decide your angle, you need to say, "What is the strongest, boldest claim I could make that I actually believe?

And how could I tie this claim to some outcome or some future state that would activate the mob?" Now, I don't advocate trying to engineer these viral moments around negativity. I'm purely just speculating on the psychology for the formula to make it happen. But oftentimes, the videos that go super viral create this negative mob mentality in the comments. You essentially want to activate a frenzy. Most of the million-view videos have many pockets of like arguments and 30,000 liked comments all going at the same time in the discussion.

And your job really, if you want to create virality, is just to light the first match to get it going. Now, from an editing and formats perspective, there really only two ways to get a super viral video. The first is to use a lower-quality raw format, but strike a chord perfectly on the emotional side. And the second is that the visual quality of the video is just top 0.1% It's just so insane when you watch it that you have to share it.

Either way, whether you go for the raw motion or the max visuals, you're trying to create a share loop in people that makes them want to push it to their group chats or publicly to their story reshares. All of those things I just mentioned are small little tips that when layered on top of each other creates this viral storm. And really, it all goes back to getting that first 200 people and the next 2,000 to really, really resonate well with the video.

Now, the real big takeaway that I want to underscore here is that these two games are completely different. And I don't think it's that obvious unless you've played both games at a high level. My goal from the beginning was to have multiple games going at the same time at an upper echelon skill execution so that I could commentate on both and break down exactly what you should and shouldn't do. I've learned over time that going viral is extremely helpful for maximizing brand deal revenue, but if you really want to make generational wealth, it comes from the high conversion, high authority personal brand game.

So, there are two ways to win. I'm making seven figures profit on both sides. It just depends on which one you want to play. And I will say for the people that want Goldilocks, it's fairly rare to be able to consistently hit viral bangers while driving a ton of conversion. Maybe the random one-off video can do it, but it's very rare to do that consistently. And the reason is because to go viral, you typically need to neuter and broaden any specific thing you were saying on the conversion.

Specificity drives dollars, broadness drives virality. Those are at odds. Now, like I said before, if you want my one-on-one and really my content brain to help you scale your content so you can make more money, I've got links below to work with me directly. All right, guys, that is all I've got for this video. As always, I'm trying to push the boundaries of the stuff that's covered and the substance that's really shared to kind of get you thinking differently and give you tactical playbooks that you can execute.

And if you're a business owner, especially if you're playing this personal brand high authority conversion game, you can probably already tell this is going to be one of the best channels you could possibly watch. Everything I'm doing is designed to help that business owner who wants to increase leads and sales from content grow their business [music] faster. So, if you want to work with me, I've got links below. And of course, like always, make sure to check all the free stuff in the description.

I'm trying to help 1 million business owners make at least 1 million dollars from content. That's 1 trillion dollars in market value. That'd be sick if I could get there. I have to give a lot of free stuff away to get there. So, make sure to check stuff out in the description, and we will see you guys on the next one. Peace.