How does the social media algorithm decide who sees my content?

Think of the algorithm as a picker that grabs your content and places it in different lanes based on what the content contains. The algorithm is sophisticated - it analyzes everything in your post: if there’s a horse, a dirt stadium, an American flag, it recognizes ‘this is rodeo content’ and shows it to people interested in rodeos. If you only post that type of content, the picker keeps putting you in the same lane, showing you to the same audience repeatedly. Your audience never grows beyond that narrow segment. But when you post different types of content - like talking about camera lenses you use - the algorithm says ‘this is photography education content’ and shows it to a completely different audience segment. This is why diversifying your content is crucial. Each different type of content (your story, your interests, your process, behind-the-scenes, your art, teaching moments) gets picked up and shown to different audience segments. The algorithm wants content that keeps people on the platform, so when you create varied, engaging content that people actually want to watch, it rewards you by showing your posts to increasingly larger audiences.

---

Answered by Patrick · Art Business Webinar · 2026-07-22