For this week I will be doing a series on the X platform. This will serve as an educational guide for those participating in the Zealy campaign to help them maximise their time and activity on the platform to better promote Hive. Also if you saw this post from X and you are looking to increase your engagement on the platform this post also applies to you.
Why you should listen to me? I have been studying the X platform (algorithm) actively for two months with some positive results. I have 1m weekly impressions (with decent engagement) and a growing following of 6,000 users. Also I have spent time listening to top creators on the platform and trying out their strategies. So I have a decent knowledge of what works on X
I must start here that we all are Hive ambassadors and our collective activities on other PLATFROMS like X help not only to shape how other people see the Hive blockchain but also impact our reach. It is no news that X is a centralised platform with rules and policies guiding interactions on the chain. Some of these guidelines are encoded into the PLATFORMS algorithm (which is not open-sourced) so you need to be very careful about how you go about promoting Hive, you might be doing your account, Hive, and those who follow your account a huge disservice by your activities.
Most of us have been using the platform wrongly for years to promote Hive, including myself. In this post, I will go over some of the DOs and DONTs on X to better help you navigate the platform and reach the right people with your message.
1. AVOID OR LIMIT THE NUMBER OF LINKS
One of the common mistakes Hivers make on X is to dump links to their hive blog on X. It will interest you to know that X deboost links and knows that you don't care. You are only sharing links as per some community guidelines to earn upvotes, however, for future campaigns where you need to reach more people you will face extreme difficulty because not only will your account be deboosted it will also be shadow banned. Currently, most of the Hivers on X are shadow-banned. You can easily know by the impression on your post. If they are not at least 5-10% of your following on X there is a huge chance you are shadow-banned.
"But Nonso I want to share my links"
Well as a small account, you are better off posting your links in your BIO and referring potential readers to it with a thread. You can also create a link tree to your various websites. The truth of the matter is most people on X do not want to leave X to source information. X is already an everything app, so if you have anything meaningful to say you can do it on the app. Also, X reduces your creator's score with every link you share, so if your score is not increasing at a faster rate than it is reducing then you find yourself in limbo.
2. HAVE A DECENT FOLLOWER-FOLLOWING RATIO
Another fact that might affect your reach on X is your FOLLOWER-FOLLOWING RATIO. The ideal situation is to have more followers than the people you follow. This shows the X algorithm that you are not a bot. So if you are following a lot of people who aren't following your account back, you might want to cut down (drastically)
Also, the accounts you follow matter. You must have a healthy active following and these followers must have a decent FOLLOWER-FOLLOWING ratio. Following and interacting with flagged accounts (accounts engaged in anti-social activities on X) will result in your account being shadowbanned.
The best way to grow your following is by following people in your niche. Start by following accounts within your range. Set a target each day, for instance, 10 followers per day. This way you can grow gradually by following the right people. Avoid following popular accounts. You can simply add them to your list if you want to keep track of their posts and interact with them regularly. The goal here is to be as human as possible and build a strong human-like following.
3. BE AN ORGANIC USER
I put out a poll the other day asking people if they had active social accounts outside Hive and many said "no". This explains why many Hivers participate in bad social etiquette. They write and post poorly constructed posts to the space expecting to earn. They do not care about engagement or optics and they carry this behaviour to other PLATFROMS.
To reach more people you need to be an organic user and this cuts across every social platform. The major reason is that you get to understand the platform culture. For instance, Hive has a culture. Those who adhere to it are the biggest benefactors of the chain. The same applies to X and other Web 2 platforms. The knowledge I am sharing today is the result of the time I have spent on X, so you cannot negate this aspect of social networking.
In addition, your niche determines your reach. So you need to be careful about what you decide to post. For instance, crypto doesn't have the best reach on X, which is the reason I avoid talking about crypto and nft I'm X. Once the algorithm has put your account in a cluster of similar accounts posting similar content it is difficult to break out of it. Only your followers will get to see your content (if your content aligns with their interests). Your content will be recommended to people in your niche and for crypto that's a very small group of people. So if you have other interests, for instance, sports, it is best you talk about that on X and create content on Hive about Sports which you can share strategically on X. I will suggest you create a separate account for crypto-related content if you don't want to be a crypto influencer.
CONCLUSION
There is a lot about X's algorithm that is known. Although Elon Musk has promised to make things more transparent, we need to use the platform based on the knowledge we have available to us. Following best practices will help increase your cred score and reach on the platform.
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Check out this short thread on products with potential airdrops.