Welcome back to Marketoonist, the cartoon I’ve been hand-drawing to poke fun at marketing and business nearly every week since 2002. Was this email forwarded to you? Please subscribe here.

Chasing the Algorithm

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The algorithm giveth and the algorithm taketh away.

When Facebook first introduced the News Feed in 2006, posts appeared in chronological order. In 2009, they introduced their first algorithm to sort based on popularity.

LinkedIn introduced an algorithmic feed in 2012, Twitter in 2014, and Instagram in 2016. All the algorithms continue to change and evolve, impacting what gets seen.

This drives incentives to try to crack the code and figure out the "one weird trick" that will drive engagement and make things go viral.

A few of these "best practices" are helpful, but many are shallow, some are total superstitions, and most of them put the cart before the horse. And of course, what may have worked yesterday changes tomorrow.

It's an algorithmic arms race, between posters trying to game the system and algorithms changing the game altogether.

I've been drawing and sharing this cartoon nearly weekly for 23 years now. I've learned that continuity is more valuable than going viral. There's no "one weird trick." And social media metrics are mostly empty calories.

But the most important thing I've learned is that trying to create for an algorithm ultimately takes away from creating for actual people.

Quick Keynote Update

I hope to see some of you on the road the next two months. I’m excited to speak at BAM Marketing Congress in Brussels on Dec 4 (alongside an amazing line-up including Carla Johnson, Rory Sutherland, Jenni Romaniuk, and Grace Kite). I’m also joining two company All Hands meetings (one FinTech and one pet food) before the end of the year.

As always, please let me know if you’d like to talk about any events you’re planning (or know of) that you think could be a good fit. For an idea of my approach with events, here are some of my more popular keynote topics.

Cartoon From The Archives

Here’s one I drew in this vein from 2012. And here’s where you can read and search all 23 years of these cartoons.

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Thank you for all of your support (and cartoon material)!

-Tom

P.S. If you like these marketoons, here are a few ways to help:

1. Bring me into your company to speak

2. License cartoons for presentations or more (if a picture tells a thousand words, a marketoon tells a thousand boring PowerPoint slides)

3. Forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe: marketoonist.com/newsletter.

4. Buy my latest book

5. Collaborate with me on cartoons for marketing, culture change, or thought leadership

6. Just hit reply and say hello

About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.