Are you the one who is worried about Facebook and Instagram watching us? Ever felt like showing posts related to a recent search in Google, a product you searched in amazon or whatever online purchasing platform?

Yeah, I felt the same too. So you have 2 choices,

Switch to safe social media which does not collect and sell your data (If any put it in comments) (OR) use the above social media in a useful way.

So let's understand what's happening here. They (social media) show content or ads based on what we see. Technically speaking we'll see only what interests us.

Keep that Interest in mind and let's see what their algorithms do.

Disclaimer: Everything below is my assumption

Algorithm

Facebook and Instagram's algorithm is written in a way that your activities which include what kind of posts you like, save, comment, and send to someone, even if you watch the same post for 2nd time, everything is noted and sent to the algorithm.

Now it spits out all related posts from its server and shows it to you as the next post in the feed irrespective of location or language which relates to your recent mindset and mood.

Yes, If you repeatedly watch (for example) a love or friendship post, with the help of a hashtag or description it automatically comes under a certain category where now the algorithm decides to show posts related to that category.

Your feed's priority is changed according to your mood or Interest (earlier I said) and it shows posts related to what it collected from your recent or long-term activity to make you stay using those social media without knowing the time you spent on it.

Let's go to the part about how can we make it useful.

Point of View - 1

Let's take Jon snow who knows nothing.

He is stepping into the field of web development. He needs to learn and get updates daily related to his field.

Also, he likes to scroll through Instagram and Facebook very much. But he knows It is wasting/consuming his time and still can't get out of it. Let's help him. You can also start doing the same.

Here's what he can do,

Let's consider Instagram here, creating one new fresh account. (can be with either dummy details or original as you wish)

When you Logged in, all activities or monitored, like which post you are searching for, what type of content you like and comment on, and also what language you're fond of.

So now Jon snow needs to start seeing posts/content similar to web development and his related field. Yes, some accounts post educational content on a daily basis. (For those who don't know)

Jon needs to ensure not get diverted with other content. Search only for web dev content. Like, share, save it, make comments and follow whatever web dev accounts you want. Search accounts, hashtags, and tagged posts then follow them.

Following all accounts? you may think this is what everyone does to get new posts from the accounts we follow. what's new then?

Yes, but at some point, you'll run out of posts from those accounts. That's where suggestion accounts and posts come into the picture. This is the advantage of doing all the above. You don't need to search for it. It'll automatically come to you via reels or in feeds.

So now you only get web dev or related content only. Then in Instagram's search, there will be some similar posts. make sure to see that only.

Boom!

The account is configured for only those content. It's not going to change on daily basis as far as Jon sticks to the same content. Daily he can learn something useful with daily updates at reels and feeds scrolling. If moved to some other content it'll reflect in feeds and reels.

After some time If something different content comes in your feeds or in reels, Just give not interested then you don't need to do anything. Instagram itself fetches what you want from all over the world to show you related content.

You're literally making Instagram's algorithm fetch and serve you the content you want or your interest from all the content creators (you actually don't know or either you searched for or the ones you're following) from all over the world without any struggles.

The point is it's completely free. You can simply Improve your knowledge just by scrolling (which you may like) means I call learning from the place you like and saving it for later purposes.

Still not getting it.

Point of View - 2

Let's consider in the present world Sherlock holmes want to be a techie to solve tech-related cases. (fun part for understanding only)

Like I said in point of view - 1, Sherlock creates an Instagram account.

He followed most tech and ethical hacking-related Instagram accounts. Started to use that account only for seeing tech and ethical hacking posts.

Later that account itself Identifies your Interest and serves related content Irrespective of the region. So without searching or struggling, daily everything comes to him directly from content creators who have similar interests.

Now no one can beat sherlock in the modern world.

Jokes apart, additionally if you take Twitter there are 100 days of Challenges, and many Developer support etc., This is applicable to areas like General knowledge, all IT-related developments, digital marketing, designing, and art etc., you can get all related content by seeing only those content.

Disclaimer: Whatever I've shared above is my personal view and opinion which may not help everyone who is reading this post.

My next post will be about my first Github repository, where I collected all information for that repository using the above method. It's going to be an example of this article.

End of article final thought: Stick to content, Get related content automatically. This may be applicable to all social media from my point of view.

Stay connected.