Stop blaming the algorithm (send these 4 paragraphs instead)
What "Instagram has been really weird lately" really means on the brand side, and the word for word email that keeps you on the next shortlist.
It’s Friday.
Like every other Friday before this you wake up and open Instagram. Today feels a little different though because you already knew what to expect. You were hoping it wouldn’t be true, but deep down…you knew.
The day before, sometime around noon, you checked. Nothing to panic about though, it was just posted. You’ve got to give it some time to cook, hit the algo a little, you know? You checked again over dinner and somewhere around 9pm you do a quick refresh before going to bed. By then, the realization starts to hit as you start doing the mental math. This Reel is doing sh*t. Hop over to TikTok. Damn, it’s even worse over there. You hold out for a few more days, by Monday any momentum it had is dead. Nothing you do at this point is going to get it where it needs to be. Two weeks later you get the email asking to send over the analytics.
We’ve all been there am I right? A creator posts and what starts as this feeling of relief and excitement to finally have content go live, very quickly turns into a bit of panic and confusion because what you assumed would be a hit didn’t go as well as you thought it would or even worse it flops, and baddddd. A text pops up from your creator who’s sending over the screenshots with a message you’ve seen before, “idk why it’s doing so bad!!!” and now you’re both scrambling to figure out what happened and how you can explain it. Sometimes you know why and other times you’re left clueless.
The email I get afterward sounds about the same every single time.
Hi Jess! Attaching the final analytics for you. Instagram has been really weird for everyone this month and it looks like reach came in a little lower than expected, but engagement was strong and the comments were amazing! Let us know if you need anything else!
Do you know how many times someone blames the algorithm? The limit does not exist. It’s almost every campaign.
“Instagram has been really weird for everyone this month”
In all of the hundreds I’ve managed, I’ve never had a campaign where every creator hit a home run. Not once.
Now, what I have lost sleep over is not being able to explain why.
Brands don’t expect things to go perfect, in fact that’s exactly why many of them budget accordingly. With more and more data at play to give us a pretty decent idea of what we can expect a creator to deliver, but even then it would be delulu for us to assume that every creator will hit that average. Some of the posts are going to come in under, that’s just the deal and the risk (calculated risk) that we take, and y’all I have never once in my life lost a client over one post not meeting it’s expectations. They might rethink working with that creator again but they also get it, you win some, you lose some.
“The algorithm has been off these past few weeks” kinda irks me now because if you knew it’s been off for a few weeks why the hell did we plan to go live? Why didn’t you advise to wait? Why did you raise this as a concern? It’s the first damn thing every manager says when something underperforms and that tells me nothing. You know what it does do though? It tells me you don’t have any control over the outcomes, potentially that your audience has started to lose trust in you, perhaps you don’t understand content formats or what performs best on their page, or it’s all of the above…all of which are arguments against hiring you.
Aren’t you supposed to know the creator’s audience better than I do??? Blaming the algorithm is such a cop out, fr.
Your fate might be one sentence long
After we finish a campaign, I’m met with the job of summarizing the results. Not like you asked me but yes, I do completely geek out over this stuff. I wouldn’t write a god damn Substack with 1500+ subs if I didn’t.
The summary for each creator is short and sweet, which can be tough to be concise when you are tasked to explain what happened from a quantitative and qualitative perspective in 1-2 lines. We can’t go too deep though because it needs to be scannable for the client to get a good understanding as quickly as possible because sometimes they are in fact reading it on their phone between meetings or in the back of an uber. Plus, have you seen a PP slide lately? You can’t fit sh*t on that. You have to really get good at cutting down words.
Okay so I’m working on this wrap and come to your creator that completely bombed the campaign, in a way that even I’M EMBARRASSED. Like, if you look bad I look bad. I don’t want to draw a crazy amount of attention to it but I also need to accurately report what happened. When your excuse is “maybe they posted a little too late in the evening” or “we’ve seen dips across all our talent this week on TikTok,” I gear up to write the most brutal and boring line possible. Usually that line sounds a little something like…
Reach came in approximately 30% under baseline. Manager attributed to platform volatility.
For a newbie in influencer marketing, yeah I might buy it. As a senior though, I start to get a little hot flash because what the hell do you mean there was no clear cause? You can’t point to a single takeaway that is worth noting?!?! Why would I ever want to try this again with you?
Imagine me writing something like the above and it sits in the deck right next to a creator whose manager sent me an full on explanation, something like:
Reach under baseline, manager identified hook structure as likely cause, recommends to lead with problem instead of brand in alternate format for rerun.
Beyond the obvious.. when you read that, how do you interpret it? Imagine if you were the brand reading those side by side.
Fast forward to Q4, we’ve done a full year of testing and we’re looking to start contracting our 2027 long term partners for the client. Not everyone is going to make that cut and not everyone deserves to because when we are cutting the line up in half and doubling down on the top performers, the half that end up making it are the ones we know we can rely on.
By the time that shortlist hits my desk most of the creators on it look pretty much identical on paper anyways so at that point the decision is going to be made based on who I’m able to defend the best and I’m sorry but some of y’all I’m not going to bat for because I’m not risking my reputation for you to do me dirty like that again. The first thing the client is going to say is “yeah but we worked with them a few months ago and their content didn't perform well, idk if we want to risk it again” but when I can jump in to say yes but here’s why and here’s what they’ll do differently based on proof points they gave us — OH and also, they are quick/easy to work with/and extremely reliable.. well you just might have made the cut, my friend.
I’ve never seen a manager clock this before
I know by default we want to explain it away by blaming the algorithm, which is 99.99999% of the time the reason I get for content flopping, but sometimes it’s the creative, or the briefing, or the timing of the campaign. I mean come on, raise your hands if you have been personally victimized by a brand cramming 85 key messages into a 20 second Reel..YEAH ME TOO.
I know this because I’ve been on the creator side, and tbh there’s a good chance I already advised the client against it before you even mentioned it to me. I couldn’t be happier when you come to me with this info because it gives me additional proof to say “I TOLD YOU SO!” okay no, I don’t get to say that but a girl can dream! It’s more like “See?!?! They also said this and it’s worth noting for our next round! We’ve seen this across a few different creators now.”
Half the time we’re the person who already lost this exact fight internally and have been waiting for our knight in shining armour to come along.
Not saying anything is what hurts you the most
We see it posts that underperform all the time it’s honestly not THAT big of a deal most of the time but I would rather you own it than try to sweep it under the rug and ignore it completely. It looks bad. Like I feel weird that you’re not calling out the obvious and acting like everything is fine, and listen, I’m not going to come back with a pitch fork chasing you down for answers on why, but damn you’re not even going to say ANYTHING?!
I’ve only had a few people handle this correctly, but I genuinely think the best move you can make is to name it and own, explain the why, and give us something to do with it.
“A loss you handle well is worth more to your reputation than a win you handle lazily.”
I mean that quite literally because even if the content was great, sending me 4 screenshots is forgettable af but also why would you want that? Don’t you want them to come back with another campaign? Why not really secure that relationship with them? Because you know who is? That manager who’s creator’s content was meh followed up to explain potentially why that happened, how they could do better next time, and they are even offering to throw it an extra story frame at no cost. This is someone I will personally advocate for, and I won’t give up easily either, I will make it known why you’re worth it.
TBH, when a post doesn’t do so good, it’s really the onlyyy time a brand is paying full attention because obvi they are going to wonder why didn’t it perform and what you think of the situation. They are asking us on the other side of it so in my eyes that is prime time to sell yourself as a strategic partner beyond being the middle man that most people see you as.
Okay, well what do I send then?
Below, I’m giving you the whole thing:
The four paragraph email, word for word. This is the exact structure you can send when a post underperforms, including the opening line to use without sounding apologetic + the one piece in the middle that flips the convo from an explanation to another potential paid opp. You can copy this, swap the numbers, and send it off.
The three things never to say, all of which I have received this year. What each one signals to the person reading it, and what to write instead of each.
What to offer and what it should cost you (almost nothing) and why the managers who do this get reached out to first. Including the one thing you should never offer, which oddly many people reach for first.
What to write when you genuinely have no idea why it flopped because sometimes you don’t, and there is a specific way to say that which still reads as competence.
Last chance: Pricing changes for SNS on August 1
SNS pricing has officially gone up as of August 1. Monthly moves to the standard $14.99 rate. Current paid subscribers keep the rate they’re on, that doesn’t change for you.
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This is your last chance to lock in at this discounted rate.
Monthly. Lock $9/mo for a full 12 months. After that year it steps up to $14.99, same as any new subscriber joining after August 1. Take this one if you want the flexibility to cancel anytime.
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The recap email to write, word for word when a post underperforms
I’m going to give you the full breakdown word for word but first I want to walk you through the structure. It’s important to me to teach the frameworks of these so you can take them and apply them to your own situations, I don’t think anyone wants to copy and paste a paragraph and you will always have something that’s slightly more unique depending on what went down.
