Art Made With Love Always Beats Art Made For Likes

July 30, 2021 — Social media algorithms get a bad rap, but if your art flops, ask yourself: Did I make this for love or likes?

Last week, I published a YouTube video on barefoot running that I was sure would go viral.

I spent a month and a half working on it, and the last running guide I made got 100,000 views in three months.

But the new video flopped.

It seemed so unfair, and my first thought was that the YouTube algorithm had screwed me.

On paper, it was a perfect piece of content. It checked all the right boxes (SEO, production value, helpful information). Except, there was a problem…

I didn’t actually enjoy watching my own video.

Hack: Make Love, Not Likes

When I looked through my best content over the past couple years, it was hard to find common threads.

The time it took, the format, the length, the quality, the hashtags, the topic — none of it mattered. In fact…

The more I tried to please the algorithm with click-bait and marketing hacks, the worse my content did.