How to Game the Algorithm (A Guide for People Who’d Rather Not)

You’re not behind. You’re just not renting applause.

There’s a growth trick hiding in plain sight on every platform right now. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

It looks like this. Someone joins a paid growth community. Within weeks, their engagement explodes. Hundreds of comments. Thousands of likes. Then comes the testimonial: “I grew faster in 30 days with this program than in three years on my own.”

The numbers are real. The growth is not.

Here’s the mechanic. Every platform’s algorithm treats early engagement as a quality signal. When a large account comments on your post, the algorithm reads it as an endorsement and shows your post to more people. When fifty members of the same community pile into your comments in the first hour, the algorithm reads momentum and distributes accordingly.

Paid growth communities know this. Membership quietly includes engagement: the leader’s account comments on members’ posts. Members support each other’s content. Everyone’s numbers go up. Everyone’s testimonial writes itself.

I’m not describing anything illegal. I’m describing a pod with a price tag.

Borrowed vs. earned

Let me be precise, because the line matters more than the outrage.

Borrowed distribution is neither new nor bad. A podcast appearance is borrowed distribution. A guest essay is borrowed distribution. Someone respected sharing your work is borrowed distribution. Every recognized name you can think of borrowed reach on the way up.

The question that separates strategy from theater is simple: borrowed from whom?

When you borrow distribution from an audience full of your future clients, borrowing converts. The reach becomes relationships, the relationships become opportunities, and some of those opportunities become revenue.

When you borrow distribution from an audience of people exactly like you — fellow members, fellow aspiring creators, fellow marketers — you get solidarity, and solidarity photographs beautifully. Big numbers. Full comment sections. Warm feelings. And a customer count of zero, because the people cheering for you were never going to buy from you. They’re rooting for you the way classmates root for each other.

That’s the tell I watch for in every “overnight growth” story: the engagement went up. Did the business?

How to spot it in 60 seconds

Next time a post stops you with a suspiciously loud comment section, run two checks.

First, look for the heavyweight. Is there a very large account in the comments? Large accounts routinely engage with each other — reciprocity among peers is normal. But when a large account keeps showing up on much smaller accounts, there’s usually a relationship behind it. Often a paid one: a membership, a cohort, a community where engagement is part of the package.

Second, look for the common denominator. Click through ten of the commenters. Are they all in the same program? Same hashtag, same challenge, same community in their bios? Congratulations — you’ve found the pod. Not a conspiracy. Just classmates applauding classmates.

Neither check makes anyone a villain. But both tell you the numbers you’re envying are rented, and the testimonial you’re about to trust was generated by the machine it’s praising.

Why this matters if you’re the quiet one

If you’re an accomplished expert watching louder people rack up engagement you can’t seem to match, this pattern is half the explanation. You’re comparing your earned numbers to their borrowed ones.

And here’s the part I care about, because I’ve lived the expensive version of the mistake: an audience of the wrong people is worse than a small audience. Years ago I added tens of thousands of connections in a single year. The numbers looked wonderful. That inflated, misaligned network still suppresses my reach today, because the algorithm learned to show my work to people who were never my market. I’m still paying interest on engagement I “won” years ago.

So when you’re tempted by anything that promises fast engagement — a pod, a challenge hashtag, a community that guarantees comments — ask the only question that matters:

Will these people ever buy from me, hire me, invite me, or recommend me?

If yes, borrow away. That’s called marketing.

If no, you’re renting applause. And rented applause doesn’t just cost money. It teaches the algorithm the wrong lesson about who your work is for — a lesson that can take years to unteach.

The slower, boring, compounding alternative

Earned distribution has exactly one growth hack: make things worth showing to strangers, consistently, in a voice that’s unmistakably yours, aimed at the people you actually serve.

It’s slower. It looks worse in screenshots. There’s no testimonial moment where everything explodes overnight.

But every follower means something. Every comment is a potential relationship. And the algorithm slowly learns precisely who your work is for — which means every post you publish starts working harder than the last.

Recognition compounds. Applause just echoes.

Make sure the one you are celebrating is the long-term one; not fleeting.