The nature of social media is undergoing a huge change. All of the major social networks are changing to show you less content from those you follow and more posts that they think will interest you. This has worked wonders for the growth of TikTok, and we’ll see how it does for the rest.
In a recent podcast, Gary Vaynerchuk summarized it well, saying:
I believe we’re no longer in the era of social media but in the era of interest media. Social was like “who are your friends?” and now it’s “what are you interested in?”.
There are good things and bad things about this, but the main thing is to simply accept that it’s happening. Unless you control the algorithm at Meta or something, you can’t change where this shift is heading.
The main takeaway is this: instead of focusing on building the number of followers that you have, focus instead of producing amazing content. The goal of creating amazing content should have always been a high priority, but it’s the only priority these days. It was nearly a year ago that I shared how the value of your “followers” was dropping quickly, and that trend has continued. Getting more followers isn’t a bad thing, but it’s simply not nearly as valuable as it was a few years ago.
You no longer need a “big spark” to have a chance to go viral. Your next post (or even your first post) on social media has the potential to be seen by millions. Make awesome content that attracts interest and you’ll tend to do very well.
