Social media is dead, but mimetic, addictive, endless algorithmic marketing is here to stay.
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I’m revisiting a post I wrote on LinkedIn about a year ago because I have so much more to say one year later, but I stand by my original statement that social media is dead.
Can't seem to see any content from people you actually follow anymore? Finding it difficult to get any reach or engagement from your followers? It’s not you or your content. It's because the platform algorithms are in control. Engagement, viral and recommendation media is basically taking place of what we used to consider "social media." This means you will see far more recommended posts and posts based on engagement than you will see posts from people you follow. Your feeds are being curated for you, becoming an echo chamber of things you might like (based on your actions on the platform) and things that are popular (based on community engagement).
The reasons these shifts are problematic to individual creators and small businesses are manifold.
1) What you actually want to read, view or engage with is no longer the priority. You lose access to your friends, brands you want to hear from, or people that you follow.
2) You are seeing only things that are derivative of things you already like or agree with... so you lose access to alternate viewpoints and thoughtful commentary, which can limit personal growth and encourage divisiveness.
3) Businesses lose their reach, therefore losing engagement unless they pay to play, or become pay to play. This is especially problematic for small biz because they can't always afford to pay!
4) Content creators are at the mercy of platforms. If you get big on TikTok or IG, that's awesome until they change their algorithm and suddenly you lose 50% of your engagement, sales/revenue, or reach unless you begin playing the game that the platform wants you to play (see next point!). It used to be if you had a viral post on a social platform, it could transform your career. These days, a viral post might translate to a few extra followers but very little loyalty to the creator.
5) Content is becoming copypasta. Copying content based on popularity of songs or templates limits creativity.
6) The algorithms are just plain bad. I click on one thing by accident and my “For You” page is immediately flooded with similar images or videos. My hope is that AI will help alleviate this, but I’m not sure things are going to get any better.1
In the time since I wrote the above post, we’ve lost Twitter, were introduced to Threads (which I like but it’s not taking off as quickly as expected), and we’re seeing all of the social networks flounder in search of what’s next. They’re trying live shopping, copying Spotify, adding podcasts, creating broadcast chat channels, copying each other, reinventing and expanding themselves to ensure that you stay on the app and keep scrolling in a desperate effort to try and generate enough profit to keep their shareholders happy, while simultaneously trying to entice creators with piddly royalties.
I’m not saying that making a living as a creator or influencer is impossible, but the saturation and algorithmic feeds are disintegrating the creator’s ability to singularly focus on one platform. Now, you need to make a video or podcast and splice it 6384928374 different ways and post on 15 different platforms, writing numerous captions, cropping and re-editing, all of which are time-consuming and potentially burnout-inducing. You can’t just write a book, or newspaper articles. You have to also be a standalone brand with followers and fans that you can market to. You have to be a content generation machine. Always on.
It’s no wonder we’re exhausted. We working so much harder to achieve what was once much easier.2 We now have infinite ways to connect with one another. Last year I said, “Do you have those conversations that start in IG DMs, move to Messages/WhatsApp, then over to Telegram about something y'all saw on Discord? Whew!” I’m sure you can relate. Last week, I went from text to IG DM and back to text in real time, with the same person. It’s not surprising that everyone thinks they have ADHD!
AND, no one is really engaging anymore on IG—at least publicly. As Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently said that users are mostly in Stories and DMs. And a lot of IG users are lurkers. This underscores the transition away from social and more toward media. I know that many Gen Zers are abandoning IG for TikTok, where they get more engagement. But even TikTok is guilty of the race to the bottom.
People who want to share and engage with other like-minded folks have flocked to Discord, Geneva, Substack, and similar communities to start having meaningful conversations around their interests. Isn’t that what wanted in the first place?
notes in “At a high level, social networks are evolving into one of two types: either they are large but high-walled gardens, with a covetous boundary drawn around the entirety of the network (TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, now X), or alternatively they are federations, which instead draw many internal boundaries and create a confederacy. Federated networks offer a kind of decentralized centralization.”I agree with Hoel that federated networks could be more successful, as they are a more scalable model of content creation and distribution, especially for serious writers3, and seem more sustainable. Walled gardens don’t sound scalable, nor do they sound like a place that truly caters to creators. However, we won’t know until we watch this play out.
In the process of trying to beat each other at the game of eyeballs and attention, most of these Big Social companies have eroded the entire industry, and in the end, we wind up being the biggest losers.
I added this last point more recently.
Don’t always believe the lie of tech=productivity or efficiency
Am I a serious writer? 🤔 I am serious about writing…