The Death Of The Follower
While we've been wrapped around the axle of AI, Social Media has fundamentally changed. It's both alot harder, and alot easier.
It’s Thursday! Yeah, I’m shaking some shit up.
Robert here - and yeah still reeling a bit from the demos coming out of OpenAI and Google I/O announcements this week.
It’s about to get super weird.
So what the hell are we supposed to do with social media marketing these days?
We’ve been so wrapped around the AI axle for the last 18 months that many marketing teams haven’t reacted to the fundamental changes in social media.
Some of these changes have AI underpinnings, like Meta’s launch of AI chatbots on Facebook and Instagram. Others, such as the forced divestiture of TikTok, the decline of X, the rise of Threads, LinkedIn’s prolonged moment, and Instagram’s emphasis on fresh content, speak to the continued viability of social platforms as media outlets.
Those headlines and the more granular changes behind them should prompt marketers to shift how they use social media platforms for business success.
So let’s look at what’s going on under the hood of social media marketing.
But before we do that… Speaking of “under the hood” (that’s one of my fancy segues)… before we move on…
<cue AI generated gameshow music>
Here at TCA We’ve been bringing on a few clients to do fractional marketing services. We just finished with a client where we helped them launch a new thought leadership magazine, set up a much more efficient original research program, and set up a practical plan for rolling out AI.We’re ready for a couple of new clients. Would you like to chat?
<end music>
Okay… Let’s get back to it…. In this week’s edition.
The Death of the Social Media Follower
The Nickle and Diming Of Marketing Budgets
Katy Perry Isn’t Real
Apple’s Ad Fail - You Wish You Had It That Bad
Let’s roll….
ZOOM LENS: THE DEATH OF THE FOLLOWER
Social media platforms have evolved (or devolved depending on your perspective) to really devalue general news sources of any kind. Instead, the newest trick is to try to keep their audiences engaged in walled gardens.
Similar Web data shows traffic to news sites from Facebook and X took a steep dive as of October 2023. Casual sharing, posting, and commenting are down as well. The reasons span the gamut from the “dismantling” of Twitter into X and concerns about misinformation to overall user fatigue.
Yet, you can also see that social media consumption is up almost across the board except for Facebook and Twitter (sorry, X).
Followers matter much less
To varying degrees, all the platforms have copied elements of the TikTok algorithm when displaying content to their audiences. At first, these changes seem positive from both a user experience, and a creator perspective. But are they?
Instagram recently introduced substantial changes to its Reels algorithm that buck its longstanding embrace of accounts that aggregate content. It will now detect whether the post is original or aggregated (i.e., reposted) and favor the original content. It also may remove content from aggregators from the recommendations feature.
More interestingly, Instagram also changed its algorithm to surface smaller creators. You would think that would be good news for social media marketing professionals who operate accounts with smaller followings. Your content will surface more and pierce the noise of those with huge followings. And it may.
But it also means that building momentum becomes exponentially harder. Every single post has to earn its reach. That traction you got on the post yesterday has little to nothing to do with what today’s post will do. You have to earn your way to the top of the “For You” feed. Every. Single. Time.
Put simply: Social media platforms now de-emphasize the value of a large following (or audience), which belies what brands have worked on for years.
So what should we do…
Well a few things. All the platforms now de-emphasize the nature of articles and links, and audiences are decreasing their participation. If you fill your social media feed with content from your blog, a series of links to promote your latest news or links to your brand’s new products, you’re gonna have a bad time.
“So, wait a minute,” you might ask. “If followers don’t matter and we’re supposed to entertain, engage, or educate within the platform itself, how do we build an audience on our owned media?”
Well, ironically now, because of the algorithm changes, there actually is more opportunity now for organic discovery through “for you” recommendations (and there’s less competition from random pictures of breakfast, sunsets, and news sharing).
The strategic social media marketing goal remains the same: Pull social media audiences into your owned media ecosystem so that they can become addressable audiences to your brand.
Finally, one of the biggest trends I see in gathering better traffic from social media is to “eventize” your content. Create content that is ephemeral or has a short half-life. take advantage of the “moments”. Focus on enhancing the visitor’s opportunity to act (or trust) in the moment they see the post rather than banking on longer-term engagement.
Social media can remain an important piece of your integrated marketing mix. But to be successful in 2024, focus on creating engaging, ephemeral content that captures attention in the moment and drives users to owned media channels for further interaction.
You can see a longer version of this article here.
Have an awesome weekend, and go watch those OpenAI demos - if only for the fabulous Merv Griffin sets they used (that’s a GenX reference for sure).
WIDE ANGLE LENS: MARKETING SNAPS
Let’s get it all in frame. Shall we?
📷 Fake - Katy Perry couldn’t make it to the Met Gala - but her AI doppelganger certainly could. But this AI picture sure fooled alot of people
🖌️ Apple Fail? - To say that Apple’s new ad for the iPad Pro received bad reviews would be underselling it. The creative world had a proverbial toxic freakout. There were posts on X from celebrities such as Hugh Grant, who called the ad a view to the “destruction of the human experience”, and Justine Bateman who simply said “truly, what is wrong with you?”
The level of anger from these these folks was that really surprised me. I mean, look, they did crush a poor foam squishy ball emoji, but still. Calling the ad “disgusting” and “psychotic” might have been just a skosh over the top.
Even if it was a strike-out, I hope the collective creative community can just take a deep breath. Marketing and creative is hard. And we should all hope to have the track record that Apple has.
💰 Gartner just released its new CMO Survey. They found that marketing budgets have dropped to 7.7% of overall company revenue. Hey guess what? We have to… wait for it… do more with less…. <Sigh>. <Begins to sing>… Those… were.. the days my friend, we thought they’d never end… we’d sing and dance.. forever and a day….
LENS FLARE: - TCA Events & Happenings For You
We’ve got a great new webinar for May
Join us on May 30th for our monthly webinar series - and this one should be fun. We’re going to talk about all the research we’ve been doing on the use cases for Generative AI in marketing - and how categorizing them properly is the first step to making sure you’re deploying a solution that will actually meet your leadership’s expectation. Come register today.
Did you miss our April Webinar
We had a great turn out for our Social Media Strategy Webinar. So, if you missed it - check out the on-demand version.
LENS CAP: Let’s Finish With A Flourish
It’s a weird time in marketing right now. AI announcements every week, budgets in flux, and technology needs everywhere. I can’t remember when there’s so much change in the air, and so much resistance to actually change.
One study I saw recently said that there was so much technology going unused, that if you do the math it turns out that 10% of our TOTAL marketing budget is spent on technology that we don’t use or get value out of.
It just convinces me that as businesses want to integrate Generative AI into their marketing processes – it’s not just about buying an off the shelf tool, OR letting people use ChatGPT, or waiting around and “seeing what happens next”… It’s about applying your process, your workflow and your use cases and really understanding those first – and THEN figuring out where those features are best served…. You want a 10% boost to your marketing budget - go sort out your marketing operations. Oh and we can help with that.
That will be how we all get to have our own Merv Griffin set – and demo to our bosses how AI can change the world of marketing…
See you next week!