They say the more things change the more they stay the same. When it comes to social media, marketers and content creators stress each and every year about what new changes to the algorithms of these platforms are going to rob them of reach, or make their follower counts or subscriber numbers irrelevant.
If you want to succeed with these Social Media algorithms you need to realize they only deal in one currency… TIME.
If your business relies on this organic reach in social media it’s not an unreasonable thing to have anxiety over. Overnight your thriving business can be cut off from its life-blood… TRAFFIC.
Those who know me and my content the best would say that I have a deep understanding and respect for traffic more than relevancy because only one of those things is objective, guess which one?
Social Media in 2020 will not be like Social Media of the previous years. As more users adopt each platform and as more content creators compete for their attention, filling the market it with an abundance of choices there are going to be a few things that stand out and those are the things that every marketer and content creator should be focused on in building their brand.
- Unique and Specific Value Micro-targeted at an audience
- High Quality in both production and performance in audio and video
- Relatable personalities to deliver the content and resonate with the audience consuming it
- Easy to understand headlines to drive attention and traffic
- A recognizable style and aesthetic to the brand and personality
- Content that is able to get high retention rates and long sessions
- Binge-Worthy content that makes your platform a destination or hub
- Building a sharable aspect to your content
- Forming a group identity among your audience
Wait, Roberto, I thought you said that Social Media 2020 was going to be different? It is going to be different in the sense that it is going to feel like old-school sales and marketing around values and experiences.
Social Media in 2020 will not be growth hacked with SEO and with click-bait. It will be growth hacked by people who know how to make their content and platforms a destination for a specific group of people, and who can build rituals into their content and make it a part of their audiences’ habit, something they are attached to at an emotional level.
If you want to succeed with these Social Media algorithms you need to realize they only deal in one currency… TIME.
Your content and its success is based entirely on its ability to monopolize the time and attention of the consumer, relative to the other activities on the platform, all other platforms, and compared to everything else in their day to day lives.
Let me give you a very practical understanding of this that you can work with going forward:
The average adult over 25-45 years old has only roughly 4-6 disposable hours of time Monday-Friday because they spend 10 hours between work and a commute and 6-8 hours sleeping on average.
Your goal is to cannibalize as much of that disposable time as possible. You are in competition with roughly 100M content creators globally across every platform, and also with every other activity in their life outside of their day job.
Having a presence of some kind across multiple platforms is ideal because it means that you are omnipresent, you have a chance of reaching them in some capacity and making your brand part of their day.
The problem is that most content creators and small business owners do no thave a strong or consistent presence in the top 7 Social Media platforms: YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Facebook and Linkedin.
You should at least be prioritizing the 3 strongest and closest related platforms your content would perform well in and suit your personality. I currently do not prioritize Snapchat and Tiktok as of the writing of this article. However, I do own my accounts there and may post in the future.
The other issue is that most content creators and even some brands are not building their social media accounts to be unique experiences, both among their competitors but also in terms of their own content, settling often for reposting or repurposing.
Respecting the context and culture of each platform is important, but if you can’t offer a unique value proposition to each platform you are asking people to engage in, then you can’t expect them to engage consistently or be loyal. By failing to diversify you also miss opportunities.
Social Media 2020 will be about becoming a “Time Lord”, you will have to build a brand that people are happy and excited to interact with each and every day, multiple times a day, and ideally across multiple platform experiences.
Overnight your thriving business can be cut off from its life-blood… TRAFFIC.
You will also need to rethink your relationships with these platforms and how you are relying on them for traffic. Are you building your brand or business, or theirs?
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