Nuelink’s Post

Death of followers; Rise of the direct model. In an interesting throwback to lengthy discussions around rented land VS owned land, the recent social media turmoil (algorithm but also Twitter saga or the latest TikTok forced sale requested in the USA) is sending creators and businesses back to the founding principles of audience/community management: Own your audience. "The colossal shift in social media algorithms could lead to the death of the follower for creators" (and businesses, too), says Jack Conte, CEO and founder of Patreon, in his keynote, Death of the Follower and the Future of Creativity on the Web, at SXSW ’24. The next decade is about direct-to-fan content businesses. “We’ll still need social platforms … for discovery, for reach … but those companies will be one component of the many tools that we have as creative people to help us run our communities,” Jack says. Welcome back to the future ;) #SocialMedia #SocialMediaMarketing #ContentCreators #CreatorEconomy #CommunityManagement #BusinessDevelopment #AudienceEngagement #CommunityEngagement #CommunicationChannels #BackToBasics #SocialChannels #Storytelling Resumption - Sales, Marketing, and Operations Consulting

🍂 September Social Media News ☕ What's new in the world of social media? Let's dive into some of the biggest updates and trends from September. 1️⃣ New Data Shows X Is Losing Users in the US and UK: Despite Elon Musk's claims of record-breaking usage, recent data suggests that user interest in X is declining, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. As Musk continues to double down on divisive commentary, many users are seemingly opting out. Are you still using X as a platform? 2️⃣ Threads Continues To Rise: Despite no official update on active users since July, downloads continue to climb. AppFigures shows Threads at 6th overall in August with 28 million cumulative downloads. This suggests Meta's Twitter alternative is attracting more users. 3️⃣ Google Announces AI Advances for Advertisers: Google has updated Google Ads with new AI features to improve campaign creation and performance. Marketers can now use AI image editing tools for more campaign types and benefit from advanced AI assistance, automatic asset generation, and enhanced reporting. 4️⃣ Reddit's Ads Inspiration Library: Reddit has launched a new "ads inspiration library" that features top-performing ads to help businesses improve their campaigns. This resource will showcase effective strategies and can inspire marketers to create engaging content for Reddit's audience. 5️⃣ Threads Expands Image and Video Limits: Great news for Threads users! The platform has just increased the image and video limit per post to 20. This update could significantly boost engagement and make cross-posting from Instagram even easier, given their recent update to 20+ image carousels. What are your thoughts on these updates? Share your insights in the comments below!

You may well have noticed how similar the various social media platforms have become as time has gone by. Excluding of course Twitter which is making a lasting re-enactment of the sailing of the Titanic it would appear. This article summarizes how the similarities have come about and what they might mean for social platforms going forward. If you rely on social platforms to be seen and heard alongside other traffic generating means then you really should read what's inside this. https://lnkd.in/em7WGi5i

Social media updates you *NEED* to know: 🚫 The senate has passed a bill that could ban TikTok if ByteDance doesn’t sell it within a year, Joe Biden is due to sign the bill to make it law 👀 Instagram is allegedly working on ‘Experiment Mode’ for Reels, which means your Reel would be shown to non-followers first and not visible on your profile unless you choose to share it 🔍 Meta AI is now integrated in the Instagram Search experience, so now users can get real-time web results without leaving the app ❤️ LinkedIn is letting users add a custom “subscribe to newsletter” button 📈 Data by Apptopia suggests that Threads is seeing more daily active users that Twitter (X) 🐶 Instagram is working on a new sticker - PALS - which would allow people to play with it by liking your story, and you can collect hearts to see it grow up. It’s giving tamagotchi 🪡 Threads is working on a post composer at the top of the feed 📲 Instagram is testing a larger look for Story Highlights on user’s profiles 🤖 TikTok could soon allow users to use new text-to-speech AI feature to clone their voice 💸 Threads is offering creators up to $500 to post about positivity (there’s only ten prizes available for those who complete the challenge) ✅ As LinkedIn is testing a dedicated vertical video feed, the platform has released a one-page document of best practices 💀 Is Vine going to return? Elon Musk asked Twitter (X) if it should be brought back, with 69.6% of users voting “Yes” And that image of Mark Zuckerberg that’s been going viral? With the beard? Yeah, it’s fake. And that's all for now folks! See ya'll next week for the some more social tea 👋🖤

What if you woke up tomorrow and you could no longer access any of your social media? LinkedIn connections - gone. Instagram content - gone. Your marketing channel - gone. This is exactly what happened when X (aka Twitter) was blocked in Brazil late last month. The initial reaction was one of shock - it’s not every day you see a government follow through on threats to shut down a major social media platform. As expected, many users quickly migrated to alternative platforms like Bluesky and Threads. (For context: within days of the ban, a whopping 2 million users had joined Bluesky) Even if you’re an architect or designer who doesn’t regularly use X, this news impacts you more than you think. Why? It’s a stark reminder that while social media platforms are powerful tools for visibility and engagement, you don’t actually ‘own’ your audience on these platforms. This is why it’s critical to diversify your marketing efforts, so you’re not overly reliant on one platform. We look at ways you can diversify your marketing efforts, and also, how you can back up your data and contacts on your platforms! Read the article here > https://lnkd.in/gfjtC-28

Day 3️⃣ of 10 Day Social Media Content Creator Challenge (100% Automated) - A Win Today! The Good: 🏆A win!🥇 - I had my first engagement on this brand new Twitter/X account from the automation! The below person was interacting with my auto posted tweet! A very cool win. I literally did nothing, and had someone interact with me. Very promising 😎 -It posted successfully on all 4 social media channels AUTOMATICALLY while I slept in a little this morning. -Twitter/X error eliminated - I know have the upgraded version of twitter/X. Blue checkmark under review 😎 The Bad: - Facebook post created an image this morning with gibberish writing. Did not follow the prompt of not including letters or words. I deleted the post as I am going to start trying to grow Facebook. Room for Improvement?: - continue to get the prompting right to get the output that I need! Please, part of this challenge is to get feedback from the community. Thoughts? Suggestions? Comment below ⬇️ Twitter- https://x.com/ElvisEsp85 Facebook - https://lnkd.in/g2QSQ6WA IG - https://lnkd.in/g5yk6aZH

There’s a video doing the rounds from TikTok (credit: @elieli0000) about how social networks are personalizing comments on posts and by doing so reinforcing filter bubbles and outrage peddling. It’s something that many people miss: it’s not just the content the platforms target at you, it’s the comments and engagement also. When Facebook shows “most relevant” comments, that’s what they’re predicting is most relevant TO YOU, not relevant to the content - ie comments that’ll reinforce your biases or drive engagement via emotional triggers such as outrage. It’s all pervasive and hugely divisive. So here’s an idea: instead of trying to regulate things like content distribution, which is evidently impossible - how about we all just push for more choice in algorithms. If any of the big social platforms was to open up developer access to the sorting algorithms we could have hugely vibrant innovation: imagine an algorithm store on Twitter (sorry, X.com) - that’s probably a feature I’d pay for if it meant I could choose and trial algorithms from different publishers or tools that I could tweak to get more of the content I actually want. All the platforms are keeping the algorithms as a black box. Maybe instead it should be an open market. It’s the only way I can see to engender trust and transparency in what the platforms are doing, and possibly also avoid regulatory controls of the social media industry. (Hat tip to Ben Cooper with whom I started having this conversation yesterday at the Unmade #HumAIn conference)

This is a brilliant and direct representation of "if the product is free, then you are the product". There is little-to-no incentive for the social networks to do this, unless they find another instrument to keep you sticky, and engaged within the content scroll cycle. The suggestion of taking money from you directly, as a subscription, is a very expensive way to make money (think payment processing, accounting, support, refunds, disputes, etc.) and likely won't ever become mass-reality. I personally think this situation is responsible for far more societal damage than we are collectively prepared to discuss, and that the "algorithmic black box" will ultimately just be adapted to the next medium. Sadly, the subliminal curation and encouragement of blending corporate agenda, public narrative and social bias for commercial gain, has a long way to go before we are free of it. As GPT-based AI technology engrains itself in the social networks, (e.g. Meta AI) it is easy to see how even their response engine is now providing contextual responses to the user (with, I might add, no transparency if it's based on the same divisive bias in the comments systems), which begs the further question that Steven Muir-McCarey and I have discussed at length, how quickly before your business facts, about your product and brand, are warped and shaped to a different narrative for the benefit of social media usage. As opposed to how you originally intended your content to be positioned, benefitting you, the organisation who is in good faith, investing in Meta for advertising and reach? Repost courtesy of Stephen Foxworthy.