Social media is transforming. Case in point, Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, recently stated that algorithmic priority will adjust to favor:

A. Creators (i.e., producers of engaging content; influencers)
B. Video (i.e., short or long runtimes, horizontal or vertical aspect ratios)
C. Shopping(i.e., e-commerce — not really my scene)
D. Messages (i.e., DMs — that’s where the real conversations occurs)

And he made a few other remarks too:

📺 Insta, going forward, sees itself as an “entertainment” platform. SUBTEXT: it’s not just a social networking app, per se. More on that below ⤵️

🤳 Facebook/Instagram have earmarked over $1-billion in funds to pay “Creators” to produce content on their platforms.

📈 TikTok and YouTube were singled-out as dominant competitors. In other words, short-form, vertical vids (TikTok) as well as long-form, search-driven vids (YouTube) are both of strategic interest to IG.

It’s also worth noting that neither TikTok nor YouTube is a traditional social network. In the simplest sense, a social network is a space where friends, family, and personal connections see and engage with each other’s posts. Granted, on TikTok, that happens (to a degree). Notwithstanding, both platforms’ feeds are filled predominately with popular, trending content.

So what? Well… Let’s look back 12 - 15 years. The inherent promise of social media has been (and still is) the notion that every user has a voice in their own personal community. Consider the days of TV-based advertising. The networks dominated the, quote-unquote, “feeds” (with entertaining content), we were all just viewers, and businesses ran ads to sell us stuff.

I’m not necessarily suggesting we’re going back to all of that. My point, though, is that it seems as if it’ll become more and more difficult to rank in the feeds UNLESS you become a quality creator.

What I’m getting at is that now’s the time to double-down on your AGENT-BRAND -- and you need to do it with V-I-D-E-O!

At the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it’s CREATOR or CUT!