Let’s talk about social media!
With everything going on between the TikTok ban, Meta shenanigans, and people fleeing to an actual Chinese app in protest social media has gone nuts.
I’ve had several people ask me where should they focus, where should they go, and what should they do. The answer is that you’ve got options and that is a good thing!
Pinterest is an Underdog
My first instinct is that Pinterest is looking really good these days in my eyes. It’s flown under the radar with all of the heat being thrown on social media platforms and they continue to produce a winning algorithm and results for advertisers. While Pinterest isn’t the best place to grow a community and have conversations, it is a GREAT place to share your content, your AI art, your ads (even without ad-spend behind them), your products, your freebies, and more. Literally anything that is visual makes sense to share on Pinterest. Video recently has become a HUGE thing on Pinterest. Video is being pushed into users' feeds more and more, especially if it meets Pinterest’s aesthetics. Pinterest looks for clean, short videos that either entertain, wow, teach, or sell products. (see sample video screen recording below)
The other fab thing about using Pinterest for social media is that it’s an evergreen platform – meaning that your content will continue to get pushed out to users for years to come.
YouTube is Queen
That brings me to my second choice, another evergreen platform – YouTube. YouTube is a wonderful place to upload short-form and long-form video content. People are able to build community there by going live answering questions and doing demonstrations. People can leave you comments and you can interact with your audience. YouTube also pays its creators once you reach a certain level of viewership and that is pretty darn cool. I follow several YouTubers who make a pretty amazing living from their videos. I must forewarn you though, this isn’t the route to fame and riches overnight. Most of the popular YouTubers that I watch have been on the platform for 10+ years (and have been making money from the platform since around year 2 on average). The “big money” does seem to come from the longer-producing content creators. But this doesn’t mean it won’t be worth it for you to get started over there and who knows how many new followers you’ll gain on a whole new platform!
Be a Big Fish in a Small Pond on BlueSky
A lot of people are going to BlueSky. It’s considered a Twitter/X alternative and I love their mission of not allowing the platform to be owned by large corporations. The drawback there for me is that we’re limited to 300 characters or less but you can post photos and videos so that’s pretty cool. A big benefit of heading over to BlueSky NOW, instead of later when it is the popular place to be, is that you have the potential to be a big fish in a small pond right now. This gives you a better chance to be seen in the newsfeed (once you are posting regularly and consistently – just like any app algorithm is looking for) and posting things that are relevant, interesting, entertaining, or educational. Don’t go all-in for the sale on a new platform. Warm it up, take a stab at giving first – you’ll thank me later.
Stick With Me – It's Gonna Get Wild
My wild, tinfoil-hat theory is that we are headed for a social media “breakdown”. I think the way platforms used to work doesn’t work for us any longer. Algorithms push us apart and not together. We aren’t seeing our friends or family as much on social. We’re seeing more ads and strangers’ posts that went viral. It causes a sense of feeling lost in a sea of people who don’t know us and likely really don’t care about us. That leaves most users feeling at odds with the platforms.
What I do see coming is possibly more things like Discord or other Web 3.0 platforms sprouting up all over the place trying to “take the cake”. It’s next to impossible to keep up with them all, but it is always a great idea to snag your username on any new platforms you see popping up. Even if you don’t use the account until it becomes more relevant.
My advice is still the same as it always was with social – use the platforms you enjoy being on. Keep it simple. And try not to stress out about it too much. Making content should be fun.
When you’re having fun, your audience will too!
Who I'll Keep and Who Will Get the Boot
As for me, I’ll be sticking with TikTok for a bit longer, playing on RedNote for fun (I sort of love it there, such a sweet vibe), I’ve created my BlueSky account and will start giving that some love while I slowly wean myself off of Meta platforms. I had already mostly given up on Instagram already – there’s just far too little conversation happening there for me. It’s not intellectually stimulating to just scroll through post after post. I want to engage with people and talk to them. On Instagram, it’s hard enough to get someone to tap the like button much less leave a comment.
Facebook will be harder to leave. With groups, events, FB ads, etc. but as people leave in droves none of those things will continue to be as relevant. I’ve been there the longest of any platform and it really has changed – and not for the better sadly.
How about you? What platforms do you think you’ll stick with? Which ones will you leave?
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