#070 – Anti Social Media Platforms
Doing business on your favourite social media channel...
Published on September 30, 2019
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Have you heard of the YouTube Adpocalypse? How about Likes being hidden on Instagram? It doesn’t affect the majority of users but it does adversely affect those who use social media platforms to make a living. Those guys are usually just seen as collateral damage.
Make no mistake. Most social media channels make their revenue from selling ads. Yep. Which means they are beholden to their advertisers. This means having advertiser-friendly content. Which is interesting, because most of these platforms DON’T make their own content.
These platforms are almost entirely reliant on crowd-sourced or user-generated. This is the major source of audience eyeballs. Meaning, we make this content, upload it to a platform and WE go to this platform to consume this content. Now the sneaky bit is that these platforms sell ads on OUR content and reap in the profits.
Anti-social behaviour on social media platforms goes both ways
In the case of YouTube, their ad revenue is shared with the creators. Which funds the making of this content. However, YouTube is demonetizing videos without telling the creators why. It’s like being asked to play tennis without being told about rule changes and having the court makings hidden from the players.
Find out more about this here and here.
With Instagram, this a lot more straight-forward. Instagram was never designed as an e-commerce or business platform. It started life as a simple photo-sharing app that now has a billion monthly users. Millions of people and thousands of businesses use it to make money and sales.
The issue is that Instagram has recently started hiding Post Likes in some countries as a trial to shift user behaviour. Consequently, influencers who are using Instagram to make money from their sponsors or from endorsements are feeling the pinch. It was already a precarious situation and now they are having to change their business model. Collateral damage.
Find out more about this here and here.
This has led to the rise of new platforms that are specifically for people to actually transact and do business. Etsy is one. Another being developed for the fashion industry is called RubySODA. Collectively, they’re known as social-commerce platforms.
Note: Mark is the CEO of RubySODA and he promises that it will fundamentally change the way fashion is bought online.
Image Credits: Today Testing (for derivative) [CC BY-SA 4.0]
