Social Landscape Shakeup

Social Landscape Shakeup. Organic and earned efforts making a comeback. While TikTok, it seems, will remain on a growth path, legacy platforms like Facebook and Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat have all reported shrinking revenues, largely due to heavy reliance on ads, lacking innovation or, in the case of Twitter, a drastic ownership change – and we don’t see that decline changing anytime soon.

But if a specific mainstay channel works for a brand, said brand should keep leveraging it. Just be aware that we expect further growth in Twitch, voice to gain traction on Discord, and newer players like BeReal (1 out of 3 US teens is using it) to become more popular. These niche, higher affinity platforms, by default, depend more on earned user traction, and don’t yet offer the same level of sophistication compared to legacy platforms.

Yet, not overtaking it seems to do the trick for now. TikTok will ensure that creator-led, lo-fi short video remains the “it” format. This has forced the likes of Meta and Google to double down on Reels and Shorts, to recalibrate functionalities and to shift towards more vertical storytelling.

And so, brands are looking left and right. And the ones that understand to operate channel-agnostic, get the points. As an example: social media champ Chipotle explored the ins and outs of BeReal.

For now, the platform has no bells and whistles and is completely ad free. This means that brands have to fully embrace the single USP: engaging with users right in the moment and incentivise them offline..