The world’s most innovative companies have run out of ideas and now just copy one another. Instagram and YouTube are hoping to be TikTok, and it appears that all three platforms are inadvertently recreating television.
Earlier this summer, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri made a selfie-style video (in his apartment!) explaining why his multibillion dollar company would be showing more video, almost all from creators and influencers that you don’t know. Watch it below…
These changes upset pretty much everyone on Instagram. If you like IG because you can see cute photos of your friends, you’re gonna have to work to find those photos and those friends. Soon your thumb will know what to tap and swipe, to get past the influencers IG wants you to follow. But for now, IG will feel really loud, maybe rude.
And for the IG professionals? There is no guarantee you will stay in front of your followers. The safest bet for all ya’ll influencers and creators is to adapt and produce more videos, holding your phone like this ↕📱.
Instagrammers, this may feel like the 3rd or 4th time you’ve had to reinvent yourself. If you built your following on excellent photography on early Instagram, you feel very far from home here in 2022.
Instagram is Losing Confidence
In the nuance of Mr. Mosseri’s video, you hear that TikTok is disrupting their once invincible platform. His words: “The future of social media is video.” Yup he’s talking about TikTok. And then he goes on to talk about how Instagram is a place for young creators, not just established creators who built a following over the last 6-8 years. Young creators? He’s trying to recruit the cool kids off of TikTok and do their dances and wiggles on his platform.
We’ve been here before. Facebook was once only for college kids in their early 20s. Lest we forget, you literally had to have a .edu email address to create an account on Facebook in the early 2000s. Young people are more curious and more social. That changes with age. That 1st Gen on Facebook is now on their way to their 40s, and those people seem to have lost all interest in social media.
Regardless of whether Instagram wins or loses, we’re going to have to change our definition of social media.
Is Instagram next? Is Instagram for old people now? Quick history: Instagram launched in the App Store in 2010, a few years after the iPhone came out. It was like Facebook, but more fun and appealing to college kids. Mark Zuckerberg saw IG as a threat, so he bought it for $1 Billion in 2012. Now, after 10 years of extraordinary success, IG’s CEO is concerned that his influencers and creators are getting too old (in their 30s yuck) and now he has to recruit the kool kids in their teens and twenties. ???
To see Instagram try so hard tells me they’ve looked into the future, and they’re losing. I’m not saying that Instagram will be unable to shift to more video and towards a younger audience. (Heck, they shifted before and swatted away Snapchat.) But this is the first time I’ve seen Instagram lack confidence in their core product and their user base.
Regardless of whether Instagram wins or loses, we’re going to have to change our definition of social media.
Video + Commercials (Sound Familiar?)
It’s hard to put this into words, so be patient with me. But the core idea of social media–friends connecting with friends–seems to be going away. Facebook proves this. Facebook is good at Messenger, its groups, and dumpy old marketplace. But other than that, Facebook seems to be an unsocial network.
Social media has evolved to be exclusively where you connect with people that you don’t know in real life. You find ’em on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. These are the different generations of entertainers, creators, and thought leaders. Social media is their platform now. This is no place for “friending.”
And if the most powerful medium is video, we are soon approaching a new kind of cable TV. Think of the 1970s-1990s, except instead of 100 TV channels, it’s 100,000,000 TV channels. Instead of 24/7 cable news, it is normal folks capturing breaking news on their phones. Instead of 30-minute funny sitcom, it’s a 30-second funny video. It’s a new generation of entertainers with a new viewing audience.
These TV stars are no longer a handful of privileged actors reading from scripts; this kind of TV gives everyone a chance. This version is more interesting and more equitable. As viewers, we can like a video, leave a comment, share it with others. This is good, we didn’t have this with old TV. But the business model is the same: in between videos are commercial breaks. We’ll put up with those commercials so we can see the next video. And when we are done watching videos, they’re gonna show us more. A constant stream of video.
We’ll feel good continuing to call this “social media,” but really we’re just watching TV.
What’s troubling to me, as a person who has been here through each chapter of social media, is that this all began as an alternative to TV. Facebook allowed you to reconnect with old friends, and those reunions and strengthened relationships added richness to your life. Instagram used to be a serene, scenic place where you could see the ones you loved, and the beautiful places they went. Twitter was always feisty, but it was a fun place to learn, and it was quiet–there was no volume button on Twitter. This is all gone. This era is over. Social platforms are loud, sensational, and often rude–just like the TV that we’ve tried to leave behind.
So where is this going? What’s the future for these platforms? I predict that YouTube will find its way. Instagram will become another TikTok, and between the three platforms, we’ll all be watching television.
How will you connect with college classmates? Extended family? We don’t have a good answer right now in 2022. You may have to wait a while for a new social network to fill the void left by Facebook / Instagram. Until then, send the text. Pick up your phone and call. ◼️
❤️ “Be the change you want to see in _______.” If you spend time on YouTube, be sure to subscribe to our channel. It is decidedly NOT loud, rude, or sensational. With each video, I try to be helpful. 🙂
🤔 If you enjoyed this topic, be sure to read my blog from 2019: For Social Networks to Survive, They Must Solve the Problems that They Created.
💡 Interesting to Know: Here in Fall of 2022, YouTube finally adopted the @yourname thing that started on Twitter 15 years ago. It makes YouTube more about the people, less about the channel (maybe?) Example: https://www.youtube.com/@smithhousedesign Also, YouTube is rewarding their long-form video creators with more exposure if they create short-form videos (60 seconds or less) while filming with their phone vertical, like you do for TikTok.
📆 For anyone reviewing their calendar after reading this post, you’ll see that it took me nearly 4 months to “react” to trending news. To my credit, I started this blog in early August, but yeah, I finished it this morning, halfway through November. I’ve never been more proud to be so late to the conversation. The last 4 months have been extraordinary here at Smith House. We added a new designer to our team! 👩💻🎨 And we’re doing remarkable work for clients: logos, websites, ad campaigns, and video production. Blogs are slow, but life is good. 🎉