Why You Won't Advertise on Social Next Year

WHAT CHANGES WHEN SOCIAL MEDIA GOES PAID?

There’s a now-famous saying about social media that goes: “If you’re not the customer, you’re the product,” which blew many of our minds when it pointed out the relationship we have with Big Tech, but that’s now in the process of flipping.

The basic premise of social media has always been that they provide us with a product so good that we have to spend all of our time on it, and in exchange, they can smash us in the face with a seemingly unlimited barrage of advertising. Today, however, nearly every major social media platform is offering a paid model where we actually do become the customer, which should be a good thing, right?

If you can afford to pay the toll, sure, but the other thing that it does is give the big tech giants a pass to make the free version even worse, filled with more ads, downgraded user experiences, and relentless reminders that all of this will go away if you just give in and pay the monthly subscription.

Aside from the mild inconvenience for users, it’s reasonable to be concerned as an advertiser that the quality of our ad results will degrade because the platforms are no longer incentivized to create experiences that value the users’ time and attention.

It seems that the most logical response from us, as marketers, will be to find better places to spend our money. For example, if a huge percentage of the most engaged users on a platform do choose to pay for an ad-free model, then there are two ways to get our messages in front of them: 1. Invest in content that’s so good that it earns the reach that we’re looking for; and 2. Give our ad budget to content creators and other accounts that already have those people’s attention.

If we assume that the shift to paid is going to continue (that’s a big “if”), then our prediction is that ad dollars will flow in even greater volumes to influencers, content creators, journalists, podcasters, and other people who have earned their audience’s attention.

As for the paid models on the platforms, here’s a rundown as of today:

• Snapchat+ was arguably the first, and is very successful at $3.99/mo
• X (Twitter) Premium is rumoured to be wildly unpopular and costs $8/mo
• YouTube Premium has seen steady adoption and costs $13.99/mo
• TikTok is testing an ad-free version that is reported to cost $4.99/mo
• Meta is running a test of its premium access, which seems to come in around $14-$17/mo

SHOPIFY SUPERCHARGES ITS AUDIENCES

FIRST-PARTY DATA CAN BE POWERFUL

A few weeks ago we told you that the switch to first-party data was going to create some pretty major changes in digital advertising – here’s one:

Shopify has found a way to tie together your audience data from Meta, Google, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok, and other platforms to create one single, super-powered audience.

The reason this is a big deal is that we were all scared about losing access to big buckets of data that allowed us to hyper-target people across the internet, but instead we can now create an even more personalized version of that targeting for ourselves. Brands that invest in high-quality content that attracts engaged audiences will get an even greater advantage because they’ll have richer audience data.

The more the digital marketing industry evolves, the more it becomes obvious that those who create stuff that people love are going to win, no matter what shifts occur.

Read more about Shopify’s audiences here

A.I. WILL TRANSLATE YOUR FAVOURITE PODCAST

SPOTIFY IS USING AI TOOLS TO MAKE SHOWS GLOBALLY AVAILABLE

This story isn’t really about podcasts.

Thanks to AI tools, Spotify is about to make your favourite podcast available in nearly every imaginable language, all complete with the original creator’s personality, tone, and sense of humour. That means every one of us now can access a massively greater audience than before because we are no longer restricted by language.

The second order implication is that the entire internet — and all communication — will no longer be restricted in the same way. Until now we had janky in-browser translators, but AI tools will make articles, social media content, training materials, and entertainment all accessible to speakers of nearly every language in near-real time.

Read more about what Spotify is up to here

A.I. WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER MARKETER

IT WILL COME UP WITH YOUR NEXT TIKTOK IDEA AND MAKE YOUR VIDEO ADS CHEAPER

There has been a lot of AI-talk in this newsletter recently, but how could there not be? Just about everything that we get up to as digital businesspeople and marketers is enhanced, affected, and/or improved by the recent rush of AI tools.

Here are two more that either you, your competitors, or both are probably going to use this week:

• Get more, and better-targeted, views on your YouTube video ads for less money with AI-enabled Video View Campaigns
• Get your next content idea with TikTok’s new Creative Assistant

A FEW MORE STORIES WORTH A CLICK

STUFF THAT WILL MAKE YOU JUST A BIT SMARTER THIS WEEK

• Photo sharing app Lapse rocketed to #1 in the app store by forcing people to invite their friends
• Influencer marketing is set to exceed $30 Billion this year – that’s a 17% annual increase
• YouTube Shorts is the fastest growing content format, but it can be tough to know where to start – here are 11 creators to take inspiration from
• TikTok took another step towards becoming a standalone ecommerce platform by adding in-app wallets where people will earn, store, and spend cash
• Working on your next landing page? Here are 30 examples to take inspiration from

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting