150 | The State of Content Marketing, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and Some Amazing Opportunities

The business world was blown away in Q2 of 2022.

For the first time ever, since its inception, Meta had shown a decline in its user numbers and its Q2 earning metrics were lower than those of the previous year. 

Now, does that mean this decline will keep going? Who knows, FB is still a 2.9 billion user behemoth. But things are changing and that is especially true for content marketing.

It's not just Meta that is experiencing problems. Snapchat stock also dropped. Twitter is ever so faithfully falling down and LinkedIn hasn't seen that much insane growth.

Social Media may as well soon be dethroned as the dominant way of receiving and creating content. If you want to hear what I think might happen in the next decade, check out episode 150 of the Business Growth Accelerator Show!

Here's what will be covered on the show:
💥 Why TikTok is winning everywhere.
💥The next 10 years for Big Social Media.
💥And so much MORE!

Hi, It's Isar the host of the Business Growth Accelerator Podcast
I am passionate about growing businesses and helping CEOs, business leaders, and entrepreneurs become more successful. I am also passionate about relationship building, community creation for businesses, and value creation through content.
I would love it if you connect with me on LinkedIn. Drop me a DM, and LMK you listened to the podcast, what you think and what topics you would like me to cover 🙏

Transcript

Isar Meitis: 0:59

Hello and welcome to the Business Growth Accelerator. This is Isar Meitis, your host, and this is one of those special solo episodes in which I'm gonna deep dive into a specific topic that is relevant. To the world we live in, on marketing and growing businesses and so on. Today's topic is gonna be about content marketing. Content marketing became a very big part of basically almost every marketing strategy on every company and every size on the planet. It becomes this necessary evil almost. So we gotta generate more content and we gotta do this and we gotta do that all around content creation and. Economical size of content marketing is evaluated at 700 billion in the year of 2022. That's an insane amount of money. That obviously aggregates inside of it, many different aspects of content marketing from content management platform to content generation platforms, to content distribution platforms, to agencies who generate content and so on and so forth. But it's still a huge amount of money just showing how critical this aspect of marketing has become as part of every marketing strategy, but the world of content marketing is changing. And there's some major shifts happening in the background that we must all be aware of as content creators or as companies who apply content marketing as part of their strategy. Something unique happened in Q2 of 2022 for the first time ever, or at least for the first time, since Facebook became public and we have access to its numbers, two things happen. It was the first quarter ever that Facebook has showed a decline in their number of users. And yes, it's a very small decline and yes, there's still a 2.9 something billion users, but the trend is changing for the very first time. The other thing that happened for Facebook in Q2, it was the first time since they went public, that Q2 of this year was worse in earnings than Q2 of last year. Again, not a very good sign for Facebook and a very interesting sign for anybody who's on content and sharing content on social media, which is became the probably most dominant outlet of content. If we look at the social media world as a whole, we see. Earnings that are in a good scenario, not great in some scenarios bad. And we see valuations absolutely crushing, and that is true for obviously meta, which is Facebook and Instagram and, and so on. Obviously meta, which is Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat, which has seen their stock drop 34% after they, share their earnings for Q2 Twitter, with all the saga. And you can, and you can claim that some of the saga with Elland Musk didn't help them. But I think just. I think that's just a part of it. And if you look at the reasons behind that is that social media is reaching this tipping point where people are just not that interested in the way it used to be. So what do I mean by that? If you look at social media as a whole globally, it's growing and the same in the us, but if you start looking at specifics more niches, you see very, very different trends. As an example, if you look at ages 18 to 29 in the us, there's a decline in social media usage across the board. Basically every social media platform is seeing a decline in the us around the ages of 18 to 29. The. And other than one platform, which is TikTok and TikTok started with a younger generation. So if another, so another interesting thing that happened very recently is for the younger ages, 12 to 17, the us majority. Another interesting statistics about TikTok that, as I said, started with a younger generation, is that it was still second to Instagram in the us until very, very recently. But now in the later survey, 63% of teenagers said that they're using TikTok versus 57% that saying that they're using Instagram. So again, TikTok has. The younger generation has surpassed Instagram in the us as of the last few months. It's also the number one downloaded app, both on Android and apple. So clear dominance and obviously growing numbers. And it's the only platform that its numbers are growing across all age groups, including the older generation that is slowly coming into TikTok as well. But the really critical piece of data that will explain the revenue declines of other social platforms is app usage time. Right. So at the end of the day, all these apps make money by selling ads. So if you are on YouTube, on Instagram, on Facebook, the money these companies make is based on ads and ads. The longer you stay on the platform, the more ad time you can watch, which means they can make more money. So in the latest survey, the data shows this Facebook usage per day is 49 minutes in the us Instagram 51 minutes, YouTube 74 minutes, TikTok 93 minutes. So an hour and a half per day on average us usage of TikTok per day versus 49 minutes for Facebook and 51 minutes for, I. Huge difference. Now, in addition to the fact that the average user is spending 93 minutes on TikTok a day, which is more than Facebook, they're not on Facebook or Instagram or any other platform for that matter during those 93 minutes. So it's increasing the revenue for TikTok, but it's also preventing revenue from the other platform. But so now we gotta ask the question. Why, why are people moving away from Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook and even YouTube and moving into TikTok? And the answer is it's algorithm works in a very, very, very different way. I promise you that all of this will make sense as far as content creation, because this is the topic of this episode on the world of content marketing, but understanding the distribution channel is a critical part to understanding what kind of content, how you should create it and so on. So the obvious question is why are so many people moving to TikTok? And the answer is it's a very, very different animal in a very different way. The algorithm works compared to traditional social media, Facebook, which is the 800 pound gorilla and Instagram it's sister company is built around its social graph. What is a social graph? It's an amazingly detailed map of who is connected to who and showing you things that your friends are doing and, or creating. So the content that you are consuming on Facebook and Instagram comes from your friends, your family, their friends, and based on X number of degrees of separation, but people that, you know, On TikTok. Yes. You're also seeing content for people that, you know, but you're also mostly seeing content that is aligned with stuff you'll be interested in watching and the best of it. The reason for the difference and why TikTok is doing so much better is the concept behind. So let's ask ourselves, so we gotta ask ourselves why, why is TikTok growing so fast? Why ISTA growing so fast while other social media platforms are declining. And the reason is it's a very different Platform. It's a very different algorithm and it approaches the whole concept of presenting content to users in a very different way. Instagram and Facebook are built around the social graph. Same as LinkedIn. It's basically looking at who you're connected with. Who are they connected with? Who are potential connections to you? Who are you communicating with on regular basis and showing you their content? So the content that you're consuming comes from people that, you know, in either directly or through one or two degrees of separation talk does that, but it's mostly just sending you videos on topics that you like to watch. It's monitoring your behavior and giving you more and more content like that, based on how long you spend on that video, did you like it or not? Did you share it? Did you comment on it, but it's really looking for your personal taste in content, which means it's gonna present to you content, not just from people that, you know, by definition Even if you have the most talented people around you, there are more talented people further away from you that you've never met, which means if I will serve you with the best content on a specific topic, it will most likely not be from the people that you know, but it will most likely be from people that you don't know. And yet you would prefer to consume that content because it's either provides you better education or in other words, more value, or it will give you more entertainment either way. You're gaining from that content more than you're gaining from the content generated by your friends, which has its value and its place in TikTok as well. But that's not the core. So basically they've built a better dopamine machine, which is more addicting and drags users further and further in with more content that they would like to watch based on their history hands 93 minutes a day on average, an hour and a half of users' lives. Every single day spent watching TikTok video. Now let's go two steps back. Let's now talk about the content itself and what's going on in content marketing and Christopher Lockhead the godfather of category design just released a new book together with his category pirates buddies and he just recently released a fascinating episode that is based on one of the chapters in the book. And the episode is called Content Free Marketing. How the marketing world got duped into saying nothing everywhere. And in this episode, Christopher Lockhead talks about the fact that people like Gary V who became a huge internet. Success is pitching to everyone to just post, post, post, post, post be louder than anybody else, being more platforms than anybody else be more frequent than anybody else as the key to success and a lock. Lockhead seriously challenges that concept, he calls it, the Gary VD, like the disease that Gary V created and to an extent he's right, like Gary V pitches all the time, just post more post, most post more, you know, one of the more knowns items that he publishes, how to create 64 pieces of content every single day. So it's all about quantity and not necessarily about quality of content. And if you think about the world of content creation, it's really became about that. Companies became obsessed in publishing more content every day on more platforms, and most of the effort of companies in creating content is built around volume. How do we create more content? How do we publish it with more platforms? How do we get it in front of more people and not necessarily what is the content about how deep it is, how different it is than other content that's out there? How can we provide more value to our super consumers, which is the only thing that actually matters in all the content that you're generating. But before we dive into what all of this means, and what's the huge opportunity that's hiding in plain sight right now, if you understand all the things that I'm talking about, I wanna defend Gary V on two different things against some of the things that Christopher Lockett has said against him. Two huge things that I can say about Gary V one. He was always. He is one of the most amazing people in identifying huge trends that are happening in the marketing world. And he jumped on the TikTok bandwagon before he was even TikTok. He was still musically and he was already starting to talk about this as the next big thing. And he's heavily invested in TikTok and so on. So I think. On that aspect. I want to give him credit for always identifying the big trends and jumping on them early and talking about them and sharing his knowledge about it. The other thing that is even more relevant, and it's tied back to some of the conclusions that we're gonna talk about and what kind of content you want to create. Gary V is incredible in. Having conversations with his audience as a way to create content as a way to get feedback on his content and as a way to recontextualize his messages, what do I mean by. When you just create content on your own and push it out based on what you think is gonna work based on what you think is interesting. You will, some of, some of your content is gonna be good. Some of your content is gonna be average. Some of the content is gonna be below average, just like anybody else. If you create your content through conversations with your target audience with your super consumers. Then the content that you're creating comes from questions that these people have. That does two things. A by definition provides more value to those people who are your target audience and your prospects and potential clients. Because it's the questions they ask. It's the problems they're trying to solve. It's the language that they are using. And talking about the language that they're using recording content through conversations with those people provides contextualization to different scenarios. So you can talk about the same thing again and again, and again, rephrasing it based on different scenarios of different people, which will allow other people to resonate with it more because the people they heard now versus a week ago is more like them. They have the same stuff of company. They have the same kind of experience. They have the same kind. They come from the same place in the world, et cetera, et cetera. So creating content. So co-creating content with your target audience. A huge benefit. Like I said, on two aspects, one is getting amazing feedback on what you should, what you should talk about and how you should talk about it. And two is providing more value to your audience by knowing exactly what they care about by knowing the language. And by contextualizing it to specific people. And by contextualizing to specific people. The last huge benefit is that obviously people who are co-creating content with you are very, more likely to share that content. So if you co-create content with your target audience, which by definition are connected to other people in your target audience, and you. Give them access to that content either by giving it to them, for them to share, or by tagging them on social media. They're way more likely to share that content, which means you get more organic reach for free from the content you're already generating. So all these are huge benefits of stuff that Gary V is doing and that every smart content created in the world right now is. So let's do a quick recap on what we've talked about so far before we start diving into what does that mean and what are the opportunities that it is presenting to us? So social media and the outlet for content is changing dramatically. Short video is the king. It is aligned with shorter attention spans that people have today and providing content that is relevant to people that are not necessarily your friends is becoming the driving force behind everything. An interesting point about that Cal Newport, who is an associate professor for computer science in Georgetown university. He's a very well known publisher. He has a very well known Ted talk about leaving social media and he just wrote an article for the new Yorker that's called TikTok and the fall of the social media giants. Is it really a fall? Like I said, I don't know, Facebook still has almost 3 billion users on the platform and I don't think they're going anywhere anytime soon, but he raises a lot of very interesting points that is, that are worth reading. So I will post a link to the article in the show notes, because I think it's very interesting read, but it's definitely things are changing and it's shifting more towards creating content that is relevant to people versus. Creating content that is relevant to your friends. if to touch a little bit about what the article is talking about, why he thinks this might be the first nail in the coffin for big social media is because Instagram and Facebook, and even LinkedIn. The power of their platforms comes from the social graph from knowing the relationships and the connections between people. And if they're now gonna move away from that and start focusing just on general video, they're basically giving up on their competitive advantage. The thing that made them so big and so powerful is their ability to know who's connected to who. And so moving away from that may present a very big risk to these companies. And that's part of what the article is about. So, like I said, if you wanna read that I will post a link in the notes, Another interesting aspect that this generates, and now I'm gonna start talking about opportunities. If you think about social media so far, the people who gain from it the most are people with a lot of followers, right? And when we say a lot of followers, it's obviously relevant to their niche and so on. You don't have to be Kim Kardashian or Ronaldo to have, you know, hundreds of millions of followers, but having a significant amount of followers makes a very big difference and it takes a very long time and it takes work in order to get to a big enough status on those platforms. But on TikTok your video tomorrow, that could be the first video ever produced. If it's really great, if it's unique, if it's provide real value and again, the value could be pure entertainment or it could be business value or personal value to people. If it's a great video, you could get millions of views without having any followers. And that presents an amazing opportunity to all of us who have something unique to say who can really solve problems, who can really provide value without just restating general knowledge. of You should be a leader. You should treat your people, right? You should, create more content. All these things are great, but there's too many people saying them and it means you're not providing enough value. If you have a unique point of view, if you really solve a problem, if you can articulate the problem, the solution better than other people. And you can share that on a platform like TikTok or in the direction that old social media's going for. You'll be able to get a lot of views, a lot of eyeballs, and a lot of people connecting resonating and wants to know more about you and what you represent without having millions of followers. So this is a huge opportunity for people And I wanna dive a little deeper into what I just said. And again, it's a big, it is the big lesson from the episode I talked about from, Christopher Lockhead, which is, it is not about creating more content it's about creating content that provides more value. Definitely quality over quantity is gonna be the new game because creating a lot of content requires a lot of resources that do not necessarily. Correlate with the outcome that you're getting. If you're creating valuable content, something that can really change the lives, the businesses, the trajectory of the people that consume the content will attract people to you and will make them want to know more, consume more from you, connect with you, do business with you and so on. So the second opportunity is instead of trying to create more content than everybody that is vanilla, trying to create the best content out there on a niche that you're trying to cater for, which means you need to know who you're catering for. So how do you who's your target audience, what they care about, what are the real problems, how they talk about it. What's the actual language that they're using in order to describe the issues that they have while that represents the next opportunity that I'm going to talk about instead of just you generating content, in a vacuum, just copying other people and what they're doing and what they're saying. The best way to figure out what your super consumers want need and how they talk about it is to actually co-create the content together with them. How do you do that? You go live and create live Q&A sessions. So going back to what Gary V is doing, if you want another amazing reference is Christopher Walker with demand gen live, go live. Invite the people who are your audience and then provide value to them while they are on the live video. That means answer their questions, bring the right guests that can answer more questions that you may not have the answer to and just provide value. What does that do? It goes back to what I mentioned earlier, when we were talking about Gary V. It allows you to understand what their issues are. How they talking about it, what language they're using, get immediate feedback for the answers that you're providing. Is it resonating or not Are they asking follow up questions? What follow up questions are they asking? Which will a tell you what you need to focus on in your product and service. But B will tell you what you need to create in your next piece of content, because these are questions you do not answer yet. So it's this amazing feedback mechanism for your messaging, as well as your product and services and how they need to evolve. While you're co-creating content that these people will find valuable and that they would want to. share The last opportunity that I want to talk about has to do with community versus audience. And that's something you heard me talk about many times before, but there's a huge difference between having a community and having an audience. An audience are a bunch of people that would listen and consume the content that you're generating. A community is people who feel a part of the journey who co-create value together with each other. And with you building a community requires you investing in those people and in those relationships, but the outcome is dramatically better than having an audience. And one of the biggest differences has to do with what we just talked about, which. is If you have a community, people who care about you and each other. So it's not just you, they care about meeting the other people and getting value from the other people in the group. We'll come to the group, we'll come to the community before they go anywhere else, which means you are creating a captive audience of people who have shared interest, shared feelings, shared values, shared destiny, call it whatever you wanna call it that want to be together with those people, which means they will have. A higher level of trust, a higher level of emotional connection with those people than anything else they consume on social media, which means instead of competing with anybody on the planet right now that can create TikTok videos potentially better than you, because there's always gonna be those people. They want to come to you in order to consume stuff. Together with you and the other people in the community. And that trend has been strengthening dramatically in the past few years. More and more platforms are coming out to enable you to run communities, manage communities, monitors communities health, and monitor the ROI from communities. And I've done several episodes about this that I'm gonna recommend in the end of this episode, if you wanna check more information about that. So let's do a final summary. There's a dramatic change, a dramatic shift that's happening on social media and the content world in general. I think we're gonna be a very dramatic shift towards TikTok, like videos on all the platforms. You're already seeing it with reels on Instagram stuff on Facebook, changes on, YouTube shorts and so on. So that trend is not going to stop. It's going to continue. TikTok is still gonna be the king of that, just because of a momentum and B the overhead just because of the legacy way that. Quote unquote, traditional social media works that will not make it as easy for them to make that shift. And B the fact that older social media has these baggage, this legacy of how their system works, that is not aligned with the way this new thing works. So I think we're gonna see still tick talk growing much faster. So if you're not on. Start exploring that I think TikTok has its own strategy, but in general it follows the same strategy as any other marketing, which means you have to understand who your audience is. You have to understand what provides them value. You have to consider. At least three different layers of people in the funnel. So people who don't know you at all, and you need to create content that will make them aware of you. Then some kind of a nurturing content where it's deeper, but a much smaller amount of content than the awareness content. And then the final stuff is conversion content, right? What's gonna make people want to actually work with you. And that is true for any kind of content you create. I think focusing on quality versus quantity. Is a big difference. And I think it's gonna become more and more obvious in the next two years, because I think the level of noise right now is insane and people are just gonna look for quality and the trick would be how do you provide that quality in the platform and in a way that your clients want to consume it? This could be a 3000 word blog post, but this could also be a 22nd video and you will need to master both. If your audience. Wants to consume it in these two ways. So that's another lesson learned. And the last thing is, I think the shift towards communities is gonna grow faster and it's gonna grow stronger. And if you can start developing a community right now, you are going to come ahead out of this whole thing in the next few years, These are just my thoughts from monitoring what's going on with content creation right now, and with the world of social media and different channels of distribution of that content. I hope you find this interesting. If you have, please share it with other people, you think will find this valuable. And if you have any questions or comments about this, I would love it. If you would share that on LinkedIn, I'm very easy to find on LinkedIn. I'm the only Mateis on LinkedIn. My name is spelled I S a R M E I T I S finally, me direct message me. I would love to hear your inputs on these topics and your thoughts, feedback, or idea on these directions that we can share that together. And until next time have an amazing week.