Creating A Social Media For Thought Leaders

Hey Jessteemians

Traditional social media has become the new mass media, social media, as we know it now, is a tool about reaching an audience and monetising the attention economy which is why friends have become follows and influencers are seen as the premium "superuser" of each platform. The platforms are saturated with bots, altered by algorithms and internal biases and paid promotions.

While personalities and brands fight for users attention daily with the aim of monetising views in one way or another, the social element has been removed from the equation or bastardised to a point where it's almost unrecognisable.

What is social influence?

Social influence has come down to lowest common denominator attraction and users who flaunt themselves sexually, do pranks, showcase affluent lifestyles or push aspirational content rise to the top of the rankings. There is such a distinct formula that so many are replicating in order to grab eyeballs and followers and exchange this with brands for money.

The real issue here is how many of the users engaging with that content are actually looking at them as someone they would listen to or someone's opinion they value. The social media influencer is starting to come under fire and rightly so because it is more fo a vanity metric than a real monetizable audience in many cases.

Image source: - coolerinsights.com

The system exposing its flaws

Slowly people are starting to wake up and become disillusioned with the personalities they've been attracted to and are looking for a more meaningful and personal approach to social engagement. While I don't see the traditional influencer model dying out any time soon, I do see those who are wanting to become successful need to find a niche and showcasing a viable skill with the aim of influencing and encouraging engagement with users online.

In essence, Influencers will have to transition into thought leaders where they are seen as an actual expert on the topic.

Passion over projecting

As we know, many influencers are posers who are projecting a specific lifestyle that well impressionable minds aspire to or find attractive, which is why they gain followers. Brands are starting to realise the flaw in having a "projectionist" as their spokesperson.

Someone who isn't passionate about the topic or devoting their time to becoming an authority figure of an area of expertise will never truely dig deep enough to create valuable content or insights, they are also likely to make an idiot of themselves well and drag brands down with them, the upside and risk is now being weighed up and influencers are having to tow the line for it.

A trend towards authenticity

Influencers are just the next phase in corporate sock puppets looking to peddle goods and services on their audience and while it is booming now eventually people will become fatigued and will become tired of being sold to, we can see this with the reduction in TV viewership, the increase in ad blockers and the move towards paying for paywalled or on-demand content.

I think social media now is at a place where it requires disruption the way it disrupted traditional media not too long ago. These giant sites are now too slow and too focused on their bottom line to react to a change in the market and are desperately trying to hold on to users for dear life.

Alternative social media still sits on the periphery but I don't see that as the case for very long, the market is pretty fragmented when you exclude facebook, twitter and YouTube and these communities are slowly attracting defectors as does steemit and with them and less corporate influence we can shape the social media landscape into something more authentic.

I know it seems like a bit of a pipe dream now when you look at the current state of things but surely it's an ideal to aspire to and work towards, right?

Have your say

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