The Era of 'Interest Media': Why Your Business Needs a New Strategy

For over a decade, social media was just that: social. The goal for any business was to build a community by accumulating a massive follower base. A high follower count was a badge of honour, a mark of influence, and a guarantee of eyeballs on your content.

But the digital world has changed. The algorithms that power platforms like Meta's Instagram and Facebook no longer care primarily about who you know or who you follow. They care about what you do. This isn't "social" media anymore; it's interest media. And for businesses, this means the old playbook is officially obsolete.

The Core Shift: From Social Graph to Interest Graph
The original social media model was built on the social graph. It prioritised content from your direct connections—your friends, family, and the pages you followed. Likes, comments, and shares from that network were the primary signals that a post was worth seeing.

Today's landscape is dominated by the interest graph. Fuelled by powerful AI, this new model builds a dynamic profile of a user's interests based on every single action they take: what videos they watch to the end, what posts they save, what accounts they visit, and what they search for. It's so precise that the algorithm can now show you content you'll love from an account you've never heard of. This is a game-changer for businesses. The best content wins, not the account with the most followers.

This is why you'll see a small brand with only a few hundred followers get millions of views on a viral Reel, while a company with a million followers sees a fraction of that engagement. The follower count is now a vanity metric; views, saves, and shares are the new currency.

Paid Ads: The Interest Graph's Amplifier
This shift has also fundamentally changed the nature of paid advertising on platforms like Meta. Instead of being a separate marketing function, paid ads are now a powerful way to accelerate the success of your best organic content.

Hyper-Targeting: Ad targeting is no longer just about broad demographics. Thanks to the interest graph, you can now reach users who have shown a specific interest in a niche topic, product, or service. For example, a home coffee-roasting business can target people who have watched multiple videos about grinding coffee beans, not just a general "coffee lover" audience.

The Ad is the Content: The most effective ads don't look like ads. They are highly engaging videos or carousels that provide genuine value and seamlessly blend into a user's feed. The goal is to create something so relevant to the user's interests that they don't even realise it's a paid post until the very end.

Dynamic Creative: Meta's ad tools now use AI to automatically test and optimise different versions of your ad creative. You can provide multiple videos, headlines, and calls-to-action, and the algorithm will serve the best combination to the right person at the right time.

New Strategies for Business Success in the Interest Media Era
To succeed in this new landscape, businesses must stop thinking like marketers and start acting like media companies.

Here’s what you need to do:

Become a Niche Expert: The interest graph rewards depth over breadth. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, double down on a specific niche. Create content for the hyper-specific interests of your ideal customer.

Prioritise Video: The research is clear: video is king. With platforms like Facebook automatically classifying all videos as Reels, short-form, vertical video is now the default language of the interest graph.

Focus on Authenticity: The algorithm values genuine, human-to-human connection. Use real employees, showcase behind-the-scenes moments, and tell authentic stories to build trust with your audience.

Amplify Your Winners: Use your paid ad budget strategically. Instead of creating brand-new ads from scratch, find your best-performing organic content (the posts with the most views, saves, and shares) and use paid ads to push them to a wider, hyper-targeted audience.

The era of interest media is not a threat; it's an opportunity. It levels the playing field and rewards genuine creativity and valuable content. By embracing this new reality, any business can thrive, regardless of the size of its follower count.

If you need few ideas for video content, specifically in the short-form Reels format relevant to your business, give me a shout. 

To listen to this in podcast style click the link https://youtu.be/crSq0mMMdio