The Death of Traditional Social Media Marketing (And What Comes Next)

[00:00:00] We all know that social media is not optional anymore. It is the only digital marketing channel that touches every part of your customer journey. But here's the hard truth. If you're still using social media like a business instead of as a content creator, you're falling behind. The game has changed. We all know now that algorithms favor content, not follower count. Businesses that fail to adapt will struggle. So the question is, do you have what it takes to succeed in social media?

[00:00:30] I believe it all comes down to two choices. Become a content creator or leverage user-generated content. Which path will you choose? I'm going to break it all down. So stay tuned for this next episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach Podcast.

[00:01:02] Whew! There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neal on your side. Because Neal Schaffer is your digital marketing coach.

[00:01:24] Helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Your Digital Marketing Coach. I am Neal Schaffer. And if you're a startup founder, entrepreneur, or small business owner looking for a no-nonsense approach to digital marketing, you are in the right place.

[00:01:49] Now, let's be honest. Social media has never been easy for businesses. And in 2025, it is harder than ever. Why, you ask? Well, I've been saying this for more than a decade. But social media wasn't built for businesses. It was built for people. You are competing against people and all the natural organic content that they're creating and the emotions that that generates.

[00:02:12] And today's algorithms don't care as much who you follow. They care about keeping you on the platform and the content that you engage with. That means the old playbook doesn't work anymore. And I'm sure you've been seeing declining returns over time. Simply posting about your business isn't enough. If you want to be truly seen and engaged with, ideally, you need a new approach. So today, I'm going to talk about what it really takes to succeed in social media right now.

[00:02:42] I'll share why you only have two options. Becoming a content creator or leveraging user-generated content or UGC, you'll hear me refer to. You've probably heard of that term before. And how you can choose the right path for your business. I'll also be referencing my book, Digital Threads, and my SES Framework, which stands for Search Email Social. Because social media really is the only digital marketing channel that touches every part of your customer's journey. Now, one disclaimer here.

[00:03:08] If you are an entrepreneur or a small business owner startup founder, and you are already active on social media, and you're building a personal brand, that is very much to your advantage. You might already be a content creator. And if that is you, kudos. That is really, I believe, if the founder or the head, the owner, is willing to do that and has a knack for that, that is really the ideal situation.

[00:03:35] But I think as your business scales and as you get busy, and maybe if you are not, or maybe you work for someone who is not as adept or interested in creating content, well, that's where the challenge happens. And I think the bigger the company, the bigger the challenge, as you can imagine. So let's start with why social media has never been easy for businesses. Just to give some background as to why I want to propose what I'm proposing. So let's start with the obvious, that social media has always been a challenge for businesses

[00:04:04] because it was designed for us. It was designed for people. Now, in the early days of Facebook and Instagram, and many say TikTok, because many think TikTok has also changed, similar to how Facebook and Instagram have, you could build an audience and reach some of them organically, right? But over time, platforms prioritized engagement over everything else. Then with the pandemic came the shift from the social graph, or who we follow,

[00:04:31] to the interest graph, meaning what content that we engage with and view. The social graph was obviously about who you followed. The interest graph about what keeps you engaged. This is why TikTok's algorithm is so powerful. It doesn't care so much who you follow. It cares about what you watch. The result is that follower count just matters less. And content performance matters that much more. So if you're still relying on an old school, build an audience and post about your business strategy, you're probably already struggling.

[00:05:02] Now, with the pandemic, we had what is called the creator economy. I don't even know if I referenced that when I wrote The Age of Influence back in 2019 and 2020, but we've seen the rise of the creator economy and content creators. We don't really talk about influencers these days as much as we talk about content creators. So we've seen the rise of content creators, and there's a lot of things that I think businesses need to learn from them. So I used to say when writing The Age of Influence that influencers ruled the social media algorithms.

[00:05:31] Today, I think we can all agree that it's really content creators that do. Now, content creators aren't thinking about selling their product with every post like a lot of businesses do. They're thinking about value. They're thinking about what their end user or target user might be interested in, whether it is directly related to the product, indirectly related, or maybe not even indirectly related at all, but they want to offer value. So even when they promote products, they do it in a way that feels natural.

[00:06:00] It is lifestyle-driven or solution-driven or benefit-driven maybe, but not sales-driven. This is where businesses run into trouble. Most businesses do one or all three of these following things. They focus too much on promotion. They don't create engaging content. And as a result, they struggle to get traction because I think they're not thinking like a content creator.

[00:06:26] So the reality is if you want to win on social media today, I believe you must act like a content creator. The big question is can your business do this? Can you post on social media without directly promoting yourself or your products all the time? Can you create content people actually want to engage with? This is really the $64,000 or whatever value amount you want to put on it, the big question. And if the answer is no, that's okay. There's another path.

[00:06:56] So I believe there are two big paths to social media success. And this is, you know, you can have a mediocre, as Gen Z would say, a low-key program which checks the boxes that you're publishing X times a week or X times a month. You're getting a minimum number of impressions, maybe a minimum number of clicks. That's okay. But if you really want to excel at this is really what I want to talk about. Social media success to say that social media has been an impactful channel in your digital marketing.

[00:07:25] So if you really want to get that organic reach, that increase in impressions that you think you deserve for your business or your brand, you only, I believe, have two choices. Path one, as I've hinted at, is become a content creator. Shift your mindset from business first to content first. It sounds counterintuitive, but it will actually get you more visibility and with it all the benefits that come with that. Focus on storytelling, on value and engagement, not just sales.

[00:07:55] Treat social media as a media platform, not just a promotional channel. This is what modern brands like Duolingo, Liquid Death, the water company, Ryanair. I mean, there's a bunch of them out there. They create content that people love first, and that leads to business growth. I think Duolingo is really the classic example of that. Now, path number two is leverage user-generated content. And not everybody can be at Duolingo, right?

[00:08:24] But leverage user-generated content. If you can't create content at scale, let your customers do it for you, right? We know that user-generated content builds trust and authenticity. And if we include influencer-generated content as part of this, that influencer marketing and customer-generated content can help amplify your reach. For many businesses, this is the easier path. It requires less effort but can still generate big results.

[00:08:53] But here's the thing. That middle ground is declining with every day, right? That middle ground of not being a content creator or not leveraging the voice of others or user-generated content. If you're just posting promotional content and hoping for engagement, I really think you're wasting time.

[00:09:14] Now, you might say to yourself, Neil, my business, because of our products or services or target audience, doesn't lend itself to the generation of UGC content by social media users. I want to challenge that. The key isn't focusing on your product or service itself. It's focusing on the benefits of it, the emotions that emanate when you're after buying it or using it, and the lifestyle.

[00:09:42] And if it is a B2B service, it can still have a work lifestyle or let's call it a work style, but the lifestyle or work style that it promotes. Examples. A fitness brand doesn't just sell workouts. It sells confidence. And I think for some fashion brands, we could say the same thing. A coffee shop doesn't just sell drinks. It sells community and in some cases routine. A SaaS tool doesn't just sell software.

[00:10:10] It sells freedom and efficiency and maybe greater profits. And maybe a raise down the road. Now, talking about how to inspire the generation of user-generated content will probably be a separate podcast episode. But really, the common ways that I see companies do this, they run challenges or contests around a hashtag or something related to their product or service where people have to submit content to win the prize, whatever that might be.

[00:10:39] They feature customer stories. Sometimes they feature employee stories. And they encourage testimonials, reviews. Really, they want to tap into that voice of the customer at every chance they have. There's other things like making the customer experience Instagrammable is a big one. Sometimes you can just run an event or create an event just for the purpose of generating user-generated content.

[00:11:03] And then there is something called a UGC creator, people that you can hire that can help you create content that looks like UGC content. I know it sounds weird, but UGC creators, if you were to search on LinkedIn, there's nearly 200,000 of them. So it has become a well-established way when you don't have enough word of mouth about you in social media to start that process. So I believe if you think about your product or service beyond its features, you'll find a way to make UGC work. And guess what?

[00:11:32] When you do this, for those of you that read Digital Threads, you know I talk about platform authentic content. This is really the next iteration of that, which is it's not just platform authentic content. It really is thinking and acting like a content creator. If you're able to do that, great. I think 99% of the businesses, unless you as the startup owner, small business owner, entrepreneur are already doing this, that's another story altogether. But for most businesses, I believe that UGC is the way forward. And guess what?

[00:12:00] When you do that, you can now reimagine social media not as a place to just promote, promote, promote, and you always feel like you're on that hamster wheel of content, needing to create content. But now you can focus your time in social media on developing relationships with people that can generate user-generated content, with employees, with customers, with UGC creators, with local influencers, with partners, with whoever that might be. And from that, really work on developing that UGC, right? Investing in relationships.

[00:12:30] And I think that that is going to have a much greater ROI for your organization, for your social media over time. And I will tell you, one of the clients that I work with, they have already transitioned or one of their brands, it's a consumer brand. One of their brands has transitioned into 100% user-generated content. So instead of having to spend all that money on creating content, they create very, very minimal content, right?

[00:12:52] But what happens is the main KPI that they use now is how many pieces of user-generated content are we getting created every month organically without our asking. And that really is the key thing here. So which path will you choose? Are you ready to become a content creator? Or will you focus on leveraging UGC to amplify your reach and invest in relationships? Either way, I think it's safe to say the old way of doing social media is dead.

[00:13:22] You have to adapt. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. DM me on social media or email me at neil at neilschafer.com. You know I'm the real Neil, folks. That's N-E-A-L. And stay tuned. I may just record an episode diving deeper into UGC strategies based on the feedback of my present next week. So if you found this episode valuable, share it with a fellow marketer, a fellow entrepreneur,

[00:13:49] a fellow small business who needs a better social media strategy. I also hope if you found this episode valuable and you haven't hit that subscribe button now, wow, this is a great opportunity to do so. Got a lot of great episodes coming up. If you're new here, I record half of these solo like I'm doing today and half our interviews with thought leaders, subject matter experts that I too learn from. Well, all that's left to say is I appreciate your listening and I'll see you in the next episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

[00:14:19] This is Neil Schafer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach. Questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast.neilschafer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafer.com to tap into the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's digital first group coaching membership community.

[00:14:49] If you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on Your Digital Marketing Coach.