Why "social" interactions are now your key to growth

In our latest newsletter we highlighted how recent changes to the Instagram algorithm have led to a drop in branded content reach. Here is a re-cap of the underlying mechanisms driving these downward trends:

Top content lands social interactions

Branded content reach and ROI decline are not inevitable: over 10% of the brands we track are enjoying their best ever content returns on both Instagram and TikTok. How are they doing it?

Their content regularly achieves much more than “likability:” it lands vibrant comment threads and superior share rates. These forms of engagement are not just unique to social media, but are also uniquely impactful on preferences:

• views, likes and saves are self-contained interactions between the brand and the viewer — they also occur in other forms of media.

• whereas when viewers share a branded post or interact in its comments, they now assess that brand through an unfiltered community lens, which can help overcome hesitations (Is the brand really worth it? Can I trust it?)— a process unique to social media.

How to land social interactions

What’s the first thing most of us do after watching a great movie or show? We tell our friends, see what our peers and critics thought, read more about it.

The same happens with the very best social content: it elicits reactions so compelling that viewers need to extend or re-live the experience, involve others, whether by sharing it or interacting in its comments.**

It’s well-documented that watching impactful content releases dopamine, but it turns out that interacting in the comments likely involves* other “social hormones” that promote feelings of connection and improve our mood. (e.g., oxytocin) 

Social Engineering

More research needs to be done around the exact role and weight of “social hormones” in social media, but our current data already finds that

• leading brands forge stronger communities both off- and increasingly online.

• posting “compelling” content is a proven way today to nurture and grow these communities on social media.

It’s called Social Media for a reason

By focusing primarily on reach, likes, follower size and frequency, marketers risk putting the cart before the horse. Compelling social media content has become the primary vector not just of social interactions, but also of the incremental organic reach, engagement and follower growth these interactions generate.

The rise of social interactions impacts not just content playbooks (e.g. prioritise quality over frequency), but also influencer strategy. Something we’ll cover in more detail in an upcoming newsletter.

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*Research directly linking (positive) social media interactions with oxytocin is still limited, but early papers suggest that positive digital interactions do release some oxytocin, albeit less than IRL connections do.

**We’ve established dozens of core principles, do’s and don’ts around the primacy of emotions, the roles of storytelling, tone of voice, sounds, voiceover, subtext, when to show vs when to tell etc.