The best social platform is one you need Social platforms have become an essential part of people’s livelihoods across the spectrum. Whether you’re a fashion influencer, a vet, running a gardening business or operating a speciality news outlet, businesses depend upon these platforms. Not for direct monetisation – very few can sustain themselves through social platform revenue sharing – but for marketing, brand-building and sharing information. Unfortunately, these platforms are not designed to be public services, and it’s naive to expect them to provide stability. One of the basic rules of running an online business is that you should always own your own data and audience – which is why the good old- fashioned newsletter remains popular. However, this adds extra work that many small businesses might not have the time or resources to take on. Plus, like traditional broadcasters, you won’t experience the algorithmically driven spikes in engagement that social platforms promise. Social platforms are well aware of how they make creators dependent. Meta has tried to fully dominate the conversation with its ecosystem of Facebook, Instagram and now Threads – plus, of course, WhatsApp. Its business tools allow easy » With no way to shift content to another platform, content creators are forced to go down with the ship if a platform goes offline «
integration across these different outlets, making it hard to disengage should you want to move to another platform. A platform changing its algorithm can potentially have a big impact on a creator’s business. Usually, these changes happen without notification, and creators are left guessing how they displeased the algorithm or how they can regain its blessing. But when a platform becomes fully upended, creators can really start to panic. With no way to shift content to another platform, they are forced to go down with the ship if it goes offline. Last year, the US government passed legislation effectively banning TikTok in the US. The site shut down on 19 January to much dismay. Two days later, the new US president signed an executive order that, in essence, said the ban would not be enforced. Additionally, he suggested the US government might acquire a 50% stake in the platform – a shocking proposition from someone who openly despises publicly owned media. But social platforms – and the powerful algorithms that determine what content is seen – are the nuclear weapons of information warfare. They can put presidents in office, swing referendums and whitewash major international crimes. Again, creators are merely clinging to a ship that will chart its own independent course. Many TikTok creators threatened to leave the platform for the social media alternative RedNote (named in the original Mandarin after Mao’s Little Red Book of essential Communist quotations). Angry creators said in a BBC report they felt ‘left out and powerless’ over the changes. But in the world of the social creator, it’s always the platform that has the power. It’s easy to forget you’re just a tenant.
SOCIAL SPHERE The widespread control of Meta’s platforms has led to increased centralisation of many digital spaces
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