The death of the follower 💀

Hey 👋

Welcome to Neighbourhood Post issue #33 - easy to implement digital marketing ideas straight through your metaphorical letterbox.

⚽️ Today’s the day, the Euros are here. 3 games of football every day. Bliss.

Anyway, on with today’s newsletter - is it the end of social media as we know it?

👉 By the way, if you’ve missed previous newsletters you’ll find them here.

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The death of the follower 💀

Naming our agency was surprisingly easy.

Neighbourhood works on a few levels, one being community. We’re very good at building online ‘neighbourhoods’, but it’s getting harder.

Think back to the glory days of social media…

👤 Who was in your ‘Top 8’ on MySpace?

🎂 Enjoying Innocent Smoothies’ #GBBO tweets

🎓 Using Facebook as a university community group

With the dawn of Web 2.0, the internet got social and people flocked together to form groups of highly-engaged followers.

But that was 2006, nearly 20 years ago.

Today we find that most digital strategies are outpaced by the speed at which the internet changes.

What worked 3 years ago, doesn’t work anymore.

I watched a brilliant keynote from the founder of Patreon, taking us through a history of the internet. If you have 40 mins, you have to watch it 👇

If you don’t have 40 mins, here are some quick thoughts from me. ⏱️

(Let me paint a bleak picture first, then save the day with some positivity)

Social media isn’t actually social any more.

You don’t follow friends, artists, brands, uni mates, or colleagues.

Instead you watch content from people you aren’t connected to and when you see something you like, you don’t follow the creator, you send it to your friend.

The follower is dead.

Community is dead.

Long live community.

OK, two ways to beat the bleakness and win:

1️⃣ Number one:

**Don’t let your social media strategy be built around followers, link clicks and conversions**

Those things might come as a side note, but don’t fight against Elon, Zuck and whoever the hell owns TikTok because you won’t win.

Don’t rub your hand against the grain and wonder why you get a splinter, instead use the strengths of the platforms and build around reach, brand awareness and perception.

2️⃣ Number two:

Find new spaces for community.

Have a read of this for a deeper dive, but the future of the internet is still social. As humans we crave community and won’t stand for an absence of it for long.

For now, it won’t be social media (although it might be in the future). Find other spaces for to build your neighbourhoods:

• Messaging apps

• Newsletters

• YouTube

• Patreon

• Slack/Discord

—

The overall lesson here is to win at digital you have to always be on the forefront of what’s going on. If you think your strategy is still stuck in 2006, then get in touch. A quick audit from us will set you on the right foot.

What we’re looking at 👀 and listening to 👂

📚 Dan has just started Prophet Song, the 2023 Booker Prize winner, set in a dystopian reality that’s scarily similar to our own.

📺 It’s a month of great returns! The team are looking forward to new seasons of House of the Dragon and The Bear, and certain unnamed members are enjoying the new season of the Kardashians 👀

Before you go - we’ll never use these newsletters to directly sell you our services, but we’re always here if you need any expertise or support 👍