I recently linked to a Guardian article about the perceived (but not actual) death of social media marketing. What I haven’t specifically mentioned yet is that the article points out that those concerns are based in large part on the fact that Twitter plans to change its algorithm so that tweets will no longer be displayed in their traditional chronological order. Instead, they will be ranked according to what appears to be most relevant to the user’s interests.
This certainly doesn’t mean that organic social media marketing is dead – far from it. But it does mean that some companies’ approaches to it will have to change. It’s no longer appropriate to cast out a wide range of content that has been created for its attention grabbing qualities, in hopes that it will go viral. It’s more important than ever to make certain that what you’re putting out is highly relevant to exactly the sort of people you want to make your customers.
This also speaks to the increased value of local social media companies. If your target market is Los Angeles, a Los Angeles social media company is much more likely to know what’s relevant to those consumers, what they’re looking at online, and what will be most likely to show up at the top of their feeds.