Social Media is suffering from 'Content Shock'

Recently social media scheduling platform, Buffer, wrote an article explaining how they lost 50% of their social traffic over a 12 month period. Social Media Today also reported a loss of 17% in a similar period. At the same time there are various studies that suggest a 500% increase in the amount of content being uploaded to the internet. So does that mean that there's more being written than read?

It's being called the 'Content Shock' effect, whereby there is just simply too much information for audiences to consume in their limited online time. It's also indicative of the rise of 'clickbait' and social media platforms having to narrow their API feed algorithms to try and weed it out all the rubbish. In essence, we think it means that in an effort to make sure users are seeing quality content, social media is effectively having to reduce how much content users are exposed to. Which also means that not all of your followers will ever see all of your content.

It also means that accounts with say 100,000 followers can churn out any content they like and still have less reach than a page with only 100 followers which produces quality and engaging posts. The cure for content shock is simply that we need to be more responsible for the content we post, ensuring that it is useful, informative and valuable.

We think that a more sustainable and ethical approach is required to social media content, automation and general usage. The responsibility starts with agencies like us, but we all have a responsibility.

What do you think?