Since I formally began my communications career as the PR and Communications Director at FOCUS Kenya, social media management has evolved significantly in terms of the number of prominent channels and preferred platforms.
At that time, roughly eight years ago, Facebook was the dominant platform. In fact, for a while, I primarily focused on Facebook as the main organisational communication channel, with some limited attention to Twitter (then known as X), primarily for exploratory purposes.
Later, I shifted my focus to YouTube and Instagram before LinkedIn gained significant traction.
One of the most challenging trends has been the decline in organic reach. You might have noticed that you don’t see content from various sources as frequently as you used to.
While it was once possible to achieve a reach of 30-50,000 with a modest investment of around $200, this is no longer as easily attainable, especially if you haven’t effectively refined your target audience.
Several factors have contributed to this decline:
- Algorithm Changes: Facebook’s algorithms are constantly updated, often prioritizing user experience over brand exposure.
- Competition: Facebook users now compete with paid ads and viral posts from major accounts.
- Engagement: Facebook’s algorithm favors content that receives higher engagement, such as likes, reactions, comments, and shares.
- Content Creation: In 2014, Facebook identified the rapid growth in content creation as a significant factor in decreased reach.
- Audience Size: If your page doesn’t have a substantial following, your reach will be limited.
The situation has worsened with Instagram’s recent decision that, effective December 13, 2024, users will no longer be able to follow hashtags.
This means that posts from followed hashtags will no longer appear in users’ feeds, and the option to follow new hashtags will be disabled.
This change is part of Instagram’s ongoing efforts to combat spam and reduce the prevalence of irrelevant content associated with trending hashtags.
While users can still use hashtags to categorize content and improve discoverability through searches and the Explore page, the platform is shifting away from hashtags as a primary discovery method.
Instead, Instagram is increasingly relying on advanced algorithms to personalize user experiences.
I don’t need scientific data to predict that most social media platforms will follow suit, especially considering Instagram’s ownership by Meta, which also owns Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp. This might be the death of hashtags.
While marketers may be unhappy with this change, I believe it’s a positive development.
This move will help to distinguish high-quality content from the vast amount of information currently circulating online.
Moving forward, engagement will become more critical than reach.
Content creators and businesses will need to focus on producing high-quality content and actively engaging with their audience to maintain visibility on the platform.
This will necessitate careful consideration of content strategy and a reduction in the overall volume of content being shared online.
SEO will also undergo a redefinition, emphasizing the relevance and utility of content rather than simply shouting into the digital void.