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TMAI #344: Bye Bye Social Graph.
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The social graph! From Wikipedia: The social graph is a graph that represents social relations between entities. In short, it is a model or representation of a social network, where the word graph has been taken from graph theory. The social graph has been referred to as “the global mapping of everybody and how they're related.”
In introducing the social graph in May 2007, Mark outlined how Facebook would leverage the relationships between individuals to offer a richer experience. Despite spending billions of dollars, and tons of deep tracking, no site understood the visitor enough to deliver any meaningful relevance. I was very excited about Mark's vision. Facebook went on to prove that I do indeed want to see baby or animal pictures from those close in my social network. And, that what I am reading/posting/discussing in comments might be of interest to Daniel, Yinyin, Radha, Aishah, and Luke (my first or second level connections). Perfect example: Instagram: A long scroll of pictures/videos etc. from people I follow (with an occasional ad).Facebook continues to own the largest collection of data on the planet that connect humans, and humans to digital destinations/bits. The social graph centered business strategies have created immense economic value for Facebook. [Note: Twitter almost entirely runs on the social graph mindset as well.]
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A new normal.The social graph, and its associated value, started its slow decline approx. three years ago. Over the last 12 months, it has started to seem like an endangered species relegated to nature reserves. TikTok did that – with its content graph.Seemingly overnight, we went from: Content's relevance and value being almost exclusively driven from the closed environment of our individual social graph (people we knew, and the people they knew).
to
Content's relevance being derived exclusively from the type of content I might like, regardless of who published it, regardless of where in the world they published it.
This is simplifying it a bit, but… Before: If I published a sexy and amazing video of how to use Excel to do algorithmic sorts (yes, that can be sexy!), it would primarily be shown to my social graph.
After: My sexy and amazing video would be in front of all like-minded Excel lovers.
The compelling benefit of unshackling content from the social graph: Five people in my network to, literally, infinity.
(IF the content deserves attention.) There is an additional piece of TikTok magic that really makes the content graph magical: It's intelligent algorithm that understands relevance for each human to an unmatchable degree.
(You don’t have to be logged in to get super relevant content, after a couple of visits!)
It could be argued that others (Facebook, Weibo, VK) have algorithms to understand each human. They have not quite been as magical as TikTok - clearly not. But, even if these we understand what the humans want algorithms have been good enough, they have still been strangled by the limitations imposed by the social graph.At the moment, the content graph is winning. There's no higher validation than noting that it has been embraced by Facebook, Instagram, YT Shorts, and anyone else that is trying to compete with the TikTok juggernaut.
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Implications for Creators. It is both insanely bad and insanely wonderful. The shift from social graph to content graph has been liberating for creators (individuals, companies). If you make a great piece of content, you can get to an unimaginably massive audience (and revenue/brand lift/glory). No more restricted organic reach of <1% that has resulted in making organic social such an entirely useless exercise. It also means you are now competing with everyone else in the world. The bar for your content to break through is really high. To do it consistently… You have to approach Mr. Beast level. Your Subscribers always mattered a lot less than realized, but they matter less. If you are a niche content creator – Excel TikToks! –, you can find a global audience (even if it is not tens of millions) who will get your content delivered based on their interests. [Note: In case you missed it, Excel TikTok creators, ex: Miss Excel, are pulling in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue with their Excel TikToks!!] | Implications for Audiences.
The shift – as evidenced by TikTok’s recency, frequency, retention, average session duration numbers – has been great for TikTok’s audience.
You can have any mainstream or niche obsession, and the very best content most relevant to you will get delivered to you.Â
You can even teach the algorithm you are into movie trailers, standup comedy, the Mayan civilization, and snorkeling, and you can have an infinite feed that you are so into that TikTok throws up warnings that you should take a break (it really does that!).
The future will decide if this was a positive step in the humanity’s evolution. :) | Implications for Advertisers. For now, one more tech colossus in the making as an option for your advertising budgets (TikTok). Deeply engaged audiences, with vast consumption of content, is… Good. TikTok’s manifestation of attention, engagement, mandates that you make TikToks and not ads. Very few advertisers have this in their DNA. Then, this shift from social graph to content graph is one more place for advertisers to suck. [Note: TikTok’s CPMs are half of Instagram Reels and Snapchat, and a third less than Twitter, so you will suck while paying a lot less.] For the aforementioned reason, companies don’t get social, I would further postulate that organic TikTok will yield close to zero results (beyond your CMO likely loving that you’ve put the brand on TikTok, so maybe you get promoted, which I suppose is a type of ROI). TikTok is most likely in the current social crop to try and pull off a WeChat or a Kakao everything app strategy, if that happens companies will have to foundationally rethink their digital everything strategies (and advertising) – I mean that in a good way. | Implications on Privacy. FWIW: The American foreign policy and security establishments have made note of the “security” threat to Americans from TikTok. TikTok’s privacy policy, in incredibly accessible language, is here. Each individual will make their own decisions. Try the following thought experiment: In a statement scaring us about TikTok, replace the word TikTok with Facebook, and replace American Security Chief with German Security Chief. We would likely think it is an outrageous statement and an uncalled for attack on an American company. Worth pondering. | Bottom line. It is super important, for your social anything strategy, to internalize the profound implications of a shift from social graph to content graph. I am excited about this shift, and only wish that others would embrace it. Ex: Why does the home page of the NY Times still have 97% irrelevant content after they have my behavior, as a paid subscriber no less, for five years? It is time to rethink your website, your mobile app, in the spirit of hyper-relevance a content graph can power. It is time to rewire your marketing execution to stand up to the expectations of relevance from our customers (Embrace an intent centric framework!) Carpe Diem. -Avinash. PS: It would seem that YouTube has operated with the content graph concept from day one. You like this video about babies who love cloth diapers, here are 18 more videos of babies in cloth diapers. Yet, YouTube, the second-most visited site in the US, differs in execution. It is not quite: This is blowing up anywhere on our platform at this moment. It is not quite hyper-curated. It is not quite, empty of all other distractions (there’s still much random stuff in there). | |
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