Social Media Is Dead. And That’s a Win for the Rest of Us.
Social media is dead. Community is on the rise.
You're reading 0 of 1 free page.
Register to read more or Unlock Pro — 50% Off Ends Soon
Talk about a busy week!
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even get a chance to follow the market the way I’d like, nor did I even read as much of our Pro content as normal. I did make sure to read Sarge’s daily Market Recon. He packs in everything I need to be up to speed each morning.
So, what did I do?
Live Quarterly Meeting
Well, for one thing, I joined Carley Garner, Chris Versace, and Bob Byrne for our 4th Live Quarterly Meeting. The topic was investing in uncertain times and there were a few takeaways.
- We were all in agreement and expect a bit of a retracement. If you missed the rally, don’t chase it. That said, you’ve now been warned that we were all in agreement, and it’s rarely good when four analysts agree.
- Retail traders didn’t panic this time. They’ve been conditioned to buy the dips. That’s probably great for investors with a long-term mindset. The pros, however, did panic.
- We talked strategy, too. Bob finds one breadth statistic to work well at finding bottoms. It’s the number of stocks trading below their 40-day SMA. It’s a good measure of panic. Chris, while being a fan of my Fear & Greed Index, says that no one indicator can do it all; he relies on the weight of the evidence. And, Carley offered up the risk reversals hedging strategy to keep your portfolio safe in a downdraft.
Click here to watch a replay.
Stocks & Markets Podcast
Another thing was to help our with our weekly podcast-The Street’s Stocks & Markets podcast. This week, Chris hung out with my long-time friend and Pro contributor, Louis Llanes, to discuss the first technical green light. Louis has a great macro perspective on the markets and, yes I’m biased, but this one is also worth your time.
Here’s a clip.
Social Media Is Dead
But this is the thing I wanted you to know. Social Media is dead. Or… dying.
That’s not investment advice, by the way. This is a long-term, fundamental trend, and I think that one of two things will happen.
- Social media companies like Meta will adapt and create better products that bring back the joy.
- Social media algorithms will win and we will remain their loyal servants.
It’s that first option that I think will win.
This doesn’t mean that the existing social media companies will win. They have the deepest pockets, so I wouldn’t bet against them. But they will be forced to pivot and adapt to the rise of the community and the decline of social.
And that’s why this is my weekly win.
Community will beat social, and that’s good for TheStreet Pro.
Why? Because TheStreet Pro is an active community. Our members are creative, driven, and smart. They span the range of investment experience from NOOBs to hedge funders. Most importantly, they come together to help each other make money in the markets.
Yeah, sometimes we can be a little dysfunctional. Especially when we’re talking politics or when our tech platform gets in the way.
But the conversations, both over on the Diary and in the Portfolio Forum, are rich and valuable.
So, thank you to all who participate, and please join us, to anyone who has not yet.
On Thursday, I went to a presentation titled The Fall of Social Media and the Rise of Community - Moving from Broadcasting to Belonging, as part of Boulder, Colorado’s Startup Week.
They highlighted everything that’s wrong with social media, like Facebook and Twitter (fine, it’s X, whatever), and got into everything that’s right with communities.
Social Media, basically, is becoming mainstream media. You’re being fed what the algorithms want you to see.
Let me say that a different way. You’re being fed what the algorithms think you want to see that they can also monetize. I mean, if you’re not paying for the product, then you are the product.
And that removes the fun of it.
In the presentation, they quote Kyle Chayka who says that, “algorithmic curation is reshaping our cultural experiences-flattening creativity, homogenizing taste, and feeding us content optimized for engagement rather than meaning.”
Four things set the fall of social media in motion:
- Cambridge Analytica: They took Facebook data and sold it, effectively weaponizing it.
- Pandemic: Isolationism pushed us deeper into our social media ecosystems.
- Algorithmic Overload: The algos divided us into our echo chambers.
- Monetization: Widespread exploitation of our data.
The results were anger and isolation — a bifurcation of society. Advertising is now everywhere. We’re being watched so we can be sold to.
They call it the, well I can’t write it. But it’s the “Ensh**ification” of the internet.
As a result, we’re actually starting to get off social media. Their version of the chart below shows the decline continuing through 2024.
That’s not to say that page views are down. Internet activity hasn’t declined. However, while internet traffic by humans is falling (as a percent of total), bot traffic is increasing.
Money wins over content. Therefore, algos control the destiny of social media, and the content is no longer fun.
I mean, I still go to Facebook. But only for Facebook marketplace or to check for offline activities in my Groups.
Community vs. Social
The presenters then say that community is the solution. But if you’re a Diary or Portfolio Forum participant, you already knew that!
Communities nullify the platform. It’s about the people and the content that they generate, which keeps people engaged, and not the algos.
So, as the guy who manages a couple of our communities here, I wanted to share the presentation’s suggestions to people like me.
- Don’t overpost: Rather, be a good listener. Let the audience build the product.
- Safety: Help your audience feel safe and welcome.
- Accessibility: Remove barriers to entry. Good tech!
- Empathy: Understand the community members' needs.
- Don’t just extract value, offer it.
I feel like the team and I are doing a pretty good job with all of these. Even tech. Yes, we’ve got problems. Openweb is terrible and there are login issues. Our team is working to replace all of the bad tech behind those issues this year. Of course we could do better, and that’s why I do my best to listen.
The presentation ended with a table of how community platforms are better than social media and why they will be the eventual replacement for social media in our lives.
Here’s an example.
I’m a car nerd. In my off time, I write for our sister site, Autoblog. I’m also very much into old Porsche racecars. (No, I don’t own an old Porsche race car, but I would like to race one!)
Since the dawn of social media, the prices of collector cars have skyrocketed. That’s been a mixed blessing for people like me. But this isn’t a spurious correlation. In fact, the two are highly related. Social media provided an outlet for car people to meet online and share the hobby when they couldn’t be together. It also shrunk the world. So, people in LA could see the cool things we Coloradoans were doing as well as what they were doing abroad. Car culture grew to the point where I’ve never seen so many young people excited about cars that were already old when I was a kid.
Online social media increased offline socializing. This led to the rise of cars and coffee events. Ten years ago, a Porsche-centric event with a funny name was created. Luftgekuhlt. I wrote an article about it.
Shows like Luft have grown in popularity due to community characteristics I shared above. They’ve moved from a single show per year to multiple global annual offline events. What they’ve done is build a community, not only around these cars, but around creativity. Community creativity.
Community creativity is when people come together and collaborate to make something greater than any one could make on their own.
In the case of collector cars, sure, it’s fun to have one car. But an event that brings people together from around the country is even better. And when some of those people have modified their cars in artistic ways, and other people take and share interesting photos, videos, and sketches, it’s the best.
That’s what’s happened in the car community. It’s gone from localized events to online socialization through social media, and now offline communities.
I see the same on TheStreet Pro. Well, kind of. I still hope to have offline events. I’m not there yet, unfortunately.
But, when I started trading, you either worked on a trading desk or you worked alone. Trading was localized. Later, sites like X and StockTwits offered opportunities to share ideas. But my hope is that the Diary and Portfolio Forum will continue to provide the community that traders and investors need but are not getting on social media.
Our content, from contributors like Doug Kass, Helene Meisler, and Chris Versace, is among the best out there. But it's our members who are the heart of the product.
What’s the future for social media companies like FB and X? It’s probably still strong. But the people are getting tired of the algos. They'll have to adapt or die. TheStreet Pro will continue to build our community offerings to serve our members both today and tomorrow.
