Google+ closed to regular users in April. The closure attracted little attention, which in itself indicates how limited its role had become.
Eight years ago, it launched as the platform that would finally compete with Facebook. Many small businesses were told they needed a Google+ page for their SEO. They created one, posted to it and gained a few followers. The service was then shut down, and everything they had published there disappeared with it.
As the decade comes to a close, this offers an opportunity to review everything else that rose and declined. Our decade began in Vancouver, in the final year at Raincity Studios, helping clients set up their first real Facebook pages. It ends on a small island in Indonesia, operating a dive centre where Instagram plays a significant role. Much changed in between, and most of it did not last.
What rose and declined in social media this decade?
The following is a brief and very incomplete list of platforms and practices that small business owners were told, at some point, were essential:
- Google+. Launched in 2011, closed to consumers this spring.
- Vine. Six-second videos, launched in 2013, shut down by Twitter at the start of 2017.
- Facebook organic reach. It declined year after year until most page posts reached only a small share of the followers a business had worked to build. In January 2018, Facebook announced that it would prioritize friends and family over pages, which effectively settled the matter.
- Instagram likes as a performance measure. This year, Instagram began testing hidden like counts, and Canada was the first country included in the test.
Each of these was, for a time, considered essential. Businesses invested real hours and real money in them. Not all of that investment was wasted, but much of it went into rented space whose owner repeatedly changed the rules.
Facebook is doing so again now. Mark Zuckerberg has stated that the future is private, and this year's app redesign places Groups at the forefront. Pages appear increasingly secondary with each passing month.
Which businesses came through the decade well?
The businesses we have seen come through the decade in good shape share one characteristic: their own website remained their primary base, and social media directed people back to it. When Google+ closed and Facebook reach dropped sharply, their menu, prices, booking page and story all remained on a site they controlled.
This may seem obvious, but it is not the advice most businesses received, and many small businesses still have a Facebook page and no other online presence.
Why did real photos and real people work consistently?
Throughout the decade, one approach remained effective on every platform: real photos of the actual place, featuring real people.
When we helped dive operators with their social media early in the decade, the best-performing posts were not polished marketing images. They were the instructor smiling after a dive, a guest's first turtle, or a cluttered boat deck at the end of a good day. Images resembling stock photography were scrolled past then, and they still are.
Formats changed considerably: square photos, then Stories, and now vertical video everywhere, with TikTok moving the entire industry in that direction. What worked within each format, however, remained the same: something authentic, shown by someone who was there.
Why did email outlast every platform change?
Email is consistently underestimated.
In 2010, newsletters already seemed somewhat dated compared with Facebook. At the end of 2019, email remains effective, while Facebook pages reach only a fraction of their former audience. The difference is ownership. A business's list belongs to it, and no algorithm determines whether subscribers see what is sent to them.
Each time a platform changed its rules, businesses with a reasonably solid email list continued without disruption. Those that had built everything on a single platform had to start over.
We expect this to continue. Feeds are becoming more crowded with advertising each year, and a straightforward, honest email newsletter from a business people genuinely appreciate stands out all the more.
How did reviews become the most important content?
In 2010, this development was not widely anticipated; today it is evident.
What a business says about itself carries less weight every year. What customers say about it on Google, TripAdvisor and Facebook is what people read before making a decision. For a dive centre, reviews often determine the booking decision entirely, and the same is very likely true for most restaurants, guesthouses and tour operators.
This changes where effort should be directed: less time crafting clever posts, and more time ensuring the experience is worth describing, then courteously asking satisfied guests to describe it. Reviews, both positive and negative, should be answered in a personal tone rather than in the style of a press release.
Where can reliable data be found?
To see how social media use has actually changed, rather than how it appears from within an individual feed, the Pew Research Center maintains a long-running social media fact sheet for the United States. The data is American, but it is a useful counterweight to marketing claims.
What do we recommend to a business starting in 2020?
Choose one or two platforms where your customers actually are, and focus on them without concern for the others. Publish authentic content. Start an email list from the first day, however small. Take reviews seriously and respond to them.
When someone next states that a new platform is essential, we recommend reviewing what happened to Google+ before making a decision.