TikTok's content graph is reshaping social platforms, including LinkedIn. For brands creating content to reach their audiences, this is important as you aren't reaching your audiences by trying to grow your follower base. TikTok’s algorithm is different from traditional social networks, with content discovery being a priority through the interest graph vs social graph. For brands, this is a game-changer. Instead of relying solely on followers to drive reach, brands must create engaging, high-quality content that encourages user interaction.
[A version of this article was originally published in The Everything Marketing Insider: October 2024]
The reason why TikTok is so ’sticky’ is due to its content delivery algorithm or its interest graph. While other social platforms were built around connections, known as the social graph, TikTok prioritizes user behaviour and interest-based interactions. Hence, it is not about simply filling your page with any content but content that TikTok knows audiences will consume because that is how platforms optimize the user experience.
If your content is engaging and high-quality, you encourage users to interact and share that content. This in turn signals the algorithm to promote what you’ve published. That is the reason why brands are in a race to figure out how to get onto the FYPs of their target audience and embracing creativity, speed, and authenticity.
TikTok’s interest graph has influenced social media platforms in evaluating their content delivery. As users seek more personalization over seeing just what’s in their social network, platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn are shifting away from social graphs to interest-driven content discovery.
Instagram Reels is Instagram's initiative to enhance content discovery based on user interests rather than focusing solely on interactions between friends. This move allows users to discover videos from creators outside whom they are already following, similar to TikTok’s content recommendation system.
YouTube has already been acing their interest-based recommendations, but TikTok accelerated their approach to focus on more short-form content through Shorts. YouTube’s algorithm has become more aggressive in suggesting content that matches your viewing history. It is improving its ability to predict what you might want to watch next with its analysis of your viewing behaviours.
While LinkedIn traditionally catered to professional networking, its shift towards a content graph has led to a more dynamic user experience. They started engagement-based content and content personalization, encouraged more video content and transitioned into prioritizing content by LinkedIn creators.
And similar to TikTok, it has also made its algorithm more intuitive to ‘trending content’. It may be a post that resonates with a wider community within a short period of time. The algorithm will serve that content, especially if it also aligns with current trending themes such as RTO and AI.
Video content has been increasingly popular on LinkedIn, and you might have noticed the video tab on your LinkedIn mobile app. So besides doom scrolling videos on TikTok, you can also do that on LinkedIn now. (yay)
We are all drowning in this massive content space with podcasts, videos, and articles, among others. This will increase exponentially with Gen AI playing across content creation to delivery. Users will gravitate towards content that resonates with their interests and needs, and the social platforms’ continuous evolution of algorithms to focus on user behaviour, engagement, and preferences underscores this trend. However, some brands are still not taking an audience-centric approach to creating content. They are creating content based on what they want to publish.
While there’s a place and value for brand-voice content, brands will need to diversify their content strategies and incorporate creators into their content mix. With the rise of AI-generated content, it is not about producing more content but also considering the right content that aligns with the brand messaging while appealing to the nuanced preferences of your audience, ensuring that your content intersects with their feeds.
