Attention is the core value metric of social media 2025.
It's not about your follower count. It's not about your pretty visuals. It's about securing a greater market share of attention in a sea of noise.
Why your social media strategy isn’t working in 2025.
Does it feel like no matter what you post, your social media isn’t delivering results anymore? Engagement is tanking, reach has plummeted, nothing seems to resonate and your followers aren’t responding?
Social media in 2025 is a different beast.
The platforms, the ecosystem, the entire value metric system on social has changed. And tbh, most brands have not changed with it.
It’s not the followers, stupid.
Social media used to be all about followers.
The formula was simple: Post regularly, focus on your followers and their interests, make the grid pretty, jump on trends and viral sounds, and the likes, comments, and shares would flood in.
But those days are gone. They left ages ago (this shift began back in 2019…). Followers are not the key value metric on social media anymore.
(EVEN THOUGH CEOs and number crunchers still obsess about them. EVEN THOUGH we still get a dopamine hit when we reach a milestone. YES, we LOVE the extra zero on the end of the follower count.)
Platforms care about one thing: Attention.
The fastest way to secure that attention is discovery: New eyeballs. As often as possible.
And the quickest way to discoverability, is making content that stops people in their tracks, and sucks them in in the same way as a funny TV show does, a juicy story, a fascinating insight, a gripping drama.
ENTERTAINMENT.
Currys gets it.
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Social media platforms in 2025 are entertainment channels, behaving more and more like streamers. The most valuable metric: Attention . How much can you grab? How long can you hold it for?
It’s why Meta created the new insights metric “VIEWS” in September of 2024, which incorporates attention measurement across videos, stories, carousels, image posts, and ads. This one metric has replaced “impressions” for content, and “plays” for video specifically.
Views, reach, and watch time have replaced the old engagement benchmarks. Why? Because these metrics measure how effectively your content holds people’s attention, whether they follow you or not.
TikTok changed the whole game.
When TikTok came along, it flipped the entire social media playbook on its head.
Its algorithm is designed to prioritize discovery. Its main feed is the For You Page: FYP, NOT your following/follower feed.
TikTok DOES NOT CARE who you follow.
Instead, it serves you up a constant stream of videos from creators you’ve never heard of, so you’re continuously being surprised, and discovering new creators, brands, stories, etc. A non-stop dopamine hit.
That’s what makes TikTok is so addictive, and why people not only flocked there en masse from other platforms when it took off, but also why people started spending more time on TikTok than Instagram, Facebook, etc.
Monzo Bank gets it.
“TikTok boasts the highest average time spent per day of any network. Daily time spent on the platform grew by almost 10 minutes compared to the previous year’s 45.8 minutes.”
Sprout Social’s 2024 trends report
Seeing TikTok’s success, the other social platforms started to panic, then immediately proceeded to copy TikTok and switch up their algorithms and feeds.
It’s why you started to see more video content.
It’s why you were told you had to create more reels to get visibility.
It’s why Twitter/X introduced video content and a For You page as the default landing site.
It’s why your feed is now full of suggested posts, reels, and ads from people you don’t follow, on topics you might NOT be interested in.
And importantly for brands: it’s why YOUR FOLLOWERS AREN’T SEEING YOUR CONTENT.
Dropping Taylor Lorenz’s excellent podcast episode with Patreon’s CEO on the death of the follower and how this is impacting creators.
What this all means for your content strategy?
The basic principles of good quality social media content still apply. But the main shift is to think beyond your followers, and start to think how you’re going to engage, and retain NEW people’s attention - as that’s what gets you the views, reach and ultimately, impact.
This does NOT mean pandering to every new trend, or copying other brands etc.
But you have to start thinking with the mindset that most folks seeing what you post may be coming across your brand for the first time.
And that that initial engagement and retention of attention (try saying that after a couple of gins) is what is going to tell the platforms to share your content further and amplify it in the feed.
The aim is retain attention, and get more attention.
ENGAGE by cutting through the noise
ENTERTAIN with content that provides value or delivers an emotional hit to viewers (humour, drama, zaniness, authenticity, BTS, valuable info, etc)
Do the above and you WILL generate more views and shares. And so the snowball begins.
Look at your socials like a top of funnel activity.
What is that first impression? How will you retain the attention of people scrolling who are unfamiliar with your brand? Are you cutting through the noise? Is it interesting enough that people want to view more, and learn more? Is it entertaining or educational enough that they will share it?
Your existing followers who know all about you? It’s not that they don’t matter, and yes - a small % of them will still see your stuff. Maybe on the day you post it, maybe 3 weeks later. But don’t center your content around them, or make content that assumes existing familiarity.
NEXT POST? BRANDS DOING IT WELL and some TAKEAWAYS!
