The Future of Social Media is More Focused on Communities, Less on Ads and Sponsored Posts

Social media platforms have come a long way since Facebook first exploded onto college campuses 20 years ago. Platforms like Twitter and Instagram followed in quick succession, with users sharing everything from their breakfast choices to pictures documenting their vacations. However, as these platforms became more popular, ads and sponsored posts began to dominate news feeds. Now, tech companies are exploring new business opportunities, with some moving into the deep web world of the metaverse while others push paid subscriptions for greater exposure. This shift has led some users to seek out smaller, more community-based platforms geared towards specific interests and concerns.

According to Zizi Papacharissi, a professor of communication at the University of Illinois-Chicago, who teaches courses in social media, “Platforms as we know them are gone. They’ve lost their jobs.” Instead of relying solely on major social networks, users now gravitate towards smaller, more focused sites like Mastodon, Nextdoor, and Truth Social. These sites offer more specific content rather than the technical content from brands and influencers found on larger platforms.

Smaller community-based networks were predicted years ago by Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, and Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter. In 2019, Zuckerberg wrote on Facebook about the rising popularity of private messages and small groups on the internet. Echoing Zuckerberg’s sentiments, Dorsey advocated for a social network that gives people more control over the content they see and the communities they interact with.

The trend towards smaller networks has also been noticed by technologists and students. Gobo, an app developed by the MIT Media Lab and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is set to launch next month and will allow people to interact with multiple social media sites like Twitter, Mastodon, and Reddit in one place. Creating more specific communities like Ahwaa, a social network for LGBTQ people in countries around the Persian Gulf where being gay is considered illegal, is yet another example of the shift towards more community-based networks. These smaller networks allow more targeted forums and can also reduce the pressure on users to use social media constantly, especially young people.

The days of one-size-fits-all networks are giving way to smaller, more personalized communities that allow users to interact with one another on a more meaningful level. Smaller platforms like Mastodon or Reddit offer a gateway to smaller communities that bring together people with similar interests or issues. As Papacharissi said, “What we’re really interested in is small groups of people talking about real things.”