social media in 2026 and beyond

Without narrative architecture, volume would fragment into noise. The fact that it does not is evidence of structured publishing embedded within the institution.

In each case, scale is not accidental. It is designed.

Advertising assumes controlled exposure and paid amplification. Publishing assumes constant output and organic competition. In publishing, the primary constraint is not media budget. It is production capacity and editorial judgment.

The job is no longer amplification. It is programming.

The feed does not privilege singularity. It privileges continuity. A post is not a durable unit; it is a moment in a stream. Imagine scrolling and finding a storytime or a piece of episodic content; you don’t know the next offering the feed will bring you—you might as well lock in and watch all 20 parts of the story.

This is not merely a creative... See more

Algorithmic feeds reward velocity, recency, and conversational density. Under these conditions, singular excellence is insufficient. Cultural dominance requires saturation. As dakota rae lowe, Director of Brand Social and Influencer at Nordstrom noted, “By my observation, users scroll past so much that it’s a frequency game. You’re only going to... See more

diminishing returns on ‘unhinged’ content...and every brand sounding like your bestie.

So much disaggregation in media over the past few years so it seems like the next phase will be about aggregation as media brands need more scale and advertisers need to consolidate where they spend money. Also, there’s a significant shift with people wanting to be offline and unplugged and as a result, there are going to be so many interesting

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