Exploring the Future of Social Media: The Rise of Decentralized Platforms

TREND ALERT: Decentralized Platforms

While everyone is talking about AI (and should be!); another marketing trend that deserves attention is the consumer move to more decentralized platforms and niche user groups. Social platforms like Patreon, Discord and Reddit are quickly becoming content safe havens for people tired of being over-marketed to.  If you don’t know how these work yet,  you basically subscribe (either free or paid) to content/creators that you resonate with to receive premium level content. Think Instagram or TikTok as the “freemium” version with these platforms housing the “good stuff”.  

Why are consumers going to these locations? It’s simple - transparency.  Marketing has gotten all too sneaky; and consumers are catching on.  How many of us google something and add “reddit” to the end of it?  How many of us scroll through Instagram only to find endless ads and sponsored posts?  As our marketing techniques evolve, so do the recipients!  This has created a need from consumers for more transparent, authentic, and down to earth marketing practices. 

We are seeing this in the real world too.  People are attending events and becoming patrons of user-centric experiences like festivals, escape rooms, and themed restaurants.  This is extending into the digital space as well.  Long gone are the days of mass marketing plans working for all your audiences, and while we are getting better at segmenting our markets, decentralized platforms are the next wave of drilled down marketing. 

Another huge facet of this has been the ease of misinformation being spread through larger social media platforms, and the accessibility for companies of all sizes to create significant digital marketing campaigns.  This has caused a lot of consumer suspicion and is leading users and creators to develop smaller communities with sources that are trusted. This also leads to the discussion of privacy on social media.  These platforms are heavy on the privacy settings and peer to peer moderation.  Many are even using AI to help moderate chats and keep community guidelines in effect.  While there are a lot of security and privacy concerns to address (with all social media) these platforms tend to give users a better sense of security.  

What does this mean?  If you are looking for niche market feedback or influencers, you should be looking at these locations!  While AI is scrubbing the mainstream - these platforms allow marketers to dive deep into the psychology of our target markets.  Team Wednesday will be doing more writing on this subject as the marketing world moves into more decentralized practices.  Here are some of the more popular platforms that we are seeing many consumers moving toward. 

Mastodon - an open-source social networking platform that aims to provide a user-friendly and ad-free alternative to mainstream social media platforms.

Discord - User generated communities require an invitation to join and are utilized for a variety of needs including academic, industry and gaming environments. 

Patreon - putting the power in the hands of the content creator, Patron is a subscription based content model where users can curate their own feed of paid or free content. 

Minds - Focused on rewarding content creators and allowing them to express freely. 

Reddit - One of the more prevalent and long standing user based communities, Reddit allows consumers to post, ask questions and have conversations about anything from “the best restaurants in Detroit” to “what is your favorite James Bond movie and why”.