You’re Not Ready for the Next Phase of Social Media

Social media is about to change forever

for creators, for brands, for anyone

that's using content to grow a business.

The game is being completely reset

because the truth is, we're entering a

brand new era for marketing. Now, the

good news is there are lots of new ways

to win that weren't possible before. I

know this because I spend all day on the

cutting edge of content marketing and

distribution. I have a million

followers. I've done billions of views.

And I'm starting to see trends and

patterns that are not obvious to the

average person, but are massive

opportunities. So, in this video, I'm

going to walk through the six biggest

social media trends that I see coming

over the next few years. And if you care

about growing your business at all,

you're going to want to pay attention.

All right. Now, the first social media

trend is the emergence of new social

platforms. That's right. We are going to

get new social platforms that launch in

the next couple years. And this really

is the mega trend. Because if there's

one thing the marketing world has taught

me, it's how important it is to be ready

when a new social platform launches. Cuz

here's the thing. If you were given a

choice, every creator and business owner

on Earth would go back in time to invest

more in Facebook and YouTube in the

early 2010s, Instagram and LinkedIn in

the late 2010s, and Tik Tok in 2020.

Why? Because those early years are the

easiest time to win. If you were to map

the life cycle of any social platform,

those first 12 to 18 months have user

demand that significantly outpaces

content supply. Literally, any piece of

content posted works. During this

period, you get massive views, massive

followers, and massive conversion for

almost no effort. It's literally a gold

rush. And this gold rush phenomenon

happens both when new platforms launch

and when old platforms launch a new

feature. And we all saw this with

Instagram reels in 2022. Instagram had

been around since 2010. And by 2020, it

kind of felt like the game was solved.

It was over. But the addition of reels

in 2022 completely reset everything on

Instagram and allowed a ton new people

to enter and lots more to win. What this

means is that you should always be

looking for new social platforms as well

as when old social platforms launch new

features so that you can sprint and take

advantage of those early moments. So,

here's why this all matters. I think

we're about to see a few massive

launches in the social media space over

the next few years. Let me explain what

they are. First and foremost, the one

that's for sure happening is US Tik Tok.

If you haven't been following the news,

the US forced China to sell the rights

to US Tik Tok to a US controlled

conglomerate. Now, it's not exactly

clear who all the owners will be, but

it's rumored Oracle, Silverlake, and

potentially even A16Z will be in the

mix. And this means that in the next 6

to 12 months, you will see a brand new

social platform emerge for the first

time since Threads and before that, Tik

Tok itself. And I'm telling you, this is

going to be the biggest opportunity in

the social media world since the

pandemic because it's been reported that

the US controlled version of Tik Tok

will need to rebuild their own

algorithms from scratch. And that means

user profiles and followers that have

already been built up on the existing

Tik Tok will not port over to the US

version. Everybody's starting over from

scratch, including me. But this time,

all the new players that will come in on

day one have already built businesses on

the existing Tik Tok. They know the

playbook. They know how to make content,

and they're going to come ready starting

on day one. Now, if you care about

making money at all from content,

whether it's brand deals or to fund your

business, the launch of US Tik Tok is

not something that you should ignore.

And I promise I will make a lot more

videos in the future for the strategies

and tactics for how to dominate on US

Tik Tok as we get closer. So make sure

to stay tuned and follow along for

those. Now, I mentioned at the beginning

of this section that I expect to see a

couple new social media platforms or

features launch in the next few years.

US Tik Tok is for sure happening. That's

one. But here are two other predictions

for what I think will happen in the next

2 to 3 years. First, I think we're going

to see some new niche community feature

be built on top of either Instagram

threads or X. And here's why. It's no

secret that the world is diverging.

While the internet feels like everyone's

getting more connected, I'm sensing a

trend of private groups, member clubs,

walled gardens, and private communities

become more and more popular over time.

People are sick of the feed-based media

that comes without a sense of community.

Because of this, I expect to see new

social features and potentially even a

new social platform that takes advantage

of niche-based social feeds and maybe

even builds direct pipes for social into

private communities. Think of this like

the evolution of the Facebook group, but

completely reimagined for this era. Now,

I can't say for sure what this is going

to look like, but I expect something to

come out that will take advantage of the

lack of digital community that we're

seeing across social platforms today.

And when it does, again, you're going to

want to be ready. And the way to be

ready to take advantage of this is to

start building your own private

community today. You want to be using

social platforms to ramp people from

public social feeds into private

communities. I'm telling you, that will

pay huge dividends later. You want to

start that now. All right. And my last

prediction for new social platforms is

that I expect to see a zag to the zigg

of AI content. It's no secret if you've

been following along with AI

developments. Veo3, Higsfield, Free

Pick, Hey Genen, this AI content is no

joke and is already indistinguishable

from the human-made versions. Now, the

truth is no one is really sure what's

going to happen to human creators when

the emergence of AI content increases to

the point where the humans get drowned

out. But I suspect something new is

going to emerge. With every action,

there is an equal and opposite reaction.

So whether it's a human-only verified

feed or a human-on only verified

platform, something will emerge to

combat the evolution of AI content. This

will probably be blockchainbased and

require some sort of digital

verification to verify you're a human.

Either way, regardless of what this is

or how it works, we're going to see a

lot of new changes coming to social

platforms and the invention of new ones

in the next few years. And like I said

before, the one regret I have is that if

I could have gone back and went harder

during those early eras, I would have.

So you really want to be ready and alert

for when these things happen. Now, if I

am the one you like to follow for social

media growth, the best thing you can be

doing during this era is using

Sandcastles. Sand castles is basically

my content brain. All these YouTube

videos and all my thinking on content

distilled into a super tool that you can

access 24/7. It allows you to import and

analyze all the videos from the best

channels you follow across Instagram,

Tik Tok, and YouTube. You can then find

the best performing videos in aggregate

and start to figure out the trends and

patterns that are working. This is my

cheat code for how I make so much

content so quickly. What I like to do on

Sandcastles is find the top performing

outlier videos over the last 3 months

from a list of creators that I trust and

then reverse engineer which topics are

working. I do this every single day and

this saves me hours on the research side

and also derisks my effort so that I

make winners more often. You can think

of Sandcastle kind of like one of 10 or

Vid IQ but specifically for short form

social media, Instagram, Tik Tok, and

YouTube Shorts. And we've also got a ton

of other features that make sense for

social that doesn't make sense for

YouTube. I'm telling you, this is

everything I know put into a tool at the

cutting edge. If you want to give it a

try for free, I've got a link below. I

also linked a ton of free tutorials on

how to use it. It's kind of like a free

miniourse. my gift to you in the

description. All right, the second major

social media trend that I think is going

to emerge big over the next few years is

creator moes. During all previous eras

of social media, all you needed to do

was post consistently and be active.

That was the only moat that you needed

to win. And this was because, as

shocking as this sounds, in 2025, people

still were dramatically underestimating

the value that came from building a

personal brand on social media. So, not

that many people actually did it, and

there was a huge supply demand mismatch.

Well, unfortunately, in 2025, the cat

seems to be officially out of the bag.

It's clear that in the last 12 to 18

months, most individuals and all brands

have woken up to the fact that building

an organic audience is the most valuable

marketing asset you could develop. And

because of that, we have seen a lot of

new players enter the social media and

content game in that period. I don't

know about you, but when I scroll the

feed, I am consistently seeing banger

videos from new people I've never seen

before. there are dozens of new faces

I'm getting exposed to every day and I

often think to myself, damn, there are a

lot of good creators out there now.

Well, that feeling, if you feel it too,

is there for a reason. The supply of

good creators that know how to use a

phone, they can tell a story, they can

edit, is increasing exponentially. And

so, if you want to win in the next era

of social media, just showing up and

posting consistently is not going to be

enough to cut through because instead of

three people making content in a given

niche, today it's 30 and tomorrow with

AI content, it's going to be 3,000. So,

in this next era, it'll be extremely

important to define your niche

positioning and build a durable creator

moat. Now, when I say moat, what I mean

is the difference between your personal

brand in a category and everyone else's

in the viewer's mind. Here's how I think

about creator modes. They're really a

combination of these five things. First

is your topic niche. What topic do you

actually make content about? Number two

is visual format, and this is kind of

the full package for how you visualize

your videos. Both the layout and the

visuals you use themselves. Number three

is your storytelling style. And this is

how you present information and

structure your ideas in a story flow

that people can follow. Number four is

the personality and vibe. Beyond the

topic, beyond the story, and beyond the

visual packaging, how do you come across

as a vibe through the content? Right?

So, this is the fourth bucket. And

number five is X factor. And this really

is the one of one thing about you, your

special ability that you can add as an

element or icing or a layer to the rest

that makes you different from everyone

else. Personality and vibe is the way

you come across. The X factor is the

thing about you that's different from

everyone else. So these five elements

combine together to create your

signature style and unlock your creator

moat. In this next era, it will not be

enough to just make tech breakdowns or

day- in the life gym videos. You're

going to need to build a visual-driven

aesthetic and a signature style that

pops in someone's mind when they think

of the topic category. Now, some

creators already had a signature style

and were good at this from the jump.

That's why they grew so fast. But

before, you didn't need to have it. Now,

in the next era, Creator Moes' signature

styles are going to become table stakes

where if you don't have it, you just

won't be able to cut through. Now, if

you want me to make another video

breaking down a bunch of the signature

styles that I like across different

categories and what the components are

for how they make it up, let me know in

the comments and I'll do that. All

right. Now, here's social media trend

number three. If I could go all in on a

single concept for social media growth

over the next 3 years, it would be this,

a sticky personal brand. Because I think

this framework is going to be the most

important building block of marketing in

the AI era. A sticky personal brand is

one that implants in a viewer's mind so

that they proactively seek it out again

in the future. It's the difference

between a viewer stumbling upon your

video in the feed and remembering you

verse them actively searching out

because they want to hear your opinion

on a topic. Here's the truth. In a world

of noise, it's not just signal that

matters. What matters is signal that

sticks in the viewer's brain long enough

to convert to their long-term memory so

they remember to go back a second time.

While creator modes are the framework

for getting your content to feel

signature and stand out, a sticky

personal brand is the reason why a

viewer remembers to go back in the

future. It sticks in their head. And

here's why this concept matters so much

in the next era. In a world of AIdriven

content, it will be much, much harder

for someone to stumble upon your content

on accident. I alluded to this metaphor

in a previous video, but imagine it like

this. Think of all creators on social

media like little bodies walking around

a giant warehouse floor. you, as the

viewer, go up to the catwalk on the

third level and look down to see all the

creators walking around. Now, if I asked

you to find the person in the red shirt,

could you do it? You probably could, cuz

there's only 100 people walking around.

There's only a few wearing red at all.

And so, you could easily pick that

person out and zoom in. Today, stumbling

upon someone on the social media feed is

kind of like looking down at that

warehouse and seeing the hundred people.

If you scroll enough, you're going to

see them because there's only a hundred

people making content. But in the AI

content world, there will be 10,000

people on the warehouse floor, hundreds

of which are wearing different shades of

red. You won't just be able to stumble

upon a specific person as easily. If

you're swiping, it will take 10,000

swipes just to find the right person.

You have to actively be seeking them

out. This is why having a sticky

personal brand, or in other words, a

shirt color that someone actively looks

to remember is so important. The feeds

are going to be full of amazing videos.

So many good videos, it will boggle your

mind. So, what you'll need is for fans

to want to proactively seek you out and

have a way to do so. The same way you

look forward to watching your favorite

TV show at 8:00 p.m. every Sunday. The

act of getting people to seek will be

the difference between winning and

losing on social media in the future.

So, your only job is to build a personal

brand sticky enough so that viewers

actually want to seek you out. And so,

the question really is, how do you build

a personal brand that is sticky? And how

do you become such a mainstay in your

category that viewers want to hear your

opinion over everyone else's? And the

answer is to build a cult-like personal

brand. Now, I recently made a video deep

diving on the full playbook for how to

build a cult-like personal brand. And

I'll link that video below. It's

basically a step-by-step for exactly the

type of content that you need to make in

order to achieve this stickiness around

your personal brand. But just know this,

if you don't have a personal brand that

people actively are seeking out, you're

going to have trouble winning in the

next era of social media. All right, the

fourth social media trend I'm seeing is

the shift from quality first to quantity

first when it comes to content strategy.

Now, there's an ongoing debate between

creators about which content strategy is

best. Should you focus on making more

posts at a lower quality or should you

focus on making fewer posts at a higher

quality? It's the quantity versus

quality debate. Some people claim that

quality doesn't matter at all. You just

post a ton of quantity and you're just

guaranteed to win by law of math. Others

claim that quality definitely matters

and if you make less but have the time

to increase the quality, you'll win more

often and it'll be worth it. Now, this

seems like a trivial debate, but this is

one of those things that I feel the most

people get stuck overthinking on. So,

it's worth breaking down. Personally, I

have flip-flopped on this several times,

but I believe for the first time in a

long time, we are shifting from a

quantity first era to a quality first

era when it comes to content strategy.

Now, let me explain what I mean. Taking

a quantity first approach, just making

high volume works when you don't know

which videos are going to go viral. If

you truly don't know and you're just

waiting for random luck to strike, then

yes, higher quantity always makes sense

cuz you'll get more winners sooner. Now,

a quality first approach makes sense

when you do know which videos are going

to go viral. And if you know how to make

something go viral, you just need a

little bit more time to execute on it

well, then taking a quality first

approach with less reps is actually

better. If that's you, your goal should

be to make as many reps as you can, as

long as they're above whatever the

quality bar you know they have to be in

order to work. Now, you may be thinking,

how could someone know which videos are

going to go viral? And the answer is, if

you just remake the ones that have

already worked, your hit rate is going

to go up. And the truth is, for everyone

using sand castles to basically find the

winners faster, that's what they've been

saying to me. Their hit rate's just gone

way up because they're using a

research-driven data first process to

find winners to choose their ideas. Now,

when I initially started making content,

I bought into the quality first

approach. Instead of making seven videos

per week, I only made three, but I tried

to make the quality better. I put more

time in. And the reason I did that is

because I was a perfectionist. I liked

spending a lot of time on fewer things,

and I really didn't want to make more

videos. So, that was the narrative I

told myself. But then, as I began to

study social media more like a

scientist, I realized that the right

answer was actually quantity first. And

that was because in that era, 2023,

2024, we were still in a supply and

demand mismatch. there just wasn't

enough good supply to meet the demand.

So, me spending an incremental hour or

two to go from 9 out of 10 quality to 10

out of 10 wasn't worth it. It'd be

better if I just made two 9 out of 10

videos instead of one. But now, as we

head into this AIdriven era of social

media, I think we're shifting back to

where quality first is the better

strategy. And by this, what I really

mean specifically is if you make any

quantity that's below a minimum viable

quality threshold, all of those videos

are going to fail. So, it's not worth

taking a quantity first strategy if that

means you have to drop your quality down

in order to get that volume out. Now,

here's why I believe going forward in

2025 and beyond, quality first matters

more. The feed is now full of really

good content. There are a ton of

good creators now making a ton of good

videos. And this is only the beginning.

As AI content gets better, I expect the

amount of good videos to go up a

thousandx in the next 3 years. This

means that the average viewer is

inundated with more and more good

content. And so their baseline for what

average is is slowly drifting up. If the

baseline content was a 3 out of 10, well

then as long as you beat the baseline,

you could cut through. That baseline is

now drifting from 3 to 4 to 5 to 6. and

now it's up at 7 or 8 out of 10. People

have seen so much good content that

anything worse fails automatically. So,

in order to have your content continue

to cut through in the next era, it's

either going to need to be exceptionally

well-made, extremely unique, or both, or

it's just going to flop automatically.

The truth is, the average filler volume

stuff did work in the past few years and

has continued to work up until around

now. Moving forward, it will not because

the baseline is increasing. So, I don't

care if you post 30 videos per week, 10

videos per week, or two videos per week.

If they're below a 7 out of 10 quality,

they're going to fail. The viewer's eye

is just trained to filter out stuff that

doesn't look as good as what the

baseline is. Now, I'll say this. There

is a time in your creator arc where

quantity first makes sense as the right

strategy. And that time is at the very

beginning when your skills are at a

zero. You need to close the gap from 0

out of 10 to 7 out of 10 quality. And

the best way to close that gap is more

quantity. So, here's what I recommend

for most people. I'll say it super

specifically so it eliminates all

confusion. When you're starting out, you

have zero content skills. That means

your quality is a 0 out of 10 and your

quantity is a 0 out of 10. In order to

get any video to cut through, you have

to get the quality up to a 7 out of 10.

Anything below that will fail. Now, the

best way to improve your quality skills

up to a seven is to make a ton of

quantity between zero and seven. The

more quantity you make, the faster those

skills increase, as long as you're

learning between reps. I call this your

learning era. The goal during the

learning era is not to grow and hit

bangers. It's to increase your skills up

to a seven out of 10 so that you can

enter the game. Now, when I say do as

much quantity to get to 7 out of 10

quality, what do I mean? Do as much

quantity means make as many videos as

you can where you can learn between

reps. If you make one video a week, your

skills are going to develop 7 to 10

times slower than someone making a video

every day. Now, when I say 7 out of 10

quality, what do I really mean? Because

I understand the word quality is very

subjective and fuzzy. 7 out of 10 is

very subjective. What does that actually

mean? If you were to line up 10 videos

on the exact same topic, 1 to 10, are

you at least the seventh, eth, ninth, or

tenth best video? That's a 7 out of 10.

What does this really mean in practice?

If you think about the content workflow,

idea scripting recording editing

posting that workflow, are you doing all

the things you think you can be doing

from a tips and strategies perspective

in each bucket? That is about a 7 out of

10. So, what I mean by that is, are you

using some validated process to find

ideas, or are you just picking random

stuff? For scripting, are you using a

storytelling framework and a hook

framework that's proven to work, or you

just picking random stuff? For editing,

are you using a visual format that's

proven to work, or you just picking

random stuff? For recording, are you

recording in a clean background that

looks high quality with 4K footage, or

are you just half-hazardly shooting some

blurry thing with no background and poor

lighting? Those are the table stakes

that get you around 7 out of 10. Now, at

seven out of 10, you will look at a

creator that you really admire. Maybe

it's me, maybe it's someone else, and

you'll still notice a difference. That's

okay. Those people are at nine or 10 out

of 10, and you're at a seven. But if

you're not doing those table stakes

things, your quality is probably below a

7 out of 10, and you should be doing

them. Now, once you feel like your

quality on a single rep is at 7 out of

10, you're doing all the things you

think you should, but you're still not

sure why your stuff does not look like

the creators you admire, good, you're at

a 7 out of 10. Now, your job is to

increase quantity up to one video per

day while maintaining 7 out of 10

quality. Do not dip below 7 out of 10

quality cuz as we've mentioned, anything

below that will fail immediately. Your

goal is to figure out how can I get to

one video per day at 7 out of 10

quantity. That's like metric benchmark

number one. Now, once you get there and

you get comfortable, you'll already be

in the top 1 to 2% of creators. If

you're making seven 7 out of 10 videos

per week, you will crush. However,

you'll want your video quality to be

better. That's natural with every

creator. So, you're going to want to go

up from 7 to 9 out of 10. Now, when you

do that, you're going to have to spend

more time per rep trying to figure out

those icing details. You're going to

want to spend a couple more hours per

video. When you do that, your quantity

is going to drop from seven down to two

or three per week. That's okay. You get

your quality up to 9 out of 10, and then

slowly you increase that quantity until

you get to the point where you're making

one video a day at 9 out of 10 quality.

When you can get there, your videos will

be almost indistinguishable from anyone

else on the internet and your quantity

will be outpacing them. That's how you

win. The key difference with this whole

section, my shift from quantity to

quality is to say this. Anything below a

7 out of 10 quality will not work today

and in the future. And so, if you were

taking a quantity first 20 videos a

week, super big volume approach, that's

not going to work unless those videos

are above a 7 out of 10 quality. All

right, social media trend number five is

the emergence of more testing when it

comes to organic video content. We're

entering an era where content scientists

that can run micro tests and AB compare

different things will outperform

artists. We're shifting from artists to

scientists. I've talked about this

before. Now, the most important feature

in this category that Instagram released

in the last 12 months is called trial

reels. And if you don't know what trial

reels are, this is the most slept on

social feature on the entire internet.

Essentially, trial reels allows you to

run concurrent tests of lookalike videos

at the same time to nonfollowers. It's

basically like Instagram letting you run

free ads as much as you want. So, let's

say you're making a video about Meta's

new Ray-B band glasses. You spent a ton

of time on this video, but you're just

not sure if the hook you made is going

to perform. And as we know, as soon as a

viewer churns, nothing matters after

that point. So, it's really important to

dial the hook in. What you can do is

make five different slight variations of

the video. same exact body but five

different hooks, whether it's what you

say or the visuals you show. You can

then post all five of these variations

as different trial reels at the same

time. Whichever one performs the best,

you can then release that as the main

one you post. Now, trial reels work so

well because Instagram doesn't put those

five trial reels on your profile. So,

it's not like your grid is going to show

the same video five different times.

They also don't show those videos to

people that already follow you. So, only

strangers are seeing the different

variations. It's a true ABCDE test. And

it's honestly insane how few people talk

about using trial reels because

essentially what this allows you to do

is test video hooks for free with zero

risk. If you spend 4 hours making a

video, well, it's worth spending an

extra 30 minutes to film four additional

hooks so that you can double or triple

the output and make that effort worth

it. This will help you have a much

higher hit rate on your videos without

having to remake a full other one. And

if you think about it, that's really the

goal of marketing. How do we get the

most possible reach with the least

possible effort? And if we can take

actions to derisk that effort, even

better. Now, if you think about it, all

other forms of marketing have extensive

testing built in natively. Most email

marketing has A versus B versus C

headline testing. Paid ads are basically

one giant set of tests. You're running a

ton of ads trying to see what works and

double down. YouTube has A versus B vers

thumbnail testing. But until trial

reels, organic short form video really

had no component where you could test

without making a full video. You kind of

just had to make the whole thing, post

it, and then hope it works. So the

takeaway is that I think this test first

approach is going to come to organic

video content more in the next few

years. For example, imagine if you made

a YouTube video like this, but you could

upload three different CTAs that would

automatically get slotted in and they

could AB test the performance. Whichever

one was best, that's the video that

ended up getting released. I think we

are not very far away from having a

really robust testing process when it

comes to organic video content. So for

now, my tactical guidance to you if

you're watching this video is this. If

you make short form video on Instagram,

you need to be using trial reels. It's a

huge cheat code. All right, the last

social trend number six is what I call

R&D content teams. Over the past few

years, we've quietly watched the

emergence of an entire new class of

content native marketers. These are

people that grew up with social media

and just default understand short form

video, the algorithm, and attention. It

is baked into their DNA. These people

have learned over the past few years to

become clippers, Tik Tok shop

affiliates. A lot of them are making 20

to $50,000 per month just making short

form videos from home. Now, here's where

this gets interesting and why this is

such a valuable trend. The future of

Brand Social is going to be building

pools of these cracked content natives

that work as gun for hire mercenaries

that can push any brand you want. Now,

I've made a video in the past breaking

down how brands are starting to build

out these pools of creators. If you want

that, I will link it below. But the

truth is, brands on the forefront

already have Discord and Slack

communities full of these people that

are upside helping crack the content

code and feeding it to each other. In

the future, every brand is going to have

a head of content that spearheads the

R&D. And if that person doesn't make

content already and doesn't have at

least 100,000 followers, they're the

wrong hire. Once that person is in

place, they will disseminate a strategy

for how to activate these pods. They're

testing feeding the pods. The pods are

testing feeding them. And there's a

recursive loop of learning over and

over. Content is no longer a spoke of

marketing. Content is the marketing

flywheel. And everything else are just

spokes that feed the content. So, if

you're a CMO or a founder of a brand,

this content pod strategy is going to

become a critical piece of your

marketing mix moving forward. It's so

important that I believe brands are

going to start hiring creator in

residence positions that are these R&D

savages that can run these pods. Now, if

you're interested in me making another

video for how brands should build out

these content R&D pods, let me know and

I can do that. All right, guys. That is

all I've got for this video. We covered

the six biggest social media trends that

I see coming up over the next few years

that you can take advantage of. As

always, guys, I'm trying my absolute

best to bring new stuff every week that

gives you a leg up on everyone else when

it comes to the content game. If you're

a business owner and you like this

video, you like getting these tips, you

like the way I break things down, you

should definitely join Wavy World. It's

my free community specifically for

entrepreneurs, we've got 65 free

tutorials and trainings just like this

in there that are sequenced so that you

can improve your content the fastest. We

have 33,000 entrepreneurs that are all

helping each other improve their

content. It's really a great community

and it's better than most paid programs

that people have. So, if you want to

join that for free, I've got a link in

the description below. We will see you

guys on the next video. Peace.