Ownership & Watch Time: March's Social Media Landscape Decoded
Social media trends, updates and content ideas to fuel your inspiration.
It’s the end of the month, so that can only mean one thing… it’s time for your update on all of the social media changes, trends and updates that you need to know for this month.
Let’s get straight to it.
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📣 The social media data, trends and new features you need to know
Here’s the slide deck, and the recording of our LinkedIn Live giving you a network-by-network run through all the most important updates you need to know for this month.
These are the three themes that are dominating
📈 YouTube and LinkedIn's Organic Growth Potential
The data is clear – YouTube and LinkedIn continue to deliver exceptional organic reach without requiring substantial ad spend. Again, video content is key to unlocking this opportunity.
🗞️ LinkedIn Newsletters: Your Owned Audience Advantage
As third-party algorithms continuously shift, LinkedIn Newsletters emerge as a powerful tool for creating a more direct, "owned" relationship with your audience. This subscription-based approach fosters community while reducing dependency on platform algorithmic shifts – exactly the kind of audience-first strategy that drives sustainable growth.
⏱️ The Importance of ‘Watch Time’
Likes and comments used to be the primary signal for social platforms to reward posts with more reach. However, Instagram is beginning to prioritise watch time as the primary metric governing content success. In addition, recent data is also suggesting that TikTok is rewarding longer videos with more reach. This shift rewards creators who craft genuinely captivating content that holds attention rather than simply generating quick engagement – a more authentic measure of content value.
📊 Data Highlight of the Month
Contrary to conventional wisdom, videos exceeding 60 seconds are now driving the most reach on TikTok. The fact that TikTok’s algorithm seems to prioritising videos that keep users on the platform for longer is not a surprise. But the fact that videos longer than a minute tend to get more views than their shorter counterparts is very interesting indeed.
👀 Instagram clarifies the ‘Watch Time’ metric
You bored of hearing about Watch Time yet? I hope not, as there’s more…
It used to be said that the completion rate of an Instagram Reel was an important metric to optimise for. Whilst it’s still advisable to keep viewers hooked until the end of the video, it’s the actual overall time that’s spent watching the video that’s the most important consideration.
I find this a more simple distinction and one that’s easier to optimise for. It also speaks to the fact that Instagram might soon be more heavily weighting longer videos like TikTok seem to be.
Don’t forget that last month, Instagram enabled 3-minute long Reels to be recommended in the Reels feed, so I’d suggest that longer videos might be something worth experimenting with.
👉 New feature of the month
LinkedIn has enabled native video to be used in LinkedIn newsletters, creating a better way of showcasing your LinkedIn video content and highlighting the continued importance of both video content and newsletters for growth on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn currently offers a strategic advantage that other platforms can’t match. Three key factors make it especially effective right now:
Relationship-First Algorithm: Unlike platforms shifting to AI-driven discovery engines, LinkedIn still prioritises your social graph—showing content primarily from people you follow. This connection-based approach has preserved engagement levels while other platforms see significant declines.
Video Format Acceleration: LinkedIn's expanded video displays across desktop and mobile signal clear platform investment in video storytelling. Early adopters have a temporary advantage before competition intensifies.
Audience Ownership Potential: The connection-based architecture allows for direct relationship development that can transcend platform dependence, creating more durable audience relationships.
This creates a strategic window to build authentic connections through video content and newsletters while leveraging existing professional relationships in an engagement-friendly environment.
📬 Don’t Miss!
Tune into next week’s live social media update on LinkedIn.
Earlybird tickets for the best B2B social media conference (I would that say that!) are now live. GRAB YOURS HERE
I hope you found this useful! If you have any questions at all, I’m always happy to help!
Made with ❤️ by Andy