Is everyone about to stop using social media?

Declining reach, AI slop, and government surveillance, oh my

Author

Courtney Howard
October 29, 2025

In the October 2025 edition:

  • Are we all about to bail on social media? And if so…what’s next?

  • How to make sure your business comes up in AI search results 🤖

  • Beautiful and thought-provoking: Winners of the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year 🐧

SOMETHING USEFUL

Will social media be unusable a year from now?

I’ve noticed some troubling signs over the past several months, and it’s finally at the point where I feel the need to raise a red flag. Maybe I’m reading too much into things, but maybe I’m right—and a key marketing tool for small business owners will become unusable soon.

I’m talking about social media, of course. What’s causing me to have such a dire outlook? Three things:

  • A steady decline in reach for organic (non-paid) posts of all types,

  • A sharp increase of AI-generated content (a.k.a. slop), and

  • The threat of social media surveillance by the US government

The combination of these would not only make social media ineffective as a marketing tool, but drive away users and maybe even put us in danger based on what we say or appear to support.

Are you over-relying on social media marketing? If it goes away, do you know how you’ll continue to reach customers?

Keep reading for ideas on how to answer that question, plus a closer look at each of these three factors and links to articles from trusted sources to help you learn more.

Can you hear me now?

“Not long ago, small businesses could count on social media to deliver reach and visibility without much effort…In 2025, organic reach on social platforms is declining dramatically, and businesses that want to grow need to accept the new reality that social media has become a paid channel.”

Maybe it’s always been too good to be true. A free marketing platform where our every update, announcement, and launch would be seen by our loyal followers plus new folks who could become customers? Sounds great, until it’s not.

We’ve all experienced this with our own posts and we’ve seen others lament how Instagram is only showing their reel or carousel to 2% of their followers. Now there’s some data behind it, with Social Insider reporting that Instagram’s organic reach has dropped 12% year-over-year (and it’s still better than Facebook’s reach!)

After reading several articles about this, the phrase I saw over and over again was “pay to play.” It seems the days of reaching even those who have actively followed you for free may be coming to an end.

Drowning in (AI) slop

“…social media risks devolving into mindless entertainment, produced and consumed mostly by bots who interact with other bots while us humans spectate. Of course, platforms don’t want to lose users, but they might push as much AI slop as the public can tolerate.”

AI-generated content is sort of novel and interesting now, but with the launch of OpenAI’s Sora video generation tool, and plenty of others sure to follow, it’s going to get really overwhelming, really fast. Maybe some of it will be entertaining, but is social media still social when all the content is made by robots?

If Instagram and other social media platforms turn into places where we’re constantly confronted with slop videos and fake BS, will anyone still want to spend time there?

And government surveillance makes three

“AI surveillance may no longer be just a foreign government threat. Reports have surfaced about potential abuses in the U.S., including government contracts that may enable the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to monitor social media.”

Darrel M. West, How AI can enable public surveillance, Brookings Institution

I think this is horrible on many, many levels, but the only one I can speak about authoritatively is the negative impact on businesses, so that’s what I’m focusing on here. Social media is a core marketing channel, means of communication, and visibility tool for many of us.

If the government starts using it to crack down on speech it disagrees with, we’ll experience an immediate chilling effect. Not only would many of us feel unsafe expressing ourselves, but certain types of businesses could be targeted. If social media platforms feel dangerous, the people we want to reach may stop showing up there. We may need to stop showing up there too, just to be safe.

Back to the future

So what do we do if social media becomes useless or even dangerous? We do what everyone used to do before social media existed (you know, the good old days):

  • Think deeply about who your customers are, what they want, and where you can connect with them. Before social media gave us the (false) promise of reaching anyone anywhere, business owners had to work hard to communicate with their customers. Get into the mindset that you will need to go to them, rather than them coming to you via social media.

  • Use old-school communication channels—they’re still around for a reason. Direct mail and email are very effective ways to reach people. The down side? It’s a lot of work to do it well. Building an email list takes time, but at least you know your list will receive your messages. And direct mail can be great for businesses that serve their immediate neighborhoods or have specific target customers whose contact info is easy to research (e.g. B2B). I’ve also seen my clients have success with getting featured in local news & magazines, or simply leaving brochures at coffee shops and other public places where their customers hang out.

  • Build real-life relationships and partnerships. Before the internet, we used to rely on each other to learn about cool new stuff or get a recommendation for that thing we need. This is still true, but I think we’ve forgotten it a little bit. Collaborate with other businesses, go to that workshop, sponsor a local team or event. If you want your community to know about your business, you need to be out in the community. To my fellow introverts, don’t feel like you have to overdo it. Start small and keep it manageable for your energy levels.

  • Create a credible online home base that’s easy to find. Your website should clearly articulate what you do, why it’s valuable, and how to buy it. Use free directories like Google Business Profile and consider paying for directory listings if they’re important in your industry. These things are important for online discoverability and, increasingly, for AI search optimization (more on that below).

  • Build a repository of credible reviews and testimonials. It’s easy to fake a DM or text of a rave review from a “customer.” Screenshots like these are not acceptable anymore as social proof. Ask your customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google or Facebook, which are more trustworthy. Reviews connected to real names and real people are more believable than DM screenshots.

Between surveillance, slop content, and declining organic reach, it’s too risky to rely on social media as your sole marketing channel. I’m not saying we should all quit social media cold turkey (unless you want to!) but developing new marketing strategies takes time.

Start trying a few things now, so you’re able to continue connecting with your community if (when??) we all bail on social media in the future.

SOMETHING NEAT

As much as I hate AI slop, it’s clear that AI search is here to stay. While we used to worry about search engine optimization for our websites, now we also need to consider AI search optimization (which can apparently be called “Generative Engine Optimization”, or GEO. Whatever.)

Here are a few guides about how to make sure your website, and therefore your business, show up in AI results when someone is searching for what you do:

If you use a different website or ecommerce platform, there’s a good chance it has its own guide to SEO/GEO that you can take a look at. At the very least, make sure your site allows AI to read it (unless you want to intentionally block AI, of course!)

A LITTLE TREAT

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know I love birds and art. So this month’s treat is a combination of the two: the winning photos from the 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year competition.

I like this round-up from The Guardian because they share the photos alongside notes from the photographer, which offer thought-provoking commentary on nature, the environment, and the creative process. Enjoy!

P.S. My favorite winning photo? This one.

WORK WITH ME

This newsletter is for everyone, but a one-on-one consulting engagement is tailored to you and your business. Here’s how I can support you:

  • Strategic Action Planning—For solo business owners with a lot to do, and never enough time. We’ll refine, prioritize, and organize your goals, and I’ll create a road map for you to get them done. (My most popular service.)

  • Resilience Jumpstart—Turn analysis paralysis into decisive action with affordable 1:1 support to get you moving in the right direction fast.

  • Operations Analysis—Is your business built on a strong foundation? An operations deep dive will tell you exactly what to do to make your business work better from the inside out.

  • General Consulting—Get expert support with business challenges like workload sustainability, financial fundamentals, pricing, client communication, and more.

Thanks for reading—see you next month. If you have a business owner friend who would find this newsletter useful, please share it with them!