Social Media Is Dead. 💀We’re Now in the Age of Interest Media.

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and X may still be called “social media”, but the way people use these platforms has fundamentally changed.

They are increasingly becoming content and interest platforms.

A 2026 Statista Consumer Insights in the USA found that 48% said entertainment was an important reason for using social media. Passing time came in at 41%, communicating with friends and family at 40%, following interests and hobbies at 34%, and finding new content at 32%. Only 31% cited social interactions, while just 25% said meeting new people.

It’s even more interesting among 18–29 year olds. Only 32% said communicating with friends and family was important, while 36% were there to find new content and 37% to pass the time.

That changes everything for businesses and content creators.

Your content isn’t only competing with accounts somebody follows anymore. It is competing with everything the algorithm believes that person will find interesting.

That’s why the opportunity on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and X is so big.

You don’t necessarily need someone to already know you or follow you. Great content can be distributed to people based on their interests.

Start thinking about attention, interests and content people actually want to consume.

Social media isn’t really social media anymore. It’s interest media.

#SocialMedia #socials #statista #SocialMediaMarketing

Google PMax Campaigns Is Not for 99% of Service-Based Companies

Performance Max is one of Google’s most heavily promoted campaign types, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right choice for every business.

For most service-based companies, I would much rather start with tightly controlled Google Search campaigns.

Why?

If you’re a plumber, lawyer, dentist, accountant, digital agency or another service business, you generally want to reach people who are actively searching for the specific service you provide.

With Search campaigns, you have far greater control over keywords, search terms, negative keywords, ads, landing pages and where your budget is being spent.

Performance Max works across Google’s inventory, including Search, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail and Maps. That reach can be powerful, but more reach does not automatically mean better leads.

For service businesses, lead quality matters far more than lead volume.

Ten genuine enquiries from people actively looking for your service can be worth considerably more than 100 low-quality leads generated cheaply across multiple channels.

PMax absolutely has its place, but don’t use it simply because Google recommends it.

Choose your campaign type based on your business, your customers and the quality of leads you actually need.

#GoogleAds #PerformanceMax #PMax #LeadGeneration #DigitalMarketing

Google’s New /goto URL Redirect Is Big News for SEO

Google has made a significant technical change to the way links work in its search results.

Instead of Google Search always exposing and linking directly to the destination URL, Google is increasingly routing results through a google.com/goto redirect before sending the user to the website.

Why does this matter for SEO?

A huge part of the SEO industry relies on collecting Google search results at scale. Rank trackers, SERP APIs, SEO platforms and other tools need to identify the actual URLs ranking for millions of searches.

Google’s new /goto system can hide the destination URL behind an encoded redirect, making that information considerably harder and potentially more expensive for third-party tools to collect.

This does not mean your website suddenly ranks differently because of /goto.

The bigger issue is SEO data.

Rank tracking, competitor research, SERP analysis and the tools we rely on to understand Google results may have to change the way they collect their information.

For anyone involved in SEO, this is a Google change worth understanding because it could have a major impact on the SEO tools and data we use every day.

Learn more at www.topclick.co.za

#GoogleSEO #SEO #GoogleGoTo #TechnicalSEO #seoSoftware