Gary Vaynerchuk Says Social Media Is Dead!

Key Takeaways

• Interest media is Gary Vaynerchuk’s term for today’s feeds, which show you content based on what you are into right now, not who you follow.
• Meta’s own numbers back him up: more than half of what people see on Instagram is now recommended by AI, and only 7% of Instagram viewing time goes to friends’ posts.
• Followers matter less than ever. A post from a brand new account with zero followers can outperform a famous account if it truly resonates.
• Social apps are now search engines too, with people looking up restaurants, things to do, and product reviews, and Instagram posts from business accounts can show up in Google.
• Local businesses win by being genuinely useful and human on camera. That is exactly what Local Loop is built to do.

Open Instagram tonight and count how many of the first ten posts come from people you actually know. If you are like most of us, the answer is one or two. The rest come from strangers, creators, and businesses you have never followed, all serving up exactly the thing you were curious about this week.

That is not your imagination, and it is not a glitch. It is a fundamental change in how the internet works, and Gary Vaynerchuk, the chairman of VaynerX and CEO of VaynerMedia, gave it a name that is sticking: interest media. We agree with him, and we went looking for the hard evidence. Here is what we found, why it matters for every main street business, and how Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. and our Local Loop partners are leaning into it.

The Shift From Social Media to Interest Media

What is interest media, and who coined the term?

Interest media is the current form of what we used to call social media: platforms that fill your feed with content picked by algorithms based on what you have recently watched, searched, and engaged with, rather than posts from the people and accounts you chose to follow.

Gary Vaynerchuk laid out the idea in his LinkedIn article “Social Media is Dead. Interest Media is Here.” His argument is simple: you no longer get content from your cousin or your best friend from middle school, you get content based on what you have recently been into, and platforms do it because it keeps people on the app longer. He has been building the case for a while, including in a keynote on The GaryVee Audio Experience titled “Social media is dead and welcome to the interest media era.”

“Social media died four years ago and for the last four years we’ve been in interest media.”

— Gary Vaynerchuk, LinkedIn, 2026

Under the hood, this is the difference between a social graph and an interest graph. A social graph maps who you know. An interest graph maps what holds your attention. TikTok built its For You feed around the second one, and every other major platform has followed.

Is social media really dead, or did the feed just change jobs?

The platforms themselves have been telling us for years. In July 2022, Mark Zuckerberg said about 15% of content in Facebook feeds was being served by Meta’s AI from accounts people did not follow, and that the number was a little higher on Instagram, according to TechCrunch. By mid-2023, Meta reported that more than 20% of content in Facebook and Instagram feeds came from people, groups, or accounts users did not follow.

Then came the tipping point. On Meta’s April 2024 earnings call, Zuckerberg said about 30% of posts in the Facebook feed were delivered by its AI recommendation system, and that “for the first time ever, more than 50% of the content people see on Instagram is now AI recommended,” per Meta’s Q1 2024 prepared remarks.

How much of your feed still comes from friends and family?

Less every year. During the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust trial in April 2025, Meta disclosed that the share of time spent viewing friends’ content on Facebook fell from 22% in 2023 to 17% in 2025, and on Instagram from 11% to 7%, as reported by The Keyword. Zuckerberg himself described Facebook as “more of a broad discovery and entertainment space” and admitted, “The friend part has gone down quite a bit.”

Interestingly, Meta has also launched a Friends tab on Facebook that shows only posts from your friends, which Zuckerberg called “a throwback to OG Facebook,” CNBC reported. That lines up with Vaynerchuk’s prediction that “a double-feed platform is inevitable,” with one feed for interests and one for the people you chose. The main feed, though, belongs to interest media.

Why are Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube all moving to interest-based feeds?

Because relevant recommendations keep people engaged. In its Q2 2026 earnings call, Meta reported double-digit year-over-year growth in global time spent on Instagram, largely driven by improvements to Feed and Reels recommendations. That is a measure of engagement growth, not the percentage of feed posts recommended by AI.

The pattern is everywhere. YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan said back in 2018 that more than 70% of watch time comes from AI-driven recommendations, CNET reported. TikTok states plainly that an account’s follower count is not a direct factor in its recommendation system, in its explainer on how TikTok recommends videos. Even LinkedIn has shifted its feed toward relevance over recency, which marketers have tracked in analyses like AuthoredUp’s 2025 LinkedIn algorithm study.

What Interest Media Means For Local Businesses

Do follower counts still matter for a small business on social media?

Far less than they used to, and that is good news for small businesses. Vaynerchuk shared a striking example: a new account with zero followers got 9.4 million organic views on its very first post, a lightly edited version of a video that had earned 300,000 views on his own account with 15 million TikTok followers. “That’s how the game is now,” he wrote in his LinkedIn article. He calls this a more meritocratic system, where content is judged on the creative itself rather than the size of the account.

Instagram’s head, Adam Mosseri, has said the platform ranks content for followers (connected reach) and non-followers (unconnected reach) using three main signals: watch time, likes, and sends, with sends weighted more heavily when reaching people who do not follow you, as summarized by Torro. In other words, the best thing your post can do is get one neighbor to send it to another.

The Hootsuite 2026 Social Media Trends report, based on a survey of thousands of marketers, goes even further: discovery is now interest-led rather than follower-led, follower count has essentially become a vanity metric, and algorithms increasingly read micro-behaviors like hovering, pausing, and rewatching.

Are customers really searching on TikTok and Instagram instead of Google?

Yes, and newer research shows what people are looking for. In Sprout Social’s Q2 2026 Pulse Survey, 38% of social media users searched social for restaurants and things to do, while 30% searched for product reviews. The survey covered 2,250 social media users in the U.S., UK, and Australia from May 14 to 20, 2026. These are search-topic percentages, not a measure of how many people prefer social over Google, according to Sprout Social’s findings. For local businesses, helpful reviews and community-focused content can answer exactly those discovery needs.

The line between social and search is also blurring from the other direction. Starting July 10, 2025, public posts from Instagram professional accounts became eligible to appear in Google and Bing search results, Birdeye explains. That means a well-captioned Reel about choosing the right work boot can now be found by someone typing that question into Google, not just by someone scrolling.

Which social platforms should a Midwest local business focus on?

Start where your neighbors already are. Pew Research Center’s 2026 survey of 5,511 U.S. adults, conducted Jan. 30 to June 18, 2026, found that 84% use YouTube, 70% use Facebook, 51% use Instagram, and 37% use TikTok, according to Americans’ Use of Social Media in 2026.

Vaynerchuk’s advice is not to rely on just one or two platforms. Post the same idea natively on several, since each app’s interest graph may find a different slice of your community. For most local shops, that means YouTube and Facebook for reach, Instagram and TikTok for discovery, and LinkedIn for business-to-business partnerships.

What do customers expect from brands in the interest media era?

Authenticity over noise. The 2025 Sprout Social Index, which surveyed more than 4,000 consumers, found that authenticity and relatability are the two traits consumers value most from brands, about half say original content is what makes their favorite brands stand out, and 73% will buy from a competitor if a brand does not respond on social. A third even find brands jumping on viral trends embarrassing.

Trust is the other half of the story. The 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer special report on brands found that 80% of people trust the brands they use, and that homegrown, domestically headquartered brands outscore foreign ones on trust by an average of 15 points. Local, familiar, and real is a competitive advantage, and interest media finally gives it a fair shot at the feed.

How Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. & Local Loop fit in

Why does a shoe store founded in 1911 care about interest media?

Because our whole business has always been built on the thing interest media rewards: real expertise, shared one person at a time. Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. was founded in 1911 in Shenandoah, Iowa, and has grown to 73 stores in 12 states across the Midwest and parts of the southern and central U.S., as you can see on our Find Your Local Brown’s map. Every Brown’s manager becomes a vested partner who owns a share of their store, so the person fitting your shoes in Cedar Falls or Lincoln is a local owner, not a temporary clerk.

In the old social media era, a small-town shoe store had to compete for followers against national brands with huge budgets. In the interest media era, a two-minute video from one of our fit experts explaining why your heel slips, or how to pick a work boot for concrete floors, can reach exactly the people in town who are wondering about that this week. The algorithm does not care how big we are. It cares whether the content is genuinely helpful.

How does Local Loop turn local businesses into interest media?

Local Loop is Brown’s community partnership program. It connects our stores with local individuals and organizations who want to support each other’s businesses, promote and sponsor community events and causes, and get involved in their towns in as many ways as possible. Partners range from hospitals, schools, and first responders to gyms, chiropractors, farm supply stores, restaurants, 5Ks, farmers markets, and chamber events.

Every Brown’s store is active in its community through Local Loop, and that is exactly the kind of activity interest media rewards. When a Brown’s store sponsors a high school team, sets up a booth at the farmers market, or hosts a workplace pop-up with a local employer, those moments become real, human stories. When each partner shares them on their own channels, one event becomes several native posts on several accounts, each one handed to the algorithm as a fresh chance to find people interested in local food, fitness, health, careers, or community. Instead of a few businesses each shouting to their own followers, the whole town’s businesses help each other get discovered.

What if there is no Brown’s store near me?

That is what Local Anywhere is for. Local Anywhere is the online equivalent of Local Loop, letting Brown’s be your local shoe expert even in states where we do not have a physical location. Shop at brownsshoefitco.com and you still get the same people, the same fit knowledge, and the same community-first approach, just delivered to your door.

Your Interest Media Playbook

Avery and Callen at the Beatrice Brown’s Shoe Fit store. In the interest media era, one genuine, helpful conversation can reach more of your town than a page with thousands of followers.

How can a local business win in interest media starting this week?

1. Answer real questions on camera. Write down the ten questions customers ask you most and turn each one into a short video. Helpful beats polished.
2. Hook people in the first three seconds. Hootsuite’s research points to hover time and rewatches as key signals, so lead with the problem or the payoff.
3. Make it worth sending. Mosseri says sends drive reach to non-followers, so ask yourself whether a viewer would forward this to a friend, coworker, or spouse.
4. Post natively on more than one platform. Upload the video directly to YouTube Shorts, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok instead of sharing a link.
5. Write captions for search. Use the words people actually type, add your town name, and fill in alt text, since Instagram professional posts can now appear in Google and Bing.
6. Partner up through Local Loop. Team up with another local business on an event, a sponsorship, or a helpful tip, and both of you post about it. Two audiences, two sets of signals, one shared story.
7. Measure what matters. Track watch time, saves, sends, comments, direction requests, and store visits, not just follower count.

How can you take control of your own interest media feed?

Vaynerchuk’s tip for regular users is a good one: your feed is more changeable than you think. Use the search bar in each app to look up topics you care about and engage with what you find, browse the Explore page, and tap “not interested” on content you are tired of. Want more local content? Search your town’s name, follow along with Local Loop partners, and interact with their posts. The algorithm will take the hint.

Join the Local Loop

Whether you run a gym, a clinic, a farm supply store, a school program, or a nonprofit, Local Loop gives you a team of neighbors who want your business to be found. Can’t get to a store? Local Anywhere brings Brown’s to you at brownsshoefitco.com.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Sources & Further Reading

1. Gary Vaynerchuk, “Social Media is Dead. Interest Media is Here.” LinkedIn, 2026.
2. The GaryVee Audio Experience, “Social media is dead and welcome to the interest media era” keynote.
3. Meta, First Quarter 2024 Results Conference Call, Prepared Remarks, April 24, 2024.
4. Meta, Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript, July 29, 2026.
5. Meta AI, “The AI behind unconnected content recommendations on Facebook and Instagram,” June 29, 2023.
6. TechCrunch, “If you think Instagram is bad now, you won’t like…” July 27, 2022.
7. The Keyword, “Meta says users are spending less time on friend content,” April 2025.
8. CNBC, “Meta debuts Friends tab, Mark Zuckerberg pushes throwback to OG Facebook,” March 27, 2025.
9. CNET, “YouTube’s AI is the puppet master over most of what you watch,” January 2018.
10. TikTok Newsroom, “How TikTok recommends videos #ForYou,” June 18, 2020.
11. Torro, “Instagram Algorithm 2025 (Explained by Adam Mosseri),” January 29, 2025.
12. Hootsuite, “The 18 social media trends to shape your 2026 strategy,” January 2026.
13. Sprout Social, Q2 2026 Pulse Survey findings, June 18, 2026.
14. Sprout Social, 2025 Sprout Social Index press release, January 7, 2025.
15. Pew Research Center, “Americans’ Use of Social Media in 2026,” October 19, 2026.
16. Edelman, 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brand Trust.
17. Birdeye, “Instagram content on Google and Bing: the new update,” 2025.
18. AuthoredUp, “How the LinkedIn Algorithm Works in 2025.”

Mark Toms is the eCommerce Manager at Brown’s Shoe Fit Co., where he oversees brownsshoefitco.com and Local Anywhere, the program that brings Brown’s local fit expertise to shoppers everywhere online, and helps grow Local Loop partnerships across Brown’s 73 locally owned stores.

Brown’s Shoe Fit Co. | Local Anywhere