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I’ve worked in social/content for a few years now, and the biggest thing I’ve noticed recently is this
Posted by on May 19, 2026 at 4:33 pmA lot of marketers are still making content for the version of social media that existed 4 years ago.
Polished graphics. Perfect branding. Overplanned content calendars. Safe hooks.
And then they wonder why nobody watches.
Meanwhile the creators growing fastest are filming in their car, reacting to something they saw 10 minutes ago, and pulling 500k+ views with barely any editing.
The gap between “professional looking” content and effective content has never been bigger.
One thing that completely changed how I approach content was studying creators that are actively breaking through not the already famous ones with massive built in audiences.
And once you start analyzing enough breakout posts, certain patterns become painfully obvious.
Most viral content feels immediate. Not overproduced. Not corporate. Not “approved by 4 people in Slack.” Immediate.
It feels like a real opinion, a real reaction, a real observation, a real emotion.
That’s why reaction style content works so well right now. A contractor reacting to bad renovation videos. A fitness coach reacting to terrible workout advice. A marketer reacting to cringe ad campaigns.
People don’t just want information anymore. They want perspective.
Another thing I’ve noticed: most creators waste energy trying to be everywhere at once. TikTok. Reels. YouTube Shorts. LinkedIn. X. And they end up building nothing anywhere.
The creators growing fastest usually dominate one format first. Because every platform rewards people who deeply understand pacing, hooks, audience behavior, and native style. You don’t learn that by spreading yourself thin.
Also, almost nobody has a content creation problem anymore. They have a research problem.
There’s already an insane amount of winning content patterns out there. The problem is most people study random viral posts, copy huge creators too late, chase trends after they peak, and miss why something actually worked.
The fix is boring but it works: track creators suddenly blowing up, spot hooks repeating across platforms, notice formats migrating from TikTok to Reels to Shorts, and catch content styles gaining momentum before saturation.
I’ve been using SHunt for exactly this. Not for inspiration just to see what’s gaining traction before it peaks. Once you see enough breakout content, you realize virality is way more pattern based than most people think.
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1 Reply
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Bullseye! The chasm that exists between fancy business content and practical content is very wide at present. In the past, I used to allocate about 80% of my weekly schedule on ensuring that my graphics are well formatted, and this has completely hindered the real message that I wanted to convey. This year, however, I have completely changed my approach. I allocate most of my time looking for creative ideas and raw perspective. When it comes to actual asset creation, I rely on Claude to discuss the ideas, Runable to create the carousel and Buffer to schedule the content. By taking some time from the formatting process and applying it to the research process, there is a marked difference in the final product. People really want an opinion.
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I’ve worked in Social/Content for zero years now and the biggest thing I’ve noticed recently, is there are lots of grifters/hustlers and gurus who decided that morals and ethics are malleable.
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