“Time Warp” is one of the most recognizable songs from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” It was created as a time filler for the stage play but has exploded in popularity and become a central part of audience participation during film screenings and live performances.

It has the instructions to dance the lyrics: “It’s just a jump to the left / And then a step to the right / Put your hands on your hips / Bring your knees in tight.”

It has all the integral parts of what social media is all about: It grabs attention, tells the audience what to do, and creates audience participation.

When the movie came out in 1975, things were very different. People read newspapers, listened to the radio, and watched TV to get the news. Newspapers were themselves a Time Warp. The news was generally a day old, printed at night, and delivered by morning.

CNN changed things with the first 24/7 new channel, which launched in 1980. Fox News began as a conservative-only network in 1996. MSNBC was launched the same year, and we began to see news segmented to a specific audience.

The news implies that journalists are involved. Journalists do slant stories, but they follow the story, have multiple sources, and are obligated to correct mistakes. The news business model has evolved and devolved from physical units sold to Neilson Ratings and computer data to clicks and likes.

Clicks and likes are the audience participation part that has made the need for accuracy and corrections almost obsolete.

And that is where we begin our Social Media Time Warp journey.

Follow The Money

Newspapers provided a service. They reported on what was happening in the world, the nation, and even your neighborhood. In exchange, you would pay 25¢ for the paper. What a deal!

The real money was made through advertising, most of which appeared in the Sunday papers. You had color ad circulars, which are promotional materials used by retailers, particularly grocery stores, to advertise their products, deals, and offers to consumers. The other money maker was classified ads, which were the only game in town for jobs and selling your stuff in the pre-internet days.

Those two would more than double the size of a standard paper.

Eventually, the classifieds became things like Angie's List, eBay, and Monster.com, which ate away at the newspaper business. Then, Google and social media chipped away at businesses' circulars and ad budgets, and newspapers all became obsolete (or at least struggled very hard to make any money).

Screen Time

TV has not fared well either. Netflix started out as a business that would mail you DVDs and eventually killed live movie rental businesses like Blockbuster. It's switched its model to on-demand streaming, which has slowly eaten away at must-see TV that people would schedule their evening around.

Again, advertising is where the real money was created, which funded show production, acquisition, and news. The combination of streaming and computers has started to make cable TV obsolete and has changed the advertising game. YouTube, Meta (Facebook/Instagram), and TikTok now make money from ads that used to fund TV.

Sports is the one exception since live viewing is preferred. The Superbowl continues to be the highest-cost ad you can buy in media. But if you are streaming, you can't skip the ads, and it provides data worth its weight in gold to advertisers as to what people were watching. Also, they can send targeted ads like you can do with social media and search ads.

All newspapers could show you, as an advertiser, is who subscribes and how many papers were sold. It could not give the details that digital media offers.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Social media started out as a way for communities and news organizations to reach their audiences again. In its heyday, Twitter let you (the user) choose or restrict who and what you wanted to follow. Facebook and Instagram let you choose who you see and follow.

Then, advertising changed the game again. Google and Facebook encouraged you to create business pages and profiles to get your business in front of your target audiences, but then they discovered they could make billions with a pay-to-play model. Once that started, small- and mid-sized companies were being squeezed out by big-budget businesses. Although you could better target those who saw your ads, you were in a flood of ads vying for attention.

Algorithms now show people what they engage with the most. This is true for both organic posts and ads. You, as a user (and your audience), have less control over what you see and when.

The time warp happens when the algorithms feed you old information. Looking closely at your feed, you will see posts from hours, days, months, and years ago. Even though news and sports have been about what's happening now, posts show me things that have happened before!

It is a content slurry that keeps you watching, clicking, and engaged.

Why It's Important

You are probably reading this to learn how to market your business better. Although you are not creating news, you are creating content with a purpose and a shelf-life.

You want to get your information in front of the right people at the right time. You are probably also working hard to connect with your clients and prospects to ensure they see your content promptly. This time warp can be a factor that gets in your way.

Also, the lack of accountability in content creation has a drip effect of eroding trust. Especially if you don't actively work to continually reinforce that you are not just creating and sharing content without research, context, and real value that builds trust.

In a world where news isn't new, and facts are malleable, you will want to find a way to ensure when someone sees your content, they trust it enough to consume it.

One final fact is that social media companies will depreciate or even hide posts with links. That makes delivering depth and value a challenge.

But… There's Hope!

This is part one of a series. Over the next few weeks, I will show you some tools and techniques that you can use to overcome these challenges. While social media is still a valid and attractive tool for business, you will want to use it with your eyes wide open. Their goal is to extract money for attention. Your goal is to use that attention to make money. Profit is the motive in both cases, but you must make more than you spend to see a profit.

Businesses will face challenges in the coming year, but now is the time to set the stage for your audience to search for you, consume your content, and figure out how you can actually convince them to bring their ball to your playground.

In the next post, I will turn back time and go back to the future (or whatever other movie quotes or puns I can share) to help you become more successful. I look forward to your comments, feedback, and engagement as we embark on this journey to a prosperous new year!

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Comment below and share your thoughts, ideas, or questions about business-to-business sales and marketing today! Do you have a sales or marketing communications strategy that works for you? What tips or techniques can you share that work for you and your business?

To learn more about this and other topics on B2b Sales & Marketing, visit our podcast website at The Bacon Podcast.