3 Social Media Trends You Need to Know for 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary: Social Media Marketing Talk Show - Episode 3: 3 Social Media Trends You Need to Know for 2025

Host: Michael Stelzner, Social Media Examiner
Guest: Sean Cannell, Think Media Podcast
Release Date: January 11, 2025
Episode Title: 3 Social Media Trends You Need to Know for 2025

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Introduction

In Episode 3 of the "Social Media Marketing Talk Show," host Michael Stelzner teams up with Sean Cannell of the Think Media Podcast to delve into the pivotal social media trends set to shape the landscape in 2025. Drawing from their extensive experience and recent viral discussions, they explore how changing algorithms, the surge in authenticity, and the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) are poised to redefine content creation and marketing strategies.

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1. Changing Social Media Algorithms Impacting Reach and Engagement

Key Discussion Points:

• Declining Reach Across Platforms: Sean Cannell highlights a universal issue faced by content creators—declining visibility and engagement on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and LinkedIn. This trend stems from algorithmic shifts prioritizing personalized content feeds over traditional follower-based visibility.

  Sean Cannell (04:30): "If you are seeing declining reach, views, exposure across all the platforms, first of all, you're not alone."

• Algorithmic Prioritization of Interest-Based Content: Drawing parallels to TikTok's "For You" feed, Cannell explains that algorithms now prioritize content based on user behavior and interests rather than subscriptions. This results in users encountering more content from unfamiliar creators, making it challenging for established channels to maintain their subscriber base's visibility.

  Sean Cannell (05:23): "The social platforms have learned that despite the action that you take to follow a page or YouTube channel or whatever, they kind of learn what you're interested in based on your behavior."

• Shift from Vanity Metrics to Meaningful Engagement: The discussion emphasizes the diminishing importance of vanity metrics like follower counts and subscribers. Instead, the focus is shifting to attracting the "right" audience—those genuinely interested in a creator's niche and likely to engage or convert.

  Sean Cannell (06:24): "That has become a metric that's not as important anymore. It's a vanity metric."

• Avoiding Burnout Through Quality Over Quantity: Cannell warns against the common misconception of countering reduced reach by merely increasing posting frequency, which can lead to creator burnout without addressing the core issue of engagement quality.

  Sean Cannell (04:53): "Everything else gets smaller. So the new reframe now is not more is better. It's not more subscribers, more followers, more this, more that. What's the new reframe is right is better than more."

Notable Quote:

Sean Cannell (09:13): "So if they cannot retain people on the platform, they're gonna give that content to someone else, because all of these people have a limited amount of time on the platform."

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2. Authenticity as the New Currency in Content Creation

Key Discussion Points:

• Audience Craves Authenticity Over High-Effort Entertainment: In response to algorithm-driven entertaining content that often feels inauthentic, Cannell posits that audiences are increasingly seeking genuine, raw, and unpolished stories they can emotionally connect with.

  Sean Cannell (13:25): "People crave authenticity. There's so much fakeness on the social platforms, and if anything, TikTok has made it worse."

• Shift to Vulnerable Storytelling: The trend moves towards creators sharing behind-the-scenes struggles, failures, and personal stories, fostering deeper connections with their audience. This approach not only enhances engagement but also builds a loyal community.

  Sean Cannell (20:51): "Start experimenting with being vulnerable. Every single thing that happens in your business is a potential lesson."

• Effectiveness Across Platforms: Authenticity transcends medium, whether through written text on platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook or through video content on YouTube. Cannell provides examples of creators who have successfully leveraged authenticity to grow their channels.

  Sean Cannell (17:28): "Authenticity is the new currency. And we've been seeing in the YouTube world some of the videos... talking about struggle."

• Engagement Metrics Aligned with Authentic Content: Authentic content tends to generate richer comments and meaningful interactions, which, in turn, are favored by algorithms, further enhancing visibility and connection.

  Sean Cannell (19:56): "The algorithms love this. The reason they love this is because people are actively engaging with this content."

Notable Quote:

Sean Cannell (21:15): "Nobody cares about how to anymore. They care about why they want to know the story."

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3. Artificial Intelligence as a Disruptive Force in Content Creation

Key Discussion Points:

• AI’s Expansive Capabilities Beyond Text Generation: Cannell outlines the multifaceted applications of AI in content creation, including photorealistic image generation and video editing enhancements, illustrating how AI tools are revolutionizing the creative process.

  Sean Cannell (24:33): "AI can create photorealistic images that I guarantee you would not know were AI generated... AI is already beginning to do video."

• Exponential Growth of AI-Driven Creators: With advancements in AI, a new wave of creators equipped with sophisticated tools is emerging. This democratization of content creation enables individuals to produce high-quality content rapidly, intensifying competition but also leveling the playing field for newcomers.

  Sean Cannell (25:10): "A whole new class of creators is about to be born... OpenAI is going to allow people to become creators that never realize that they were creators."

• Strategic Adoption as a Competitive Edge: Cannell emphasizes the urgency for creators to integrate AI into their workflows to enhance productivity, creativity, and output. Those who adapt swiftly will gain a significant advantage over those who remain hesitant.

  Sean Cannell (28:37): "Your opportunity is to actually sprint right now. That is your opportunity because you will have the competitive edge."

• Skepticism and Overcoming Resistance: Addressing skepticism, Cannell points to widespread AI adoption statistics and underscores the importance of continuous learning and adaptation to stay relevant in the evolving landscape.

  Sean Cannell (27:19): "There's 250 million people that are using ChatGPT paid, okay... I've been tracking this for over two years. You just need to do a little bit more research and I think your eyes will be opened."

• AI as a Catalyst for a Creative Renaissance: The integration of AI is not limited to enhancing existing processes but is set to ignite a creative renaissance by offering tools that expand the boundaries of what creators can achieve.

  Sean Cannell (24:57): "We are at the early stages of a creative renaissance that is powered by artificial intelligence. It will disrupt everything."

Notable Quote:

Sean Cannell (24:31): "95% of what marketers use, agencies, strategists and creative professionals for today will be easily, instantly and at almost no cost be handled by AI."

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Conclusion and Final Insights

As the podcast draws to a close, both Stelzner and Cannell reinforce the critical nature of adapting to these emerging trends. They encourage creators to:

1. Focus on Quality Over Quantity: Prioritize cultivating a dedicated and relevant audience rather than chasing vanity metrics.
2. Embrace Authentic Storytelling: Share genuine experiences and vulnerabilities to foster deeper audience connections.
3. Leverage AI for Competitive Advantage: Integrate AI tools to enhance creativity, productivity, and content quality, ensuring sustainability in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

Call to Action:

Listeners are invited to join the upcoming "Social Media Marketing World 2025" event and to stay tuned for Part Two of the episode, which will delve deeper into actionable AI tools for creators.

Michael Stelzner (34:15): "Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting socialmediamarketingworld.info."

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This comprehensive discussion between Michael Stelzner and Sean Cannell provides valuable insights into the future of social media marketing, offering actionable strategies for creators, entrepreneurs, and marketers to thrive in 2025 and beyond.

Transcript

[Michael Stelzner]

Got big marketing goals for 2025, but you're not sure how to achieve them. Learn what works from the brightest minds in marketing by attending Social media Marketing World 2025 this March. That's where you'll learn how to apply AI to your work, the latest in organic and paid marketing and strategies you can put to work right away. Secure your future by getting your tickets at social media marketing world.info I hope to see you there.

[Sean Cannell]

Hey everybody.

[Michael Stelzner]

Michael Stelzner here with a special episode. The story behind this is as follows. I was on my friend Sean Cannell's podcast, the Think Media Podcast and he interviewed me focusing on three social media trends that marketers, entrepreneurs and creators need.

[Sean Cannell]

To know for 2025. Now this video recently came out and.

[Michael Stelzner]

Went crazy viral on his channel. As of today's recording, it already has had 32,000 views.

[Sean Cannell]

And there is a second part of.

[Michael Stelzner]

This interview that's already had 10,000 views.

[Sean Cannell]

That just dropped a few days ago.

[Michael Stelzner]

So with Sean's permission, I am bringing you today the actual interview that I did with him.

[Sean Cannell]

I hope you enjoy the show.

[Unknown]

Social media and YouTube is rapidly changing.

[Sean Cannell]

Are you prepared these numbers now? Followers subscribers are useless. The social platforms are showing your followers and your fans completely different content.

[Unknown]

We are seeing more content from strangers than we are from the channels were subscribed to.

[Sean Cannell]

I'm here to tell you that I think large audience of people that spend a lot of time on the social platforms are getting a little fed up with the hypey crazy stuff that they see every day and they're looking for something different in order to counter the really high entertainment content that so many creators feel like they cannot do. There is a alternative path.

[Unknown]

In today's episode of the Think Media podcast, we're going to be talking about 3 mega social media trends you need to know for 2025 and how you can ultimately apply these. If you are starting a brand new channel or different platforms, if you're trying to break through a plateau, maybe you're not getting views like you used to, maybe you're not getting reach like you're used to and you're trying to figure out what's changed. How do I innovate? And we're going to be getting into some micro tactics throughout this episode. My guest today is Michael Stelzner who has founded multiple different projects including Social Media examiner and runs the globally renowned event Social Media Marketing World and has done a lot of really cool things. Michael welcome to the podcast, Sean.

[Sean Cannell]

Thank you man.

[Unknown]

Great to be here so I'm so excited to dive into these three mega trends. You're a social media expert and this is part one of a two part conversation. So I recommend people checking out the show notes where we go really deep in some of the newest stuff you've been going deep in and that is AI. But let's kick it off with big theme number one and that is that the social media algorithms have changed. Can you break that down?

[Sean Cannell]

Yeah, it's a, it's a really, really big problem. If you are seeing declining reach, views, exposure across all the platforms, first of all, you're not alone. That's the first thing. It's happening everywhere. The truth of the matter is that this creates a lot of problems for anyone who creates content, whether you're a creator, entrepreneur, marketer. First of all, we all create content for a purpose, right? And it's not just getting more views typically, it's ultimately trying to hopefully sell a product or a service or whatever your back end business model is. And when you post content and it's not seen as much, that means not as many people take the action that you want them to take, which might be going out and checking out your, your services or your products. And typically what happens in a lot of people's minds is like they say, okay, well I'm going to try to game the system by increasing the frequency at which I post. So instead of posting just one time a week, I'm gonna post one time a day. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh my gosh, I gotta post multiple times a day. And then all of a sudden what starts happening is you realize your reach.

[Unknown]

Is going down and what you desire is more and more reach. Cause you wanna be in front of more people. And what often happens, Sean, is burnout.

[Sean Cannell]

And I've seen it, you've seen it.

[Unknown]

It happens all over the place where.

[Sean Cannell]

People feel like they get to the.

[Unknown]

Point in their head where they're like, why am I doing this?

[Sean Cannell]

I don't understand what's happening. Something isn't working. And here's kind of what's going on. The social platforms, all of the social.

[Unknown]

Platforms, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, you name it. They are deprioritizing content from the friends.

[Sean Cannell]

For example, if it's a social network, they're deprioritizing it from businesses and they're.

[Unknown]

Also deprioritizing it from subscribers. And everybody on YouTube that has worked really hard to grow a big subscriber base can understand this. And Sean, you know this really well, right? You've got like a million plus subscribers on one of your channels. And you and I both know that.

[Sean Cannell]

They do not see ever all of.

[Unknown]

The content, despite all this work and all these years of work that you put in. So, so this is happening because really, TikTok kicked this off with this for you feed, right? So what they started doing is they started showing content based on what they believe you're interested in. And the social platforms have eventually learned this, right? They've learned that despite the action that you take to follow a page or.

[Sean Cannell]

YouTube channel or whatever, they kind of.

[Unknown]

Learn what you're interested in based on your behavior. And what they do is they show you more and more of that behavior. And the result of that is often you see content from people you've never heard of before. But it's interesting, it's entertaining, it's exciting. And what that does is it changes kind of the metrics that we used to care about, because the metrics that everybody used to care about, they want to get one of those silver play things, which, I've got one, you've got one, you know, and. Or they want a gold one, right? Or they want to get 100,000 subscribers or followers or whatever, or a million.

[Sean Cannell]

And the problem is that that has become a metric that's not as important anymore. It's a vanity metric. So the one value of having a fair amount of followers and subscribers is a concept known as social proof. Robert Cialdini, who wrote the book Influence, which is a great book, he coined the term social proof. And the concept behind social proof is.

[Unknown]

That when someone doesn't know who you.

[Sean Cannell]

Are, they look for social signals to indicate that this is someone important, this is something that is valuable. And traditional social proof is like testimonials, comments, YouTube reviews. But other forms of social proof are how many people are following them. If more people seem to follow them or they have more subscribers, I should pay attention, because there's a signal that says this is important. Because if other people think it's important, it must be important. That's a valuable thing. But I'm here to tell you it's a vanity metric when it comes to ultimately anything, any, Any real form of marketing, you know, it doesn't matter. And anybody who's ever achieved that number and begins to realize with it doesn't come more fame, with it, doesn't come more money, with it, doesn't necessarily come more opportunities. They have to kind of reframe what is important, right? So these Numbers. Now, followers, subscribers, size of network are useless outside of social proof.

[Unknown]

So.

[Sean Cannell]

This is what's happening instead. What's happening is the social platforms, as you know, are showing your followers and your fans completely different content. And this is the challenge that we're up against, is that we, as creators.

[Unknown]

Whether you be a YouTuber or a.

[Sean Cannell]

Podcaster or a writer or a photographer, we're up against this entertaining concept, this entertaining content that is out there. And it's the kind of stuff that.

[Unknown]

You see when you get stuck on.

[Sean Cannell]

TikTok or Instagram Reels or any other kind of algorithmic content. And this stuff tends to be highly entertaining. It tends to be almost impossible for your average creator to make because a.

[Unknown]

Lot of it is so fantastical that.

[Sean Cannell]

What it does is it kind of sends this signal into the brain of.

[Unknown]

Creators that I could never do that.

[Sean Cannell]

You know, I don't know what to do. And the truth of the matter is the social platforms know this kind of content is addictive.

[Unknown]

And what the platforms care about is.

[Sean Cannell]

Retaining people on platform.

[Unknown]

Sean, we've been talking about this for years. The most important metric on YouTube is what? Retention, Right? So moral of the story here is.

[Sean Cannell]

That all the platforms want you on.

[Unknown]

The platform so that they can monetize you.

[Sean Cannell]

Because the longer that you stay on.

[Unknown]

The platform, the more you're going to see advertisements.

[Sean Cannell]

And let's be clear, ads is the.

[Unknown]

Main way that all of these platforms make money. So if they cannot retain people on.

[Sean Cannell]

Platform with your content, they're gonna give.

[Unknown]

That content to someone else, because all.

[Sean Cannell]

Of these people have a limited amount of time on the platform.

[Unknown]

So we need to reframe our mindset, because what happens is the entertaining content gets bigger, everything else gets pushed out.

[Sean Cannell]

Everything else gets smaller.

[Unknown]

So the new reframe now is not more is better. It's not more subscribers, more followers, more this, more that. What's the new reframe is right is better than more. The right people is greater than more people. And that's really important. You need to attract the right people, no matter how big the number is. If you can attract the right people, then you can accomplish whatever your mission is, right? So if your mission is to sell more of your books, you need to attract the right people. If it's to sell a consultancy, it's the right people. It's not about the more people, because when you attract the more people, generally speaking, it means broader topics and it means they're probably not likely going to buy whatever it is you have to sell. So small is the new big. That's the first concept.

Well, I want to unpack a few things before we go on to the next macro trend. It's so fascinating. Basically what you're saying is that we are seeing more content from strangers than we are from the channels we're subscribed to because content is what's rising to the top. Now there's downsides, downside to this. If you're established and you've been in this a while like you and I have, because there is this quote of subscribers don't matter. And there's a lot of truth to that, that you might have a lot of subscribers but you're not actually getting the views or the reach. The opportunity is that brand new channels can post content that can get discovered. It's sometimes been called the TikTok ification of social because TikTok was so known of people going from zero to a lot of exposure without having to take years to build a following. So the content becomes the variable. Am I getting that right?

[Sean Cannell]

Yes, you are. And it's not about the new channels, it's about the right kind of content. Right. Just because you have a new channel with the wrong content, it's not going to work. I think a new. I think anyone who creates the right kind of content can get views and exposure. But I think what I'm trying to tell everybody is views and exposure alone are not going to be sufficient to sustain a long term objective here as creators, as entrepreneurs, as marketers. Instead, it's all about the right numbers. So that's the most important thing. So don't get caught up in one of your YouTube videos getting tens or hundreds of thousands or even millions of views. Because there's a pretty good chance that that probably is a very broad video and it's probably not necessarily attracting the kind of people that will ultimately buy your products and services. So it's much better for you to get a thousand people, watch a few videos or even hundreds of people of the right people to watch a few videos and then ultimately want to do business with you than to get millions of people watching the wrong videos and never wanting to do business with you.

[Unknown]

I understand. And so that's really one of the new ways forward in 2025. It's not necessarily about more views, it's about the right views and it's also then about the right business model. Thinking through that, you're, you're probably losing from the start. If you're depending on the TikTok Creator Fund or YouTube ad revenue because even if you are good at generating views in the short term, if you don't diversify your income streams or really think about a deeper and more diverse foundation financially in the creator economy, you're in trouble to the ups and downs of CPMs and RPMs and ad revenue and trends. And there's so many creators that have had 15 minutes of viral fame, but they were there yesterday and they're gone today. They're just, they're. They're. They didn't create a sustainable creator business.

[Sean Cannell]

Yeah, it's like magnesium, you know, it puts off a lot of light, but it lasts for a microsecond.

[Unknown]

Mm. Okay, so the second macro trend is authenticity matters more than ever. Explain what you mean here.

[Sean Cannell]

Okay, so in order to counter this. I don't know, Mr. Beastification, I know we've used this term before, or whatever you want to call it, in order to counter the really high entertainment content that so many creators feel like they cannot do, there is a alternative path, which I have done pretty extensively, and I'll talk about an example of it in a minute. But I'm here to tell you that I think the. The. The audience, large audience of people that spend a lot of time on the social platforms. And I'm not just talking YouTube. I'm talking all the social platforms are getting a little fed up with the hypey, crazy stuff that they see every day. And they're looking for something different. And I think what they're looking for is raw, authentic stories that they can connect to on an emotional level. And it's true that stories have always been really, really valuable, but I feel like now they're even more valuable than ever because most of the content that the social platforms focus on is like short, 30 second or less content that's designed to shock and awe people. Right? But I'm talking about something that's a little longer and something that's a little more raw and real. And we're talking about unpolished content here. We're talking about the kinds of content that most people would be afraid to share. Raw, real. And this stuff works because people crave authenticity. There's so much fakeness on the social platforms, and if anything, TikTok has made it worse. Right? Short form video has made it horribly bad. And what really, really people want is they want to hear the real, true behind the scenes. What are the struggles that are going on? And I'm going to tell you an example of one that I wrote about recently, and here's what I said. This Person, quote unquote, said, tell me why I should recommend your event. Again, he said, those are the words I heard from a passionate friend and former customer while in a crowded bar last night. We proceeded to chat for a long while.

[Unknown]

The message he said, was clear. There were only two events he recommended to everyone.

[Sean Cannell]

VidSummit, the event I'm at now, and Social Media Marketing World. But something happened that made him change.

[Unknown]

And I went on to talk about why he felt like Social Media Marketing World was not for him anymore. Now here I am, the founder and creator of this conference and I'm publicly.

[Sean Cannell]

Sharing a customer story from someone who.

[Unknown]

Really cares about me and said, I don't think this event is for you anymore. Right. And this is what I do every single week. I share these real stories of behind the scene challenges that I I face as a marketer and as an entrepreneur. I do it through text and I do it across X, LinkedIn and Facebook because those are the only three platforms that support long form. Written text, even threads is not long form. So I share these long things every single week. And there's always a little lesson in it and I've always got my some one of my products worked into the middle of it, generally speaking. Now, if I was good on video and I feel like it's not my craft, I'm not going to lie, I would probably share these very same stories on video. But my craft is the written word because I'm a writer and I'm also a podcaster. So this kind of content gets enormous engagement but doesn't get a lot of reach. So what I mean by that is I get really rich comments from people and I engage with every single comment and people are excited because they get a chance to share their thoughts on what I just wrote about. And here's what ends up happening. What ends up happening is people private message me and say, whoa, I didn't realize you were dealing with that. Or I'm dealing with that too. That's amazing. And what it does is it draws a bond between you and your audience in a way that is really, really strong. Now, I want to pause here. I don't know, Sean, does anybody do this in the YouTube world? Does this stuff work in this world?

Yeah, I mean, we said a quote at Growth Video Live, our event this past year. Authenticity is the new currency. And we've been seeing in the YouTube world some of the videos. Getting very specific to YouTube is if you're over 40, why you should start a YouTube channel. If you're over 40 and there's this massive wave of creators that are maybe in their 50s, 60s even talking about empty nesters, talking about struggle.

[Sean Cannell]

Right?

[Unknown]

Struggle.

Talking about maybe kind of being lonely, maybe kind of reinventing themselves and it's just blowing up and. And then you're seeing that across every, every vertical. You're seeing some. Because it's the. It's also the counter trend to, you know, social media on steroids eventually has a video titled, you know, how rich overnight, right? Yeah. How I, how I became a millionaire at age 13. You know, how I bought my first 10 rental properties as a 15 year old. You know, and like just this ridiculous. And so exactly what you're doing in long form text is really happening in YouTube. Some people are calling it YouTube Easy Mode because easy mode means the production value. That's not the challenge. It's not a lot of editing. Maybe there's some jump cuts because you're still trying to like, just like you would edit text, like you're sitting down and typing. It's flowing from the heart, but you kind of, you craft the message a little bit, but it's just raw. It's your heart bleeding out of just the real thing that's happening. And one of our students, Rena, was really started to tap into stuff when she started talking about menopause and just getting really real about. She kind of has a over 40s message to her community and as she got into topics and not just to chase views. And that's not even the point. Right? Because we're talking about depth, but we're talking about vulnerability, we're talking about authenticity and so. Absolutely, the video format. And let me just say as you go deeper though, that these posts resonate with me at a deep level. Like these ones show up in my feed and I'm thinking about Facebook here and the. Especially the entrepreneur stuff. When you talk about the mistakes in business and the money lost or the challenges or the self doubt or the insecurity. The funny thing is everybody listening to this. Like we all have that. Like, it's like we all are. And we're like, man, it's so people.

[Sean Cannell]

Don'T talk about that. Right? Exactly. Yeah. And by the way, this is the key part of it. The algorithms love this. Okay. The reason they love this is because people are actively engaging with this content. And what's good about the social platforms is they will find the right audience for this content. And sometimes the comment section is richer than the post itself. And a lot of people end up sharing my posts and Say, read the comments. You know, people want a place where they can share, like Cheers. You know, they want to sit around the virtual bar and they want to share the stories and the struggles and stuff like that. So that's my second thing is that start experimenting with being vulnerable. And every single thing that happens in your business is a potential lesson. Every little thing that goes wrong is a potential story. And you can start posting about these all over the place in whatever medium makes the most amount of sense for you. Audio, written word, video, it doesn't matter. I think it'll work everywhere.

[Unknown]

You know, what I love about this tactically is I actually heard Alex Hormozi share a powerful social media framework. And it was, he said one of the big shifts in social was instead of saying how to say how I. And you know, because. Because not that it is preachy, but if you say how to get views on YouTube, you're. You're saying it's 100.

[Sean Cannell]

Nobody cares about how to anymore. They care about why they want to know the story. That's. That's the key to the whole thing.

[Unknown]

And the story is you're not going.

[Sean Cannell]

To believe what happened to me. You know, blah, blah, blah. Or this is. This was a hard lesson for me. You know, you start with something like that, boom, you're going to hook people in.

[Unknown]

And if you're listening and you're like, well, I don't have any extraordinary results. How I. In your terms of your failures, mistakes and lessons can be incredibly powerful. Powerful. So if you're on the journey, here's.

[Sean Cannell]

The one thing I learned from this.

[Unknown]

You know, here's the one thing I learned. And so that is a. A definite 2025 trend. And even as a, as a social media hook, instead of saying, here's how to get more views on YouTube, you could say, here's how I just got a thousand views this last month. Or here's how I was ended up doing three sales even though my channel shrunk. Here's how I shrunk my YouTube channel, but increased my sales in the last 30 days as like an opening hook of content.

[Sean Cannell]

Or it could even be, here's the thing that absolutely crushed. Here's the thing that killed my channel and what I did about it. I mean, like, tell the horror stories. Trust me, everybody wants it.

[Unknown]

So that's really, really good. And so authenticity is the new currency. And as we go to number three, I do want to pose a couple questions. If you're listening to this, how can you stop chasing more views but start actually positioning your content to get the right views, because right is greater than more and the algorithms are changing. And then the second big theme is authenticity matters more than ever. So what areas could you maybe create some of your next videos, some of your next content in sharing the real and the raw and really connecting with people? And then the third big mega trend is AI will disrupt everything. What do you mean by that?

[Sean Cannell]

Well, first of all, it's quite literally true. And if you don't believe it, if you don't believe me now, you will believe me later. Here's first, how I want to frame this. If everybody could go back in time and talk to a younger version of themselves, let's say five, 10 years ago, would you tell yourself, hey, this YouTube thing is going to be kind of big. Get started now. Or would you tell yourself, hey, this TikTok thing, this musical ly thing, it's kind of big. I think you should start now. You know, what would you tell your younger self, given what you know now about what is hot and popular right now? Well, I'm here to tell you that this is your chance to do that to yourself without having to go back in time. Because almost exactly two years ago, from the moment this video goes live was November 30, 2022. And you probably remember what I'm about to talk about, because you probably learned about it in December or January. That's when Chat GPT came out. And Chat GPT was one of those what the heck is this, this is a big deal kind of moments for a lot of us, right? But listen to what Sam Altman, who is the CEO of the company that actually introduced ChatGPT, said in March of 2024. Here's what he said. 95% of what marketers use, agencies, strategists and creative professionals for today will be easily, instantly and at almost no cost be handled by AI. Okay, that's a quote.

[Unknown]

That's a quote is insane.

[Sean Cannell]

Okay, here he is, okay? And here's what you need to know about him. Okay? Open AI is yet to release the beast. Okay? They Chat GPT the way you know.

[Unknown]

It was probably been in production for two years, okay?

[Sean Cannell]

So you have to understand that there are stuff that they're working on behind the scenes that they know that we do not know.

[Unknown]

So you have to ask yourself, what.

[Sean Cannell]

Does Sam Altman know that the rest.

[Unknown]

Of the world doesn't know yet?

[Sean Cannell]

What's this wake up call that's going to come?

[Unknown]

And this is what this really means.

[Sean Cannell]

What this really means is that a.

[Unknown]

Whole new class of creators is about to be born. They're not here yet.

[Sean Cannell]

In the same way, Photoshop opened up the world of photography in a way.

[Unknown]

That we could never imagine. Because all of a sudden, Photoshop made everyday people amazing photographers. And Photoshop allowed incredible creative things to happen. And we all probably use Photoshop if we're doing thumbnails and all this kind of stuff, right? And we understand the power of it, right? And it's only getting better. Well, guess what? OpenAI is going to allow people to become creators that never realize that they were creators, because it's going to give them all the tools that they need to be able to produce content in mass. And if you think there's a lot of competition today, mark my words, it's going to 10x in the next 12 months, okay? You're going to see creators popping up left and right and they're going to go from ideation to execution faster than you could ever possibly imagine. And that's a really, really big deal. Secondly, right now, people think of AI and they look at it from the wrong perspective. They think AI is Chat GPT and it's just a flashing cursor on their screen and they put in a sentence and it outputs text and makes up lies. They have no idea that AI can do so much more than text. AI can create photorealistic images that I guarantee you, you would not know were AI generated. I showed some to Sean when we were prepping for this show and his mind was blown. AI is already beginning to do video. As a matter of fact, within a matter of weeks from when this show came out, Photoshop released their AI stuff for Adobe Premiere Pro and they can now extend shots by a couple of seconds, you know, and they can carry on that stuff. I mean, there's so much stuff you can do with AI. We are at the early stages of a creative renaissance that is powered by artificial intelligence. It will disrupt everything. And I'm not just talking about the creative industry. Quite literally, it's going to disrupt everything.

Well, I want to encourage listeners to be a part of part two, because we're going to go deep on AI, but if we unpack this at a trends level, I think there's probably some skeptics and I'm curious what you would say to them. If they think that AI is being overhyped right now or it's not coming as fast as we think. What would you say?

[Sean Cannell]

Well, there's 250 million people that are using chat GPT paid, okay, 250 million. That's almost the entire population of the United States that are using ChatGPT paid right now. So I'm just, I'm just honoring the ignorance of it. I get it. But trust me, I track this stuff every day. I've got a podcast called AI Explored. Where, where, where I'm tracking this stuff and I am a bit of a futurist. I can see where this is going. I've been tracking this for over two years. You just need to do a little bit more research and I think your eyes will be opened.

[Unknown]

My other question here is for those that are feeling overwhelmed, obviously listen to part two of our podcast because we're going to talk about some of the tools and how you can implement this. The quote you said was pretty, in a way, scary. You said competition is going to increase 10x in the next 12 months. I agree with you. I think that sounds pretty overwhelming when it feels like already competition is fierce. But if I'm understanding what you're saying, you're not. You at least are on a level playing field with the competition because the reason it's going to increase is because this is a new generation of creators embracing AI. And so the reason you would not be able to keep up with competitors is because you're sitting on the sidelines, not continuing to learn, not diving in right now and not your opportunity is.

[Sean Cannell]

To actually sprint right now. That is your opportunity because you will have the competitive edge. Because you're listening to this video, you're listening to the audio version of this, you have the chance to learn and get ahead so that you can increase your productivity, increase your creativity, and ultimately increase your output. Because Sean and I know this, we can. We've already probably twice increased our productivity because of artificial intelligence. And those creators that are, that are really good with creating content have a chance to really take it to the next level. And you will have an edge over those that do not. And you know you don't. What's amazing is it's not going to take as much time. That's the most important thing. The big fear that's holding people back from creating great content is the amount of time. And now that can all be solved.

[Unknown]

Very, very quickly as we land the plane. Just to put a little context around this, you know, I do think that in some cases, AI seems overhyped. Like there's a lot of surface level chatter. There's not a lot of depth there. I'll say this. I think that probably some of my favorite credit card Charges that I pay every single month, willingly and gladly is I pay for ChatGPT, I pay for Gemini Advanced, I pay for vidiq and the AI coach. And my productivity has at least 2 to 4x and I'm already an assassin. I think already amongst maybe some, they might say, you know, you're putting out a decent amount of content, you're putting out a decent amount of consistently ranking videos. Reinventing yourself. But AI has blown my mind. And I recently had a conversation with, you know, Benji Travis, co author of YouTube Secrets as well, and I was talking about how, you know, I think the mistake people make in AI is they, they think, like you said, it's a blinking cursor and they just put the sentence into it. I said, I'm giving five minute prompts. I'm talking to AI all the time right now. Might sound funny, but I talk to AI more than my friends and I talk to AI. Verbal audio prompts.

[Sean Cannell]

Yeah, it talks back to you.

[Unknown]

Yeah, I talk to AI and I have business conversations. I have strategic conversations. It's making me a better communicator. With my team in Slack consolidating my ideas, I'm able to. I recently just planned out 20 videos in depth, raising the quality of the videos based off questions that I just found on the Internet and, and, and creating content around that. I'll admit the learning curve is real. So like you said, you got a sprint. And I think probably one of the biggest vulnerabilities, you know, I'm 40 and I could just say as I age, you can feel the temptation to be like, it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And sometimes you wish it was like it used to be sometimes. I started editing video back when Adobe premiere came on CD ROMs, and it was not. There was no creative cloud. There was actually no cloud. You ordered the CDs, they were shipped to your house or business, and you put them in your CD ROM to install your software. And now even the embracing of the fact that what used to take three hours in video editing in some context, takes three minutes and, and realizing, man, I got to reinvent myself. I got to keep learning. That's one thing I respect about you, is that you understand that, that like, man, if you, Eric Rees, who wrote the Lean Startup, said the only way to win is to learn faster than anybody else.

[Sean Cannell]

There's one thing I need to share here, which is really fascinating for any skeptic. Google just bought a nuclear power plant, okay? And big corporations are spending billions of dollars buying Nvidia chips. Nvidia is now one of the largest companies in the world. It's the second largest company in the world by market cap, behind Apple. Okay, they are the ones. Why are, why is Google buying nuclear power plants? Why are these huge corporations spending tens of billions of dollars buying Nvidia chips? Because they understand what we do not yet understand. That artificial intelligence requires enormous amount of power and requires enormous amount of investment. If these huge corporations, the biggest corporations in the world. Elon Musk spent billions developing factories, for lack of better words, that power these AI chips so he can get in the race. Mark Zuckerberg is spending billions of his riches to develop open source AI models. This is the biggest land race that has ever happened in the history of the world. So if they are doing that, they see something the rest of us do not. And it's crazy. All you got to do is a little research on what I just talked about this. It's an incredible opportunity. It's going to transform everything. And now is the time to get in.

[Unknown]

Well, listen, check out the show Notes to watch part two or listen and it'll be out perhaps in a week, depending on when you listen to this episode. Michael, if people want to follow you, follow your podcast. All the different stuff you're doing, give it a shout out and roll call.

[Sean Cannell]

Yeah, AI explored wherever you listen to podcasts or you can check out our YouTube channel, which is small right now.

[Unknown]

At AI examiner, amazing and Think Media podcast. Subscribe, like share, review wherever you watch or listen. Make sure to check out the second part of my conversation, all about the best AI tools for creators. How to start learning about this so you can sprint and seize this opportunity. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel. This is the Think Media podcast and we'll catch you in the next one.

[Michael Stelzner]

By the way, Sean Cannell and I will both be speaking at Social Media Marketing World. So if you want to meet us, be sure to get your ticket and join us there. Social media marketing world.info is where you.

[Sean Cannell]

Can get the ticket.

[Michael Stelzner]

And by the way, if you go to social mediaexaminer.com think you can go ahead and listen to the rest of this special interview on YouTube where I talk about all the AI trends again. Social mediaexaminer.com think catch you next time. Make 2025 your best year ever. Grab your discount tickets to Social Media Marketing World right now by visiting social mediamarketingworld.info.