In FIR #505, Neville and Shel dig into Hootsuite’s Social Media Trends 2026 report, which argues that social media is no longer just a communication channel — it’s morphing into a search engine, cultural radar, and real-time research tool. They explore what it means for communicators when younger audiences treat TikTok and Instagram as their primary discovery platforms, and when Google itself starts indexing social content. The conversation also tackles “fastvertising” — the growing pressure on brands to react to cultural moments within hours — and whether that speed actually translates to bottom-line results or just burnout.

The discussion takes a provocative turn when Shel raises Ethan Mollick’s warning that public forums are being systematically overrun by machine-generated content, with research suggesting one in five accounts in public conversations may be automated. They weigh the AI paradox facing communicators: generative AI has become table stakes for social media production, yet 30% of consumers say they’re less likely to choose a brand whose ads they know were AI-created. Neville and Shel agree that social media can serve as both a publishing channel and a listening tool — but only if human-to-human communication can survive the rising tide of bot-generated noise.

Links from this episode:

The next monthly, long-form episode of FIR will drop on Monday, March 23.

We host a Communicators Zoom Chat most Thursdays at 1 p.m. ET. To obtain the credentials needed to participate, contact Shel or Neville directly, request them in our Facebook group, or email fircomments@gmail.com.

Special thanks to Jay Moonah for the opening and closing music.

You can find the stories from which Shel’s FIR content is selected at Shel’s Link Blog. You can catch up with both co-hosts on Neville’s blog and Shel’s blog.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this podcast are Shel’s and Neville’s and do not reflect the views of their employers and/or clients.

Raw Transcript:

Shel: Hi everybody, and welcome to episode number 505 of For Immediate Release. I’m Shel Holtz.

Neville: And I’m Neville Hobson. Social media might be going through its biggest change since the rise of the news feed, and it’s happening quietly. Platforms that started as places to connect with friends are increasingly acting like search engines, cultural sensors, and even market research tools. It’s been a while since Shel and I talked about social media on the podcast, and frankly, that’s partly because the conversation often feels repetitive. New platforms appear, algorithms change, someone declares the death of Twitter again. That’s the kind of format that we seem to be following. But every now and then, a report comes along that suggests something deeper is happening. Hootsuite’s new Social Media Trends 2026 report published last month argues that social media is no longer just a communication channel. It’s becoming something much broader — part search engine, part cultural radar, and part market research lab. Take search, for example. Younger users increasingly treat platforms like TikTok or Instagram as search tools. Instead of Googling “best coffee shop in London,” they search TikTok and watch short videos from real people recommending places to go. And now Google itself has started indexing Instagram posts and surfacing short-form social video in search results. The line between social media and search is starting to blur. At the same time, we’re seeing a strange tension around artificial intelligence. According to the report, most social media managers now use generative AI tools every day to write captions, brainstorm ideas, edit images or video. But audiences are increasingly suspicious of content that feels automated or synthetic. More than 30% of consumers say they’re less likely to choose a brand if they know its ads were created by AI. So brands are in a curious position. AI is becoming essential behind the scenes, but the content that performs best often needs to feel unmistakably human. And culturally, social media itself is fragmenting. The report points to what it calls Gen Alpha Chaos Culture — absurd memes, distorted audio, and intentionally chaotic editing styles that dominate TikTok among younger audiences. Meanwhile, older audiences — that’s you and me, Shel — are gravitating towards almost the opposite aesthetic: nostalgic references to the ’80s and ’90s, calming, cozy content, and even posts about slow living and digital detox. I do some of that, but I also do the other stuff too. So it’s hard to pigeonhole me, I have to tell you that. So reading this report left me wondering something slightly provocative. Maybe social media isn’t really social anymore. If discovery is driven by algorithms and search behavior rather than who you know, perhaps these platforms are evolving into something else — systems that surface information, culture, and trends in real time. Which raises the bigger question for communicators. Are we still thinking about social media as a place to publish content? Or is it becoming something much more powerful — a tool for understanding behavior, culture, and trust as it unfolds online? Which leads me to a first question. If people increasingly discover products, places, and even news through TikTok or Instagram rather than Google, does that fundamentally change how communicators should think about social media?

Shel: I absolutely think so. I mean, this shift deserves way more attention, I think, than it’s been getting from marketers and communicators. We’re looking at a fundamental change in how people get information. The rise of social media as a primary search engine — this is not a fringe behavior. In 2026, this is going to be the dominant reality for a massive swath of the population. Brands are just starting to get their arms around AEO. And now they’re going to have to apply the same efforts to social content that they’ve historically reserved for traditional search engine optimization. So captions and alt text and subtitles aren’t going to be nice-to-haves. These are the bedrock of discoverability. And there’s a specific angle here for those of us in internal communications too. I mean, if employees are using TikTok and Instagram the way they used to use Google to make personal decisions, we have to ask if that behavior is bleeding into their professional research. And there’s data that suggests it is. A company called Alpha P-Tech did a study and found that 75% of B2B buy-side stakeholders are going to use social media to gather information about vendors and solutions this year. So this isn’t just a consumer trend. This is a professional evolution too.

Neville: Yeah, I would agree with that, I think. I mean, there’s a lot to unpack here from Hootsuite’s report. And I think it’s, you know, I throw out thoughts that occurred to me when I was reading this. It talks about something I’d not encountered before, whether you have — fast, if I pronounce it right, even it’s a manufactured word — fastvertising. So the word “fast” with “vertising” from advertising, right? Fastvertising. The question actually is, does the fastvertising culture create more risk for communicators, things moving so fast, where, according to Hootsuite, brands now feel pressure to react to trends within hours, if not less than that even? So reacting too quickly can lead to tone-deaf, poorly thought-through posts, I would say, as does Hootsuite, in fact. Are we moving into a world, then, where social media requires newsroom-style judgment and governance? What do you think?

Shel: Well, yes, and I think we’ve been there for a while. We remember the — what were they called — the war rooms that social media teams for various brands were using. Remember Oreo during their 100 Days of Oreo several years ago now. And they had a newsroom that was looking for trends so they could take the one that was planned based on somebody’s birthday. And if something major happens, they could just switch it up and really quickly knock one out that was relevant to what was in the news. I remember they had one...

FIR #505: Social Media’s Big Shift