The Quiet Shift in Social Media Behaviour
I've noticed something weird about how I use TikTok.
I'm on it constantly. Scrolling through. Finding genuinely funny stuff. Occasionally pausing to actually watch something twice because it's that good. But if you looked at my profile, you'd think I'm basically a ghost account with a randomly generated username.
In our family WhatsApp groups, we share TikToks constantly.
Funny videos. Travel clips. Relatable content. Things that make us laugh. Things that make us think.
But here’s the interesting part, almost none of that engagement actually happens on TikTok itself.
In fact, my own TikTok profile probably looks like I barely exist - I never really thought about how strange that is until recently. I don’t post content. I rarely like anything, I don’t really follow creators.
My username is basically just a string of numbers because I never intended to “build a profile” there in the first place.
I’m there to be entertained and consume content.
But, when I find something worth sharing? I copy the link and send it privately through WhatsApp.
The Numbers Don't Match the Behaviour
Meta themselves have openly acknowledged this shift. During recent FTC discussions, internal data showed that time spent viewing friends’ content has significantly declined across both Facebook and Instagram.
Facebook friend-content viewing fell from 22% to 17%
Instagram fell from 11% to 7%
Ofcom data reported that less than half of UK adult social media users now actively post, comment or publicly share content, dropping from 61% to 49%.
But here's what's also happening simultaneously, people are messaging more. Sharing more. Sending stuff to specific people constantly.
Nobody talks about that shift much, probably because it's harder to measure and definitely harder to advertise against.
When I really think about my own behaviour, it's wild. I could spend an hour on TikTok, genuinely entertaining hour, and never like or comment on a single thing. Not because I didn't enjoy it. Just because that's not how I interact with the platform anymore. But I might forward five videos to mates. Actually send them links through WhatsApp or iMessage or whatever.
Which one of those is more engaged behaviour? The algorithm says it's the silent scrolling. But honestly, the private sharing feels more genuine.
The Rise of Dark ‘Social’
Marketers call it "dark social" basically content moving through private channels that analytics software can't track.
WhatsApp. DMs. Email. Slack. SMS. Group chats. All the invisible places where content actually spreads. It’s estimated to drive around 32% of digital conversions, despite being largely invisible in analytics platforms.
The wild part is how much of this is probably happening without anyone really knowing. A post with three comments might be getting forwarded hundreds of times. A video that looks dead on the platform itself could be making the rounds through group chats for weeks.
And here's the thing, private sharing probably matters more than a public like ever did.
A video with low visible engagement may still be travelling rapidly through group chats and DMs. In many ways, private sharing is arguably a stronger signal than a public “like” , because sending something directly to another person is intentional.
It says:
“This made me think of you.”
“You need to see this.”
“This is relevant.”
“This is funny.”
“This is useful.”
That’s recommendation behaviour, which is exactly what we need when marketing holiday parks and travel experiences - as we know recommendations have always been one of the most powerful forms of marketing.
Why Platforms Feel Different Now
The original version of social media was built around your actual social circle. It was about what your friends were doing, ‘checking in’ to show of your interesting life, whole groups sprung up celebrating Sunday lunches or what you had for dinner. Let’s not forget making it ‘Facebook offical’ or those odd balls who used ‘It’s complicated’
Thats got me feeling quite nostalgic for 2016 again! But somewhere along the way, platforms quietly stopped being driven by social graphs and started being driven by interest graphs instead.
TikTok accelerated that shift massively, most people no longer open apps to “check in” on their friends they open them to see something interesting.
The algorithm now decides what you see based on what it thinks will hold your attention, not who you follow.
Ironically, I recently found myself going back onto Facebook more often, not because I suddenly became interested in seeing what old school friends had for dinner. I went back because I realised I was missing local information, community events, local recommendations and things happening near by. Even Facebook’s value to me has shifted away from social updates and towards interest-based utility.
I think marketers are still largely measuring platforms using old social media assumptions, while consumers are increasingly using them as personalised entertainment and discovery engines instead.
So What Now?
The frustrating thing is that most marketing teams are still playing the engagement game and posting National Cocktail Day like it’s 2016 again. Look at your likes. Look at your comment counts. Look at your followers. Celebrate the vanity metrics. Build strategy around the visible stuff.
Except that visible stuff might just be the tip of something much bigger happening underneath.
People are still discovering things. People are still talking about things. People are still influencing each other. It's just happening in places that don't show up in your analytics dashboard. It's quieter. Less obvious. Much harder to measure. Which means maybe marketers need to stop obsessing over whether they can see the engagement and start thinking about whether the content is actually worth sharing in the first place.
The public metrics might look quieter than they did five years ago. But the actual influence? That might be louder than ever.
