In the early days of social media, platforms were primarily social graphed. Meaning the algorithm showed your content mostly to people who followed you. My growth in this era depended heavily on building a follower base, and my content distribution was tied to who I knew and who knew me.
Today, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are largely interest-based algorithm systems. Instead of asking “Who follows you?”, the algorithm asks, “What is this person interested in right now?” Interest-based media means that content is now distributed based on behavior, not on followers. The algorithm looks for signals like watch time, engagement patterns, and search signals. It no longer just feeds my follower relationships, but instead serves my content to interest relationships. These are what matter most now.
Old social media rewarded popularity, while the new social media rewards relevance.
For years, social media was all about popularity. The more followers you had, the more reach you got. If I wanted distribution, I focused on growing my audience. This is the model most of us content creators who have been around for a while have learned. But that’s not the model anymore. What I think many creators haven’t fully understood is that all the major algorithms have now moved from a social graph to an interest graph, and we are entering a different era… what I would call the commerce graph era!
In the social graph era, if I wanted to launch a product, I needed scale first. It made sense to wait until my following hit substantial numbers because a bigger audience meant a bigger opportunity. When I got my first book deal, I had over 150,000 followers just on Instagram alone. Those were the numbers lead to sales at the time.
Interest Graph Era
In the interest graph era that has been the most prevalent since 2020, platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts distribute content based on behavior, not just relationships. This has been a HUGE shift for content distribution. A small account can now reach people actively interested in a specific niche, whether or not they follow it! If someone is watching video after video about graduation party decor, the algorithm feeds them more of it. If I design a product that fits directly into this interest stream and demonstrate it creatively, I don’t need 100,000 followers. I just need alignment. That’s the difference between popularity and relevance.
The best thing about this is that relevance beats follower count on social media, with purchases driven by it rather than by follower count. Especially for small, simple product ideas.
The Commerce Graph Era
But here’s where I think it gets even more important for creators who want to build real businesses. What’s next? We are moving into the commerce graph era. Social platforms are no longer just distributing content; they are integrating transactions. Discovery and checkout occur within the same scroll session. The forerunner to all this, TikTok Shop, has now compressed the funnel entirely.
- We’ve gone from: Build followers + Send traffic = Convert off-platform
- To: Match interest + Demonstrate value = Purchase in-app
The friction is shrinking! Which is great news for creators looking to launch their own product lines. When I scaled my physical product lines, I wasn’t relying on popularity. I was relying on niche depth. I understood what my audience searched for, seasonal demand, what they were already buying, and where the gaps existed. The algorithm shift accelerates this advantage. This is why I believe the creators who will win in this next phase are not necessarily the biggest; they are the most aligned.
If I were starting today, I wouldn’t ask, “How do I grow as fast as possible?”
I would ask, “What are people already deeply interested in, and how can I build inside that?”
I would choose a tightly defined niche, study what people search for on social platforms, and pay attention to patterns in what content gets replayed, saved, and watched. Then I would design one product that fits into that interest stream and create short-form content that clearly demonstrates it. The opportunity now isn’t in becoming viral or famous. It’s in becoming findable inside an interest-focused ecosystem.
Are you interested in finding yours?
Join me in my product launch course to work through the entire process from discovering your focused ecosystem to successfully launching your first product this year.
– Happy Selling, Victoria