I’ve written quite a few of these for other people over the years.

I had originally sketched out these ideas for a LinkedIn post to go live in January, but once I’d written the first draft it was clear it would work better as a full article.

I’d been toying with the idea of starting a newsletter for a few months anyway, and this tipped me over the edge into making it happen. In the weeks since I first wrote it, I’ve seen and heard some things that have raised my confidence in some of them.

At the end of the year I’ll do a wrap up and see how well/poorly I did. In the meantime, enjoy!

Everyone reads these things for the tactical bits, so that’s where we’ll start:

LinkedIn has been on an interesting journey these last few years, stepping into the role that Twitter/X used to fill. It’s the place where companies feel comfortable promoting themselves, and, unlike Twitter, it has less of a culture of trolling. I guess using real names will do that.

Over the last year we’ve seen the LinkedIn team tweaking the algorithm more towards surfacing content based on topics, rather than networks (the so-called) content graph model, as well as efforts to improve quality with the crackdown on engagement pods and surfacing older content.

The net effect has been positive: for my part, I saw my reach drop, but engagement with my content has gone up - more comments, follows and DMs - especially from people outside of my network.

This all adds up to more relevant content for LinkedIn users.

As LinkedIn has done this, it has slowly morphed into more of a ‘traditional’ social media platform. As with all other social media channels, consumer brands are starting to take notice.

Just a few days into the year, the founder of luxury coat brand Norwegian Wool told Scott Galloway’s podcast that they were starting to see good results on Linkedin (clip here).

Historically, LinkedIn’s typically higher advertising costs have been a blocker to consumer brands. If you’re a luxury brand making luxury margins, that rule may not apply.

To be clear, this is still very much in the realm of speculation - Norwegian Wool only ran 13 ads in the past year, and every luxury brand I looked at was in a similar ballpark or wasn’t running any.

If this starts to scale though, it’s easy to see where it might lead. LinkedIn could be a natural home for all kinds of work-related consumer products, from officewear to desks.

All this amounts to LinkedIn turning into the social media equivalent of a glossy magazine, with a focus on high quality content and ads for high-end products.

Prediction: consumer brands (luxury in particular) start and scale ad buying on LinkedIn

Of course, if luxury brands with their savvy social media teams start to move in, that makes the war for attention harder for B2B brands trying to create thought leadership and earn attention. So where do they go?

Well, that’s my next prediction…

The money is in the email list, as the saying goes. And Substack’s evolution in recent years refines that point a little: the money is in the email list, if you can get people to sign up.

Substack has been around for almost a decade, and in recent years has started to shift more in the direction of conventional social media to help users find subscribers. It’s working.

Data from Exploding Topics shows Substack now receives 111 million monthly visitors, and Backlinko data shows usage is up 66% over the past year.

Perhaps more importantly, its focus on newsletters (and the fact it’s structured around earning paying subscribers) means the platform is built for those looking to produce longform, thoughtful work.

It’s only a matter of time before brands - especially B2B brands that can most benefit from thought leadership - recognise that and start to lean in. In fact, some already are.

A few weeks ago Andreessen Horowitz, the venture firm (and longstanding believers in owned media) announced their monster $15bn(!) fundraise not with a press release and a video on LinkedIn, but with a profile by prominent Substacker Packy McCormick.

Of course, creating high quality content for a newsletter at a regular cadence requires significantly more research than social content. But I believe this will act as a forcing function, weeding out brands with more generic offerings and optimising for those who have a genuine content strategy and something interesting to share.

To be clear: user numbers are still miles behind other social media platforms, but what matters is intent - why are people there?

People come to Substack to read and learn. Compare the content of the top-earning creators on Substack to those on any other platform and you’ll see what I mean.

Individual creators have been able to use it to make millions writing longform features about technology and finance topics. Users aren’t afraid of technical material or of arguments that need time to develop.

The UK Prime Minister has even recently created a Substack in an attempt to counteract criticism of his government’s comms operation. I think it’s the right move if they do it right, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Prediction: Early adopter corporates will start using Substack as one of their main content channels

Perhaps you saw this Wall Street Journal story when it was published last year:

Or this in the Times of London:

Every content strategist in the world (myself included) posted about it. I suppose it was inevitable on some level - give marketers a) a mention in a serious paper and b) a reason to justify their existence and we’re all bound to jump on it. But is it just a fluff piece that landed, or is there something more going on?

To be clear, there are far more articles about the predicted job apocalypse for writers and writing roles (less hard data though, admittedly), but there have been a number of interesting datapoints cropping up.

Besides the ‘storyteller’ stories flagged above, big private equity investors have been investing in building up their PR and content capabilities ahead of a push into retail markets. This follows a number of content experts going to big roles, including at Andreessen, the firm I mentioned earlier, iCapital, and European private equity leader EQT.

More tellingly, though, we actually see the big AI companies hiring humans to lead their content and owned media strategies:

Prediction: increased demand for content strategy roles, especially at senior/leadership levels.

It seems clear to me that going forward, all content and strategy roles are going to look a lot more like editor/product leader roles.

But this all ties back to the fundamental way that I think content should work anyway: by focusing on building content platforms, rather than just focusing on creating content.

It’s bad form to open with a quote, but I’m going to do it anyway:

“My view is that modern communications isn’t communications - it’s content. You’ve got to stop thinking about what journalists are writing and whether [you] can take them our for lunch and try to influence them. Just make sure your content is electric and spellbinding, and then everything flows from that.”

That’s a quote from political correspondent Lewis Goodall late last year, talking about what the UK government needed to do to fix their media strategy (as I mentioned earlier, they are now attempting to follow this advice).

He’s talking about a platform strategy. The power and influence of the traditional media has gradually decreased since the dawn of social media.

It’s still important to engage with them, and with the relevant people on new media platforms, but it’s also possible now to build and service standalone content platforms in a way that was far more difficult before.

And no, this isn’t yet another content person saying “you should have a podcast”. When I say ‘platform’, what I mean is a content product that has a clearly defined value proposition and audience. The same platform may span multiple channels.

Think of it like a magazine that exclusively covers the issues that your company was created to solve.

Content should not be about ‘getting your message out there’ it’s about giving your audience something they value. A commercially valuable content platform is something that appeals to the same target audience as your commercial offering, and gives them something they want that relates to it (for example, gut-health company Zoe’s podcast regularly interviews nutritionists on the latest science around nutrition, and answers common questions on diet).

Platforms work for two reasons:

Many of the best, content-native companies already operate from a platform-first perspective. In fact, for a number of years many have made it part of their M&A strategy, buying up the best platforms in the spaces they care about: Hubspot bought The Hustle, SEMRush bought Backlinko, and last year Andreessen Horowitz bought podcast network Turpentine, making its founder a General Partner in the process.

In some ways it’s strange that it’s taken so long - everyone understands buying ad space in a newspaper, but so few people think about whether they could build or buy a newspaper (or TV channel, or radio station) just for their audience, one for which they would then own all of the advertising space.

I realise this is supposed to be a prediction, not a sermon on what-good-content-strategy-looks-like, so here it is:

Prediction: I believe we’ll see a big financial services company acquire a media company this year. Not a data platform (that was last year), an editorial-driven platform like a podcast, blog or even magazine.

So, this means the future is bright?

Not quite.

Unfortunately, too few companies think strategically about how they go to market. If they do content at all, they publish stuff that’s a me-too version of what their rivals do, or blogs about “Why we’re the best”.

Your content shouldn’t say you’re the best, it should provide value in a way that illustrates what you offer and why you’re different. Your audience will decide if you’re the best.

A good content strategy requires discipline to stick with a key message for a long time, across a range of formats, without detouring into every appealing distraction that comes along.

It also requires creativity to find fresh, engaging angles to talk about these topics for long enough for them to sink in.

Both of these things are difficult to maintain over the long term, especially in a corporate environment with multiple competing priorities and misaligned incentives.

Ultimately though, that’s a good thing for those who are willing to be disciplined and creative, because the opportunities now are bigger than ever.

What did you like about this week’s newsletter? What did you hate? Please hit reply and let me know!

If you enjoyed this edition of Owned, please forward to a friend.