There's a business founder I know. The kind that builds in silence and ships in small releases. He doesn't have a big following, no social media team on hand. Just a vision and a real product that answers a real-world need.

He built a tool for developers. Nothing fancy or flashy. Not viral. Not a "disruptive" product or business. Just a solid product that helps developers streamline their work.

Naturally, after completing the tool, he tried to spread the word the way most of us were taught:

Posting on every social channel possible. He shared updates. He showed features. Added hashtags. Following "best practices" from every marketing expert out there.

Well, you guessed it, it didn't work.

Despite posting consistently on many social platforms, his posts engagement was very low and views were even lower. And the worst part, posts never reached the people who needed what he built.

Until one day, something changed.


One morning, he shared a 20-second clip. A video he made on his phone, just a simple before-and-after of a developer workflow that his tool dramatically streamlined.

There was no hook at the start of the video. Not even a flashy caption or trending audio. Just context and clarity. That one post outperformed everything before it, and by a lot.

But here's the twist: the traffic didn't come from his own followers. It came from strangers. From people who didn't know him, didn't follow him, and hadn't even known his name or channel before.

So, what happened? What was the big change?


Social media is no longer "social". It's not about who you follow any more. It's not about who follows you back. It's about what your audience care about and what the algorithm thinks will interest your audience.

We've moved from a social graph to an interest graph. And this move changes everything.

TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, even LinkedIn. They all now prioritize content based on relevance and interest, not relationships.

If your post aligns with a specific interest or a use case, and delivers high value with clarity, it will get shown. Yes, even if you have 17 followers it will show up to more and more people.

This is the power (and the opportunity) of Interest Media.


It wasn't optimized for reach, and it wasn't designed for virality. It was simply useful. It had:

• A clear and relatable problem.
  
• A clean and structured solution.
  
• It was in simple down-to-earth language.
  
• It was just real.

It didn't ask for likes or followers. It wasn't click-bait optimized. It just helped the audience with their problem.

And the algorithm took it from there, matching it with thousands of developers and specific audience looking for that exact solution having that exact pain.

So, you can see that the business founder didn't go viral. He just went relevant.


Whether you're a solo founder, a small business, or a small marketing team trying to break through the noise, this shift means you need a new step-by-step playbook.

Forget about follower's count. Forget the metrics you were used to. Forget trying to go viral hard and fast.

Start thinking like a platform's algorithm editor.

The question you need to ask yourself now is: If a social platform's algorithm was curating the best content for a specific topic or pain point would my post make the cut?

If not, here's how you can change that:


Clarify the use case.
Be brutally specific on the use case and the audience you target. What exact problem do you solve? For whom? And how?

Use structure.
Think: Hook - Pain/Problem - Value - Close. Use clear titled sections with headlines, bullet points and clear text. No fluff. Make it scannable for social platform's algorithm. Make it as useful as possible for your audience.

Each platform matters.
TikTok is not LinkedIn is not Instagram etc. Tailor each piece of content and tone to each platform's behavior and specific audience. (TikTok audience is young, LinkedIn audience are businesses).

Create for a broad audience.
Do not focus your content on your followers. Create content that earns discovery. That earns the right to be recommended by the interest algo.

Be human. Be nice. Be helpful.
Drop the Mambo Jumbo tech jargon and cut the fluff in more than health. Imagine your audience's pain points and struggles on the other side of the screen and serve them, help them!


That founder post didn't chase a trend. He didn't hire a growth team to help him out. He didn't post three times a day on specific hours.

He shared something useful, clearly and positively. And the algorithm rewarded him for that.

This is the new era of content. Don't play the old social game anymore. Learn to win the Interest Media game today.

The shift from "Social Media" to "Interest Media" reflects a change in how online platforms are used. Instead of prioritizing connection with specific people, platforms are now driven by algorithms that favor content aligned with a user's individual interests.

Need a step-by-step complete framework for shifting your strategy to Interest? Download it here.


To your 5X success.

Chen Furstenberg.
The WHMCS Team.