Social media is the biggest opportunity small businesses are ignoring

Executive overview

The largest brands in the world are still spending on TV commercials nobody watches and debating AI that isn't ready. Small businesses and entrepreneurs can take market share right now by doing what big brands won't: producing platform-native social media content at volume.

The arbitrage is real — big brands are missing social, so the window is open for everyone else.

Creative must match the platform and the mindset

• The same person on LinkedIn and TikTok is in a different psychological state — content must reflect that.
• Creative is contextual to both the distribution channel and the consumer's mindset within it.
• Tailoring content per platform is not new; radio, print, and TV ads were always context-specific.

Television is already over

• A 69-year-old watching YouTube and skipping ads proves this isn't just a youth trend.
• Connected TV, Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube have already replaced linear television for most viewers.
• Live sports is the last holdout — but even ESPN is moving to OTT.
• Once a platform is on the remote, older generations adopt it; that tipping point has passed.

The opportunity for small businesses right now

• Big brands at Cannes were talking about TV spots and future AI — not social media creative.
• The gap between where attention is and where big-brand spend goes is the arbitrage.
• A single TikTok video (the Ocean Spray skateboard clip) sold out a product nationally — that is the scale of opportunity.
• Entrepreneurs and PE-owned brands that master social creative now can take real market share.

Career advice for marketers

• Humility is the core skill: recognise what you don't know and ask engineers, data people, or whoever holds the knowledge.
• Put yourself in roles where you are out of your depth — that is where the learning accelerates.
• Chase the category you genuinely love first; two bad years at 22 still leaves you young enough to pivot.