To continue our recent exploration of what it means to think of your content as a “publication,” I want to bring it down to the platform level.

I recently came across a study by the social media analytics and management company Metricool, in which they delved into stats from the following social media platforms:

Pinterest, Twitch, Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube

Next week I’ll probably dig into my takeaway from the actual data, but today I mostly want to consider the above list of social media platforms, mainly because I think one of them doesn’t belong.

Every one of those platforms, save one, is designed to streamline the distribution of unprepared content, i.e. content which can be posted as soon as it’s thought of.

Of course, you can always prepare your content via your own self-discipline and artificial standards, but of the above list, only one platform carries an intrinsic standard of some form of editing/pruning/preparing.

That platform is YouTube.

I consider YouTube to be far more of a publication platform than a social media platform. In terms of the primary way the medium is used, I would say YouTube is to TikTok what Substack is to X, and clearly Substack was not considered a social media platform for purposes of this study (or at least not substantial enough of one to be included).

As I said, we’ll explore what the study has to say about YouTube next week, but for now, I’d love to hear any thoughts you have about the difference between posting and publishing (even if you don’t care and don’t see a difference either way). Feel free to hit reply and let me know!