Table of Contents
Introduction: Welcome to the Interest Graph Era
Let’s not dance around it. The way social media works has changed for good. If you’re still spending late nights hunting for hashtags or hoping that a new follower will open the floodgates, you’re working with yesterday’s map. Today, it’s all about the interest graph. The algorithm serves up your content to people based on what they care about, not just who they’ve followed.
Here at Temple Brown, we’re a creative agency in Norwich with more than a passing interest in what’s happening in London and the rest of the UK, and we’ve seen this shift firsthand. Businesses who cling to the old methods are stuck treading water. Those who embrace this new model are landing leads, building bigger audiences, and making the jump from being just seen to actually being wanted.
This isn’t just another trend piece or a dry SEO play. It’s your roadmap to what actually works now. No empty waffle, just smart, actionable advice written for real businesses who want to see real results.
What Is the Interest Graph? (And Why It Matters More Than Ever)
You’ve probably heard the term “interest graph” thrown about by digital marketers, but let’s cut through the jargon. In plain English, the interest graph is how platforms like TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and even LinkedIn decide what content to put in front of users. It’s built from every click, pause, share, and search you make, creating a constantly updated profile of what you’re genuinely into, right now.
Here’s the clincher: you don’t need to follow someone for their content to show up. The algorithm reads the room, checks your viewing habits, and serves up content pillars that overlap with your interests. That’s why you can post a clever piece about Norwich’s creative scene, and it ends up in front of someone in Manchester who’s never heard of you before, but happens to be planning an event in your city.
For brands, the interest graph is pure gold if you know how to use it. It means you can reach beyond your immediate circle. It means every post has a shot at finding new, relevant eyeballs. It means you’re no longer fighting for the same tired pool of followers; you’re out there being discovered, every single day.
How Social Discovery Has Changed, And Why Followers Don’t Cut It
If you’re still chasing follower counts like it’s 2018, let’s have a word. Social platforms have changed the rules. Now, what matters is how your content matches up with live interests, not your list of followers or a pile of hashtags.
Here’s what’s really happening. The algorithm is quietly ignoring your follower count and looking at the signals: how long do people watch your videos, are they sharing, saving, commenting, actually paying attention? If the answer is yes, your content can travel much further than your existing audience, regardless of how many followers you’ve got. We’ve seen Norwich startups with 400 followers outpace influencers with 20,000, just because their content nails the interest graph.
Hashtags are still useful, but they’re not the magic ticket anymore. Platforms now scan your captions, analyse your audio, and even read the text in your graphics. If your post is about digital marketing strategy for local business, and someone in London is searching for exactly that, the algorithm does the matchmaking, hashtags or not.
This is good news. It means if your content is genuinely useful, entertaining, or insightful, you don’t need to be a social media celebrity to get real results.
Pillars: The Real Engine of Modern Social Growth
Forget content clusters; let’s talk pillars. In today’s interest graph-led world, pillars are the broad themes or categories around which you build your social presence. Done right, they help the algorithm understand what you’re about and keep your feed fresh enough to attract different segments of your potential audience.
Think of each pillar as a main artery for your content. If you’re a digital marketing agency in Norwich, your pillars might be:
- Social Media Strategy Tips
- Behind-the-Scenes at the Agency
- Norwich and London Business Stories
- Content Creation Hacks
- Industry News and Trends
Each pillar should tie directly to real business goals and search intent. If you want to show up when people look for social media management Norwich or best digital agency London, your content pillars should match those queries and go deeper, answering real questions, demonstrating expertise, and offering the occasional local flavour.
The magic is in variety. Pillars let you talk to several audiences at once, while always staying true to your brand’s core message.
Broadening Your Pillars, How to Win Now and in Five Years
Some agencies love to tell you to find your niche and stick to it. That advice is outdated. The truth is, the interest graph rewards brands that can broaden their appeal without diluting their values. If you only ever talk about social media scheduling, you’ll cap your reach and risk becoming irrelevant if interests shift.
The best strategy is to build out complementary pillars that make sense for your business and your audience. If someone loves your advice on Instagram Reels, chances are they’ll also appreciate tips on branding, local events, or even creative productivity. If your personal brand is strong, don’t be afraid to let it branch out, share your views on the industry, the region, or even the quirks of running a business in Norwich.
Here’s what happens. Your content starts showing up for a wider range of search terms and queries, like digital marketing agency UK, content creation for events, Norwich business growth. The algorithm spots the variety and matches you with new, overlapping audience groups. You build long-term resilience. If one trend fades, another pillar is ready to take its place.
That’s how you turn a steady trickle of engagement into a flood.
The Norwich and London View, Local Markets, Real Results
Let’s get real for a minute. Norwich has a knack for innovation, but there’s often a bit of humility holding local brands back from putting themselves out there. London, meanwhile, is noisy, competitive, and always looking for the next big thing.
What’s the sweet spot? Use the interest graph and pillar strategy to show both your local roots and your wider expertise. For example, a Norwich-based café that shares Local Food Stories as a pillar, highlighting their suppliers, local producers, and community events, starts picking up visitors searching best brunch Norwich and Norfolk farm café. They’re now reaching tourists and locals alike, simply by matching local interest signals.
A London agency can win by adding a Local Industry Insights pillar. Sharing stories about new creative talent, city events, and London-specific digital marketing trends helps them stand out in a crowded feed. The bonus: when someone searches creative agency Shoreditch or social media services London, they’re suddenly in the mix, without ever paying for an ad.
This approach isn’t just for the big city or the countryside. It works for any brand willing to blend their personality, expertise, and a bit of local know-how.
From Interest to Action, Why the Algorithm Now Decides
The old world of social media was all about blasting your message out and hoping the right people heard it. Today, the algorithm is the gatekeeper, and it’s paying close attention to what people want in the moment. This is where your content pillars come to life.
When you build content around themes that match what people are searching, watching, and saving, you start to show up for new audiences. This is not just luck or timing. It’s how the platforms are designed. They’re in the business of keeping people scrolling, which means they’ll surface your content to anyone whose interests match your pillars.
Here’s where the real fun begins. You can reverse engineer the process. Look at what’s trending in your industry, see what questions people are asking in Norwich, London, or the UK, and create content that fits those patterns. The more relevant your content, the more likely you are to pop up in feeds, recommendations, and even Google search snippets.
Think of the algorithm as your unpaid marketing intern, working day and night to put your best work in front of the right eyes.
The Discovery Workshop, Building a Strategy With Temple Brown
You don’t get results by winging it. At Temple Brown, our Discovery Workshop is where the magic starts. We bring together your team, your business plan, and our experience to build a content strategy that’s actually built for your goals and your market.
We start by digging into what you want to achieve. More leads in Norwich? Brand recognition in London? A reputation as the go-to for social media management in the UK? We’ll break that down into concrete objectives.
Then we map out your audience, where they hang out, what they search for, what really matters to them beyond your product. We audit your current content and figure out what’s working and what’s not.
From there, we co-create your set of pillars. Each pillar is built on the intersection of your expertise, what your audience wants, and where the commercial value lies. We make sure everything is mapped to keywords, search intent, and the realities of your business plan.
The result: a strategic roadmap that gives your team clarity and confidence, whether you’re creating in-house or working with us end-to-end.
Aligning Content Pillars With Your Business Plan and Commercials
This is where social stops being a nice-to-have and becomes a real driver for growth. Every content pillar you build should tie directly to your business plan and your commercials.
Want more consultancy hours booked? Your Expert Advice pillar needs to show real value, answer actual questions, and point to the next step, like Book a strategy call.
Launching a new service? Build a pillar around customer education, myth-busting, or behind-the-scenes content.
Trying to grow your e-commerce presence in London? Use Shopper Stories, Product How-Tos, and Staff Favourites to bring personality and practicality to your feed.
At Temple Brown, we help you connect the dots. Every pillar should have a call to action, sometimes soft, sometimes direct, but always clear. We also help you set up tracking, so you can see which posts are driving site visits, leads, or actual sales. Social media is no longer just about engagement, it’s about making the numbers move.
Search Intent, Keywords, and SEO, The Backbone of Your Strategy
Let’s get technical, just for a moment. The best social media strategy in the world is worthless if nobody finds it. That’s why search intent and keywords are the backbone of your pillars.
If you want to rank for social media management Norwich, your content needs to use that phrase and its close cousins in a way that’s natural, not forced. That means weaving them into your captions, video scripts, and even your visuals.
But it’s not just about stuffing keywords. It’s about answering the real questions people are typing into Google, YouTube, and even TikTok. If your audience is searching for affordable digital marketing agency London or content creation tips UK, your pillar content should give them exactly what they’re looking for.
We use research tools, competitor analysis, and real search data to build a calendar that’s always aligned with current demand. And because platforms increasingly index and serve up social content in Google results, you get the bonus of being found off-platform as well.
Content That Wins the Interest Graph, Practical How-To
Here’s how you build content that actually gets discovered in today’s landscape.
Start with video. Platforms love it, and the interest graph picks it up fast.
Tell stories, not just facts. Show your team at work in Norwich, highlight a customer’s success in London, or share your own behind-the-scenes journey.
Use new formats like Reels, Shorts, Carousels, and Polls. The algorithm rewards early adopters.
Always tie your content back to a pillar. This keeps your message consistent while reaching different audiences.
Add context and calls to action that make sense for each post, such as DM for a Norwich workshop, Book your free strategy session, or See how we helped a London startup grow.
Use keywords and search terms naturally. They shouldn’t feel wedged in, but they should be present.
If you’re stuck, remember, your best performing posts hold the blueprint. Double down on what works. Test new formats, but always keep one eye on your analytics.
Smarter Analytics, Tracking What Matters and Course Correcting
You don’t need to drown in data. Here’s what matters for social media growth in 2025.
Are your posts being seen by people outside your follower list?
Which pillars are driving actual engagement, saves, shares, comments that sound like real humans wrote them?
Are you showing up for important search queries in your area, like social media services Norwich or digital marketing agency London?
Is your content leading to enquiries, bookings, or sales?
At Temple Brown, we set up tracking that lets you answer these questions at a glance. Every month, we review the data with you, celebrating wins, fixing what’s not working, and evolving your strategy.
The point isn’t to drown in spreadsheets. It’s to get the feedback you need, in language you understand, to keep getting better.
Classic Mistakes (And How to Dodge Them)
We see the same mistakes again and again, and they’re all avoidable.
Focusing only on what you want to say, not what your audience wants to know.
Refusing to broaden your pillars, such as thinking we’re a B2B agency, we can’t talk about local events.
Ignoring new content formats and clinging to the old way, like only doing photo posts.
Treating social media like a tick-box exercise, not a growth channel.
Measuring success by followers and likes, not real outcomes.
The fix is to stay curious, stay agile, and always remember: the platforms want to help you if you play by their new rules.
FAQs: Social Media Management, Content Creation, and More
How does the interest graph actually work for my business or personal brand?
The interest graph is the invisible engine behind today’s social feeds. Platforms analyse user behaviour: what they watch, like, share, and search, to identify core interests, then serve up content that matches those interests. For brands, this means your content can reach audiences who’ve never heard of you before, simply because it fits what they’re looking for right now.
Why aren’t followers and hashtags as important anymore?
Followers used to be the main route to reach, but now the algorithm looks past follower counts to find content that matches active interests. Hashtags still help, but they’re just one small signal in a much bigger puzzle. Relevant, engaging content built around strong pillars is what gives you reach and engagement in 2025.
What’s the difference between content clusters and pillars?
Pillars are the broader themes or topics your content regularly covers. Think of them as the main columns that hold up your strategy. Unlike tight clusters, pillars are designed to be wide enough for you to experiment, cross topics, and grow as interests shift, keeping your brand agile and visible.
How do I know which pillars to choose?
Start by mapping your business goals, your audience’s questions, and the most relevant search terms in your space. The sweet spot is where these three overlap. Our Discovery Workshop helps brands of all sizes nail down the right pillars that balance commercial results and audience demand.
How does this approach fit with search intent and SEO?
The whole point of pillar-based content, aligned with the interest graph, is to answer the actual questions people are searching, on Google, YouTube, TikTok, and more. Each piece should use real keywords like “social media management Norwich” or “digital marketing agency London” in a natural, conversational way.
Can this work for both business and personal brands?
Absolutely. The interest graph has levelled the playing field, so whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or an established agency, your content can get in front of the right people, provided it matches their interests and needs.
How do I measure success with an interest graph strategy?
Don’t get hung up on followers. Track your reach to new, non-followers, genuine engagement (comments, shares, saves), and the actions that matter to your business, like enquiries, bookings, or online sales.
Should I handle social media myself or hire an agency?
If you’ve got the time and willingness to learn, you can start with our workshops and take the reins yourself. For those who want results fast or need more hands on deck, Temple Brown offers everything from strategy to content creation and ongoing management.
How often should I revisit my pillars and content plan?
Plan to review and adapt at least every month. The interest graph and audience interests can shift quickly. Staying nimble ensures you never fall behind.
Conclusion, Why Interest-Led Strategy Wins, and What’s Next for You
This isn’t the time to get stuck in old habits. The era of the interest graph means your next customer could be anyone, anywhere, so long as your content speaks to what they care about, right when they need it. Pillars keep you nimble, search intent keeps you relevant, and strategy means every post
is part of a bigger plan.
Temple Brown offers the full package: content creation, social media management, strategy implementation, and tailored workshops to help you and your team nail your presence online, whether you’re in Norwich, London, or beyond.
Ready to get found by the people who matter? Get in touch. We’ll help you get discovered, not just followed.
