Beyond the Public Feed: How the Surgeon General's Warning Creates a Mandate for Brand-Owned Communities.

The digital town square is in turmoil. In May 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a landmark advisory on the profound risks social media poses to youth mental health. While the headlines focused on teens, the document served as a stark, undeniable wake-up call for every organization that relies on these platforms to connect with their audience. This isn't just a public health issue; it's a critical business inflection point. The Surgeon General social media warning is an implicit mandate for a strategic pivot away from the rented, volatile land of public feeds toward the secure, nurturing foundation of brand-owned communities.

For years, marketing leaders have operated under the assumption that a massive social media presence is a non-negotiable pillar of brand building. We've chased vanity metrics, battled unpredictable algorithms, and poured billions into platforms we don't control. Now, we are forced to confront the collateral damage of this model: brand safety crises, plummeting organic reach, and the uncomfortable reality that the environments we use to engage customers may be actively harming them. It's time to ask a fundamental question: Is there a better way to build lasting relationships, foster genuine loyalty, and de-risk our marketing strategy? The answer is a resounding yes, and it lies in taking ownership of your audience and creating a space that prioritizes value and well-being over viral outrage.

Unpacking the Warning: What the Surgeon General's Advisory on Social Media Means for Brands

The Surgeon General's advisory wasn't just another government report; it was a watershed moment, synthesizing years of growing concern into an official, authoritative declaration. For brand strategists and CMOs, ignoring its implications is a strategic blunder. It signals a fundamental shift in public perception and regulatory scrutiny that will inevitably reshape the digital marketing landscape. Understanding the core of this warning is the first step toward future-proofing your brand's relationship with its customers.

The Core Findings: Youth Mental Health and the Digital Environment

Dr. Murthy's advisory, titled “Social Media and Youth Mental Health,” laid out several alarming findings. It highlighted the correlation between high levels of social media use among adolescents and increased rates of depression, anxiety, and poor body image. The report noted that the platform designs themselves—with their endless scrolling, comparison-based metrics (likes, shares), and algorithmically curated content—can create an environment detrimental to a developing brain. Features designed to maximize engagement often do so by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities, a model that is profitable for the platform but potentially devastating for the user.

The advisory detailed how up to 95% of U.S. teens use social media, with more than a third reporting they use it “almost constantly.” This near-ubiquitous exposure occurs during a critical period of brain development, making young users particularly susceptible to social pressure, cyberbullying, and exposure to harmful content. While the report focuses on youth, the underlying mechanisms affect users of all ages. The principles of persuasive design and algorithmic amplification of emotionally charged content create a stressful and often toxic digital commons for everyone.

The Unspoken Mandate: A Call for Safer Digital Spaces

Beyond the direct health warnings, the advisory contains an unspoken mandate for all stakeholders, including technology companies and, by extension, the brands that fund them through advertising. It calls for the creation of safer, healthier digital environments. This is where the responsibility shifts to marketing leaders. When your brand's advertising or organic content appears next to material that contributes to this mental health crisis, you are implicitly associated with the problem. This is a massive brand safety and reputational risk.

The warning fundamentally challenges the “growth at all costs” mentality of public social platforms. It urges a move towards digital wellness for brands and their audiences. This isn't about abandoning digital connection; it's about being more intentional and responsible in how we foster it. The mandate is clear: brands must seek out and build spaces where connection, support, and positive engagement are the primary goals, not just byproducts of an engagement-harvesting algorithm. This is the foundational argument for investing in an owned community platform, a space where you set the rules, define the culture, and protect your audience.

The Public Feed's Failing Promise: Growing Risks for Brands on Social Media

For over a decade, the promise of social media was simple: free, direct access to a global audience. That promise has been broken. Today, brands find themselves navigating a treacherous landscape of diminishing returns, brand safety minefields, and superficial connections. The very platforms that once seemed essential for growth are now becoming significant liabilities, forcing a necessary re-evaluation of where brands invest their time, resources, and trust.

The Algorithm Trap: Declining Reach and Pay-to-Play Models

The era of free organic reach is over. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) have evolved into sophisticated pay-to-play ecosystems. Their algorithms are no longer designed to show your content to all your followers; they are designed to maximize platform revenue and user time-on-site. This means that even if you've spent years building a large following, only a tiny fraction will see your organic posts. Research from firms like Rival IQ consistently shows organic reach hovering in the low single digits for most brands.

This “algorithm trap” forces brands onto a treadmill of ever-increasing ad spend just to maintain visibility. You are perpetually renting access to an audience you helped build. This model is not sustainable. As costs for paid acquisition rise and competition for attention intensifies, the ROI of traditional social media marketing is eroding. Brands are caught in a cycle of dependency on platforms whose business goals (keeping users scrolling) are often misaligned with the brand's goals (building deep, meaningful customer relationships).

Brand Safety in Crisis: Navigating Toxicity and Negative Association

What is the cost of your ad appearing next to hate speech, misinformation, or content that promotes eating disorders? This is not a hypothetical question. Brand safety crises erupt with alarming frequency on public social platforms. The algorithmic nature of these feeds means you have little to no control over the content that surrounds your message. High-profile brand boycotts and investigations by publications like ProPublica have repeatedly exposed how major brands unknowingly fund harmful and extremist content through their automated ad placements.

This extends beyond advertising. The overall tone of public platforms has become increasingly polarized and toxic. Engaging in this environment, even with the best intentions, can expose your brand to unwarranted attacks, reputational damage, and association with the very mental health concerns the Surgeon General highlighted. Managing this risk requires immense resources for social listening and crisis management, a defensive posture that drains budgets and stifles authentic engagement. The only way to guarantee a safe environment for your brand and your audience is to own the space where those interactions occur.

The Illusion of Connection: Superficial Engagement vs. True Loyalty

Social media platforms are masters at creating the illusion of connection through metrics like likes, shares, and comments. While these can be useful signals, they are often superficial and transactional. A “like” is a low-effort, fleeting interaction that rarely translates into genuine brand affinity or lasting customer loyalty. True loyalty is built on shared values, mutual respect, and a sense of belonging—qualities that are difficult to cultivate in a noisy, algorithm-driven public feed.

This is the critical difference between an audience and a community. An audience listens; a community participates, co-creates, and advocates. On social media, you are broadcasting to an audience. In a brand-owned community, you are collaborating with members who have a vested interest in your success. These are your superusers, your most passionate advocates, and your most valuable source of feedback and innovation. Relying on superficial metrics from public platforms leaves this immense potential untapped and mistakes passive consumption for the deep, resilient connection that drives long-term business value and what we explore in our guide to community-led growth.

The Solution is Ownership: The Power of a Brand-Owned Community

In response to the chaos of the public feed, a powerful solution is emerging: the brand-owned community. This strategic shift is about moving from a model of renting attention on volatile platforms to owning the asset of a direct, engaged, and loyal customer base. It's a proactive move to build a sustainable, controllable, and deeply valuable digital ecosystem where both the brand and its members can thrive. This approach directly addresses the risks highlighted by the Surgeon General while unlocking new avenues for growth and innovation.

Defining a Brand-Owned Community

A brand-owned community is a digital space—hosted on a dedicated platform that the brand controls—where customers, prospects, and advocates can connect with each other and the brand around a shared interest, purpose, or identity. Unlike a Facebook Group or a subreddit, the brand sets the rules, owns the data, and curates the experience. It can be a forum for product support, a hub for user-generated content, a space for exclusive access and events, or a network for professional development. The key element is ownership. The platform, the membership data, and the content all belong to the brand, freeing it from the whims of third-party algorithms and policies.

From Rented Land to Owned Asset: Data, Relationships, and Control

The analogy of “rented land” versus an “owned asset” is perhaps the most powerful way to understand this shift. Your social media followers are tenants on Mark Zuckerberg's or Elon Musk's land. They can change the rent (ad costs), the rules (algorithms), or even evict you without notice. You have limited access to data and no direct line of communication that isn't mediated by their platform.

In contrast, a brand-owned community is an asset on your company's balance sheet. Here’s what you gain by owning:

• First-Party Data: You gain direct access to rich, consensual first-party data. You can understand what your most valuable customers are talking about, what their pain points are, and what they want from your products. This is an invaluable source of insight for product development, marketing strategy, and customer service that is becoming even more critical in a cookieless future.
• Direct Communication: You can communicate with your members directly through email, notifications, and on-platform announcements without having to pay for reach. This builds stronger, more resilient relationships that aren't dependent on a social media feed.
• Full Control: You control the entire user experience. You can design the space to reflect your brand's values, implement robust moderation to ensure safety, and integrate it with your existing tech stack (CRM, marketing automation, etc.) to create a seamless customer journey.

Fostering Psychological Safety and Positive Engagement

This is where we return to the core of the Surgeon General's warning. A brand-owned community allows you to proactively create an environment of psychological safety. By setting clear community guidelines, employing dedicated moderators, and using an owned community platform with sophisticated safety tools, you can build a haven from the toxicity of the open internet. This becomes a key differentiator for your brand. You are not just selling a product; you are providing a safe, supportive, and valuable space for your customers to connect.

This focus on digital wellness for brands and users creates a virtuous cycle. When members feel safe, they are more likely to engage authentically, share valuable feedback, and help one another. This positive social environment strengthens their affinity for the brand, turning customers into passionate advocates. It transforms marketing from a transactional activity into a relational one, fostering the kind of deep, enduring customer engagement that public social media can only imitate.

A Practical Blueprint for Building Your Owned Community

Transitioning to a community-led model may seem daunting, but it's an achievable goal with a clear, strategic approach. Building a thriving owned community isn't about simply launching a forum and hoping people show up. It requires a thoughtful, phased plan focused on purpose, platform, and people. This blueprint provides a practical framework for marketing leaders to begin their journey from rented land to a valuable owned asset.

Step 1: Establish Your 'Why' - The Community's Core Purpose

Before you write a single line of code or choose a vendor, you must answer the most important question: Why should this community exist? The answer cannot be “to sell more products.” A successful community is built on a foundation of mutual value. You must define a clear purpose that serves both the business goals and the needs of your members. Consider these potential purposes:

1. Community of Product: Focused on helping members get the most out of your product or service. This is common for SaaS or complex B2B products, where users can share best practices, troubleshoot issues, and learn from power users.
2. Community of Practice: Centered on a professional skill or discipline that your brand supports. For example, a marketing automation company might build a community for marketing operations professionals to discuss their craft.
3. Community of Interest: Built around a shared passion or hobby that aligns with your brand's identity. A company that sells outdoor gear could create a community for hikers to share trail tips and photos.

Your “why” becomes your north star. It informs every subsequent decision, from content programming to moderation policies. It's the reason members will join and, more importantly, the reason they will stay and contribute.

Step 2: Select the Right Platform for Safety and Scalability

Once your purpose is clear, you need to choose the technological foundation for your community. This is a critical decision. While it might be tempting to use a simple solution like a Slack channel or a Facebook Group, these platforms reintroduce the same problems of rented land: lack of data ownership, limited control, and poor scalability. A dedicated, white-label owned community platform is almost always the right choice for serious brands.

When evaluating a customer engagement platform, look for these key features:

• Robust Moderation Tools: The ability to set keyword filters, flag content, and empower user-based reporting is essential for maintaining brand safety and psychological safety.
• Customization and Branding: The platform should feel like a seamless extension of your brand, not a third-party tool.
• Rich Member Profiles and Directory: Allow members to connect with each other based on shared interests, location, or expertise.
• Flexible Content and Event Formats: Support for articles, forums, Q&A, live streaming, and virtual events is crucial for varied engagement.
• Integrations: The ability to integrate with your CRM (like Salesforce), marketing automation, and analytics tools is vital for proving ROI and personalizing the member experience.

Step 3: Seed, Moderate, and Nurture Your Founding Members

A community is not a product; it's a living organism. You cannot simply launch it and expect it to grow on its own. The initial phase is all about seeding and nurturing. Identify your most passionate and engaged customers—your beta testers, your power users, the ones who are already active on social media—and invite them to be your founding members. This initial cohort is critical for setting the tone and culture of the community.

Make these founding members feel like true VIPs. Give them exclusive access, solicit their feedback on the community's design and purpose, and empower them to become leaders. Your community manager's primary role in the early days is to facilitate connections between these members, spark conversations, and ensure a welcoming environment. Active and visible moderation is key to reinforcing your community guidelines and showing that you are committed to the safety and well-being you promised. This hands-on, high-touch approach in the beginning builds a strong foundation upon which a large, thriving, and self-sustaining community can be built.

The Future is Community-Led: Securing Your Brand's Long-Term Health

The Surgeon General's advisory on social media is more than a warning; it is a catalyst for a necessary evolution in digital marketing. The era of relying solely on volatile, third-party platforms is coming to an end. The mounting risks—to our audiences' well-being and our brands' reputations—are simply too great to ignore. The future of digital marketing is not about shouting into the void of a public feed; it's about gathering your people in a space you own, protect, and nurture. This is the essence of community-led growth.

Brands that embrace this shift and invest in building true brand-owned communities will build a formidable competitive moat. They will gain unfettered access to customer insights, cultivate unshakeable loyalty, and create a resilient marketing engine that is immune to algorithmic shifts and the platform du jour. As an expert from Marketing Week might argue, this is about shifting from a short-term, acquisition-focused mindset to a long-term, value-creation strategy. An owned community is an investment that appreciates over time, generating compounding returns in the form of customer retention, advocacy, and innovation.

The mandate is clear. It’s time to look beyond the public feed and build the future of your brand on the secure foundation of ownership. By creating safe, valuable, and engaging spaces for your customers, you not only mitigate the risks of the current social media landscape but also unlock the most powerful and sustainable driver of growth: a loyal, thriving community.