Where Will Social Media Be 1 Year From Now?

With the rise of technology, we have seen the world constantly evolving and changing. Over the past ten years, social media had become a pivotal part of life and has become a part of everyone's day-to-day and just a normality of life. There are some people who don't even remember a time before the internet let alone social media. The kids these days are growing up with a complete understanding of social media and how to use it. Many platforms have been created in the last few years and many have evolved to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology. Keeping up with the constant changes in social media is crucial and important to stay ahead of the game. Predicting trends can be difficult and unpredictable because updates from platforms happen all the time.

Ephemeral content

Ephemeral content has become very popular. This type of content stays active online for 24 hours. Examples that you are used to seeing are Snapchat stories, Instagram Stories, Facebook stories, etc. People's attention span has become shorter and shorter as technology has gone on. This is why stories on social platforms have become more popular and get more engagement. The number of platforms that have rolled out ephemeral content has gone up because people have proven to utilize stories more than uploading posting a post. Taking advantage of stories is great for a business to get into because it creates an in-the-moment content that users love to see. There has been a study conducted that showed brands posting a story once every four days, proving that ephemeral content is growing in popularity. Ephemeral content is very easy to produce, and you should continue to utilize this content.

Instagram and Facebook

We all know Instagram and Facebook dominate the social media industry. We will also continue to see this be true and continue to grow in popularity. However, we have also seen many platforms gain popularity, such as Tik Tok. There have been many studies and surveys showing businesses desire to increase their spending budget on Instagram and Facebook. 60% of businesses stated they wanted to increase their Instagram budget in 2021. 46% plan to increase Facebook spend, and 14% want to increase their Tik Tok marketing. These are just 2021 projected budgets, with the rise in popularity of Tik Tok many businesses could up their spending because of the potential growth.

Commerce Through Social

I'm sure by now you've noticed the change if layout on the Instagram platform. You're either frustrated by this change or in love with this change. But you got to get used to it no matter what. The main reason for this change is because of the shopping ability through Instagram Storefronts. You've probably seen or, clicked on by accident, the icon on the bottom of the Instagram app. Commerce through social media is only going to get more and more popular. Shoppable posts have become a thing of the present, you can now easily see an item you like in a post and just click on the tag to purchase the item directly through the app. The point of commerce through social media is to keep you on the social platform longer. The main reason for updates on social media is retention on the app, thus shopping online can be a time-consuming activity.

Video Content

Video content originated with YouTube and has since grown onto many social media platforms. Tik Tok has become one of the most popular forms of video content. These quick 15 to 1-minute videos are what people's attention span can handle. By 2022, video content is expected to be 82% of all online content. Judging by this potential statistic it is now more than ever important to know how to produce and utilize video content. As stated earlier staying ahead of the game is important, this time you can be learning new platforms and perfecting your video content to be prepared for this shift. Creating that ephemeral content on your stories is also a great jump start to get into video creation.

Influencer Marketing

If you have been following along on our blog, I am sure you have seen our information on influencer marketing and how beneficial it can be to businesses. This is only going to continue to be true as time goes on. There will be more influencers and more budgeting from businesses going towards influencers as the rise in popularity grows. Influencer marketing has proven to be cheaper than advertising campaigns, which also helps this marketing growth. Once businesses see the results of one influencer campaign and the benefits it has, they will continue to utilize this version of marketing.

User-Generated Content

To go along with influencer marketing, user-generated content will also continue to blossom. The best part of user-generated content is that it's free. Hashtags are a great way to get a user-generated campaign going. Tik Tok is one of the best platforms for this type of marketing. A great example is Chipotle. They created the "Lid Flip" challenge. The hashtag that took the stage for this campaign was #ChipotleLidFlip. Within the first 6 days, there were 111,000 videos created using the hashtag. Chipotle found this to be a successful campaign, whether sales went up or not, this was a great campaign to get more brand awareness and brand reputation to Chipotle.

Measurements

What is the most important social media measurement to you? I think your answer will be different than it was 5 years ago. There are a few measurements that are important to note such as, likes, followers, engagement. Follower numbers are becoming a thing of the past if they aren't back up with results. If you have 100 followers but not getting likes your engagement will be low. The ratio between followers, likes, and comments, equals the engagement. Engagement is the measurement that has become more and more important. Having more likes and comments is becoming more important to a brand and that should be how you are measuring your social media success.

Conclusion

Everything mentioned above is just a few examples to be on the lookout for the next year. As stated earlier, technology and social media are changing at a pace that we can't keep up with. Keeping up with the trends is going to be an ongoing thing in this industry. At Hyperchat Social we make sure to stay ahead of the game and help produce strategies for our clients to make sure they are here to play. Book a free consultation to see how we can help your social media presence.