7 Major Trends That Will Change How You Market on Social Media

 I read an article in Forbes recently about what trends to expect in social media marketing over the next year. It was written by Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, a content marketing and social media agency based in Seattle, U.S. He predicts that major changes will happen to big social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. He believes that brand marketers who prepare for these changes will be able to beat their competition to the punch, and will be rewarded with more visibility and a greater reputation.

So what changes does DeMers expect for 2016? Let’s take a look.

1. In-the-moment updates.

Just as Instagram made it possible for pictures to get uploaded on a social platform moments after they are taken, platforms like Periscope allow you to broadcast a video live. You will no longer need to video something and then upload it later.

According to DeMers, users of Periscope collectively watch 40 years of live video each and every day. Instagram and Snapchat also support on-the-go, in-the-moment updates as opposed to late-game retrospectives, and could collectively herald in a new era of immediacy in social media.”

The implications could be huge. For one thing, if you schedule your Twitter posts to go out, it could be a thing of the past.

2. Buy Buttons.

Twitter’s buy button went live recently. Pinterest has a buy button. Facebook is taking about getting one. Instagram isn’t far behind on the trend, so it’s safe to assume more social platforms will follow. At this rate, by the end of 2016, most major social media brands will feature some kind of buy button naturally as an element of their advertising campaigns.”

3. Apps that do Everything.

Facebook is the king of adding new functionality. In the past year, they’ve introduced Instant Articles (a new form of publishing), an in-post search engine (to find articles you’re referencing), and videos that play instantly when scrolling. Now, they’re developing their own digital assistant. The other platforms are doing similar work so that users will never have to leave their app.

 The implications are you might have to create content to address new functionalities on each of the big platforms where your audience spends time. You’ll also really need to know which social platform to put your energy into.

4. Newer options for Publishing

You can now publish article on Facebook now without linking to an external source. You’ve been able to do the same thing on LinkedIn for while now. As social platforms become more competitive and more aggressive about keeping users in-app for as long as possible, it’s only a matter of time before they dream up even more sophisticated forms of publishing for businesses and organizations. 

What does this mean for you? You might start publishing your articles in a bunch of different places to reach different customers.

5. Concerns about User Privacy will hit the Roof

There have been some pretty high profile security breaches this year. Case in point, the Ashley Madison Saga. Snapchat’s popularity is partly attributed to people’s desire to have their messages be private and ephemeral.

Facebook is introducing more privacy awareness tools for its users, and it’s smart to do so, because as tension continues to rise, only platforms which offer a degree of privacy and security will continue to thrive.

The implication for advertisers is that they will have to back down a bit.

6. Less Organic Reach.

We’ve already seen Facebook decrease organic reach a lot. This necessitates that brands buy ads. This trend is only going to intensify both on Facebook and other social media platforms. This will likely lead to a sharp rise in the cost of placing ads over the course of next year.

What does this mean for you? Maybe you’ll need to put more money into your social media efforts.

 7. Fewer Small Platforms.

For the last several years, we’ve seen at least a few dozen new social media platforms rise up and either blink out of existence just as quickly or settle in as a middle-of-the-road platform that never gets more attention but never really dies out.

DeMers expects that by next year, because the big platforms are so well established, there is less room in the marketplace for new platform and the big players will start buying up the small platforms very quickly.