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17 Trends That Will Change Social Media in 2017
Ever since the advent of social media, the phenomenon has continually been growing as each year passes; mainly due to increased internet penetration and the culture of innovativeness that keeps the social media sites relevant. Therefore, if you are looking for potential areas to invest business resources, these are some of the most relevant trends that will shape social networking in 2017.
1. Social advertising
Social media platforms are trying to push more organic content to their users so as to stay relevant and block out annoying business posts.
Due to this trend, more businesses are now opting to contract social advertising firms to increase their visibility. Social advertising revenues grew tremendously in 2016 and pundits are forecasting that this trend will be more robust in 2017.
2. Chatbots
As more businesses focus on improving their social media platforms, customers are responding by being more interactive on these social sites and rating them based on the speed of response.
Chatbots are online artificial intelligence programs meant to interact with customers and help them with simple queries. They will reduce the workload on businesses that have to respond to hundreds of questions a day.
3. Social messaging
Social messaging applications are set to overtake social media sites this year. Statistics show that more and more people are now opting for private messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram over engaging on social media platforms such as Facebook. This trend has caused apps such as Facebook Messenger to incorporate conversation tabs on the messenger ads.
4. Virtual Reality
Technology powers social media; and virtual reality seems to be the latest and most promising tech in 2017. We are set to see more VR content being developed this year as more companies, including social networking brands like Facebook, invest in this technology.
5. Standardization
Social media platforms are growingly trying to incorporate whatever works on other sites. Although most of us view it as copying, this trend is set to grow this year resulting in a standardised social media platform. Already Instagram has stories that resemble Snapchat while various platforms now support virtual reality videos.
6. Growth of Instagram
With the introduction of Stories, Instagram is set to syphon Snapchat users onto its website due to its additional features not offered on Snapchat.
7. Ephemeral content
Ephemeral content is a relatively new trend and refers to volatile content or content that does not last long with a maximum period of a day. The trend has been made popular by Snapchat, and other sites will be looking to share its success.
8. Live video
Another new trend, live video has received wide acceptance, especially on Facebook. Almost all the key social media platforms now support live video capability, and the trend has already started evolving to support live virtual reality streaming. The trend is popular because it permits live video interaction for businesses.
9. Investment in social media training
More companies are likely to realise the advantages of using social media and train their employees on how to utilise this space efficiently.
10. Social Ecommerce
Soon Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking platforms will be the primary competition for Amazon, EBay, and other e-commerce websites. Many social sites are now testing out the e-commerce feature, and we are likely to see “buy” buttons on social media sites in 2017.
11. Reduced fake news
The growth of social media led to many businesses using a lot of false news to attract traffic. However, the social media companies are now focusing on reducing this annoying trend, and some have already started imposing penalties for users who engage in this behaviour.
12. Continued growth of Mobile Ads
Many social media companies already rip more from mobile advertisements than they make in desktop ads. This will see them focus on improving their mobile ads to gain maximum benefits.
13. Artificial Intelligence
2017 will see companies introduce more artificial intelligence driven features such as the anticipated Facebook lenses. Snapchat already uses this technology for its facial filters and more companies are will seek to create their unique features.
14. Growth of Employee Advocacy
Employee advocacy has become a creative way of raising brand awareness instead of the traditional ads. People like the personal touch of interacting with individuals instead of enterprises and this will see employee advocacy grow.
15. Growth of custom content
With the growth of ad-blockers, social media sites are providing an alternative to driving custom content. Most social media platforms already support custom content, a feature which is set to grow this year.
16. Social blogging
With more people seeking quality content, interactive blogging sites such as Medium and LinkedIn Pulse are set to rise this year. These sites provide an escape from the fake news posted on other social media sites.
17. Better customer experience
Surveys have shown that more people are willing to spend a few extra bucks in exchange for a good customer experience. Thus the trend of price competition will slowly wither down if quality customer service does not complement it.
Businesses will be looking to improve their response times and offer quality content on their pages.