What to Expect from the Future of Social Media

Future of Social Media

The state and the future of Social Media is strong! Over the past decade, nothing has transformed our daily means of communication quite like social media has. Between the various social media platforms that have gained popularity, anyone can share with thousands to millions of people their thoughts, pictures, videos, and many more. In fact, 56% of Americans have a profile on a social media site. With the creation and evolution of these social sites over the years, their usability for personal use and business applications has grown considerably.

One addition to Facebook that has helped them gain attention as not just a social platform but one for business and marketing hubs as well is the introduction of advertising. Since there is so much information available on Facebook, with users filling in their likes, interests, relationship statuses,  place of work and schooling, and more, it’s easy for advertisers to aggregate this data and utilize it in marketing strategies with Facebook’s user-friendly marketing set-up.

Today, the ads you see on your Facebook page are decided by an algorithm using your geographical location and interests, making what you see very pertinent. Another subtle, yet effective, characteristic is that if one of your Facebook friends likes a company on Facebook, that will appear on your newsfeed, giving you further confidence in clicking on their ad. Another interesting addition to social media is Instagram Direct, allowing users to send private videos and messages. The idea is hardly new, but for Instagram it shows they are adapting to the the needs and desires of their users. And the same can be seen for nearly all social media sites.

Taking a look to the future, you can see each social media outlet has exciting, yet similar, plans to improve their image.

Facebook and the future of social media

Facebook attempted to purchase SnapChat recently, but was turned down. What their interest reveals, however, is that Facebook has ambitions to build video ads within their platform and we can expect to see such change in the future of social media. If they follow YouTube’s example, it will be a full-screen pop-up that you will need to watch before viewing your profile. With a built-in audience that greatly overshadows just about any other social platform, will Facebook become a video streaming platform to rival YouTube?

Twitter and the future of social media

Twitter’s focus is on their mobile platform and taking advantage of all that iOS and Android has to offer, as change has already taken place to their traditional interface. This change is directed at enhancing Twitter’s abilities and increasing its number of users. Additionally, it is clear that Twitter is focusing on enhancing visual marketing as a means of revenue and we can expect changes to make marketing on Twitter more attractive for businesses and marketing campaigns.

Pinterest and the future of social media

Much like Facebook, Pinterest is improving their advertising by introducing paid ads that will also be decided by an algorithm based on your interests. While Pinterest may not boast as many users as its social brethren, it does offer a very alternative platform that may appeal to users who feel Facebook has become overly inundated with advertising materials.

Google+ and the future of social media

Since its inception in 2011, Google+ seems to have been generally looked over by the average social media user consensus. It seems to be considered the more “mature” alternative to Facebook or Twitter, attracting more of professional audience consisting of business people and tech-savvy users. Google+ does not intend to remain this way, however, with features like Hangout, Circles, local business lister and more slowly but surely offering features that the competition simply does not. It will be interesting to see if Google is able to dominate social media as it has search engines and other fields.

A common trend seen in all major social media platforms is a focus on paid ads and visual marketing. It is exciting to speculate as to how each will take on the new focus, but to stay competitive, it is certain that each will. Most importantly, as advertising becomes a key part of each of the aforementioned platforms, social media sites will need to find a way to balance ads with all of the other content they provide to ensure that the focus maintains on connectivity and doesn’t just become one big commercial spot. Users won’t mind a conservative amount of advertising, but will certainly be turned off from a platform if ads are all that pop up in our status feeds.

[et_social_share]


Total
0
Shares
Related Posts