The Future Of Social Platforms

As a digital marketer or even a casual, it is quite important that you show interest in the future of social media. For a digital marketer, it is about staying in the game and continuing to have an advantage over your competitors. By keeping an eye on the future trends, you make, develop strategies that will have a deeper market penetration.

For instance, you could revamp your content strategies and make them more visual than text-based. A casual person doesn’t look at the trend from the profit angle but to build excitement about the future. After all, we are all dependent on social media, and having an interest in its future is pretty natural.

Whether a digital marketer or a casual, one thing is clear. Big things are coming to social media, and we should prepare for them and be excited about them. With the digital revolution that has already begun, the evolution of social networks shouldn’t be a surprise.

Already, platforms have grown from the place people connect. It has grown to become where people get news, learn about different companies, and a complete marketplace to buy products. With this growth, it is only exciting that we are just beginning. In this article, we will explore the future trends of social platforms.

The Role of Mobile Devices

The world has gone mobile, and what do we mean by this? In 2019 alone, mobile devices controlled more than 53% of internet traffic. In addition, social platforms control about 25% of digital media, and people majorly use their smartphones to access these platforms. Interestingly, when it comes to e-commerce, people use their PCs more.

However, we even expect that to change. There’s WhatsApp Business, Facebook, and Instagram marketplace. People don’t need to patronize and visit e-commerce websites to buy anything. They can get what they need right from their fav internet platforms.

Also, advertisers now rely on targeted ads, and who are they targeting? Mobile phone users. With 90% of people using mobile phones to access social platforms, specialized ads in mobile formats are necessary. They are the smart thing to do unless businesses are no longer interested in profits.

Rise of Visual Social Media

Biologically, we are visual creatures, and this means that we easily understand images more than we do texts. Our brain sees graphical information and quickly interprets it, and due to this human nature, we expect the further rise of visual internet platforms. Tiktok came around in 2016, and in 2017 it had 65 million users. Fast forward to 2022, Tiktok already has 1.2 billion users.

Look at Pinterest and Snapchat too. The point is that there will be more of these forms of internet platforms. If you need more affirmation as to this trend, check one of the relatively new features of Instagram. These new features, such as stories and reels, have helped user build their pages to become some of Instagram’s leading pages.

As a digital marketer, you need to prepare yourself for a change in your social media content strategies. You have to learn how to use visuals and text or learn to combine both in a way that will look seamless and not gaudy.

AR and VR

No digital trend is complete without these two guys making an appearance. The ground is fertile for these two digital reality programs to take root. On AR, imagine a merger between the Facebook marketplace and AR. AR could bring the product to you instead of the usual looking through a picture to order a product.

Through an AR headset used with FB, your product could come alive. Well, not alive, but you know what we mean. It would be as if you were physically interacting with said product. Alternatively, your phone’s camera could help project the product too. AR is already present in online commerce.

Screenshop, a Snapchat acquisition, has cooperated with Gucci using AR. There is precedence for this. What you would see in the nearest future is an explosion.

On the VR part, our opinion is that it will make the already impactful social media more immersive. Social network communication could even become more enjoyable through a virtual reality headset. Imagine seeing the person you are chatting with as if you are right next to them.

VR inclusion in social media is already in the developing stages. Meta is already nosing around VR communication, and their project will grow to involve the use of Avatars that would represent you in a digital world.

SMM Evolution

You don’t need to monitor your social media marketing campaigns physically. There are tools you can use to achieve this purpose. Currently, the inability to use SMM automation is a disadvantage.

SMM tools help you organise your social network strategy. Content, post timing, hashtag usage, and competitor analysis. You will be able to control these features in a single place, and you will also be able to examine your campaigns.

The evolution of SMM doesn’t necessarily mean that digital marketers would be out of business. The technology wouldn’t work on its own and would still need human beings to read the results. However, what this means is that internet advertisers will now have to be aware of these technologies and learn how they operate.

Geo-Social Services

Geo-Social Services provide a creative way of marketing, and it uses customers to promote businesses. Social media will work well with Geo-Social Services with Facebook and Snapchat, providing instances of how this would work. Recall someone going to a restaurant and uploading on their FB that they are somewhere. That upload gets you curious.

When you see that the person is having a great time, you’d be willing to visit said place. Tools like Nextdoor have become crucial for businesses to promote themselves.

It is not an exaggeration to say that Geo-Social Services is one of the purest forms of marketing. Since people are likely to trust someone they consider them as a regular person who isn’t doing anything for the sake of profit.

Key Takeaways

• Social Media has now evolved to include a marketplace.
• Digital marketers should pay attention to SM’s future trends.
• Visual social platforms will increase
• Tools will dominate SMM campaigns
• Mobile phones will lead the SM evolution charge.

Conclusion

Social media is diverse and can give us more than it already gives us. This is interesting when you consider that SM is already giving us what we hadn’t envisaged. Instead of just being where people can communicate, it has become a marketplace and a zone for an immersive form of communication.

About the Author

Michelle Thomas is a Marketing Analyst and Blogger in Scanteam. She has been working with web analytics, data collection, and analysis for 7 years. She also works in the area of Big Data. Her experience helps her to be a professional in marketing and related industries.