What is Social Media?
Social Media means websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
Social media are interactive digitally-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing/exchange of information, ideas, career interests, and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of social media arise due to the broad variety of stand-alone and built-in social-media services currently available, there are some common features:
1. Social media are interactive Web -based applications.
2. User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions—is the lifeblood of social media.
3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social-media organization.
4. Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user’s profile with those of other individuals or groups.
The Different Types Of Social Media Platforms To Serve:
• Social Networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+).
• Messangers ( Whatsapp, Telegram)
• Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr).
• Photo sharing (Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest).
• Video sharing (YouTube, Facebook Live, Periscope, Vimeo).
Are you prepared for what social media has in store for the future?
Social media is constantly evolving and it is exciting to think about what it will look like in just a few years time. Of course, this means that the world of Social Media Monitoring has to keep up with the demands of social media users as brands continue to modify their strategies once new trends emerge. So what will the future of social media look like from a user, brand, and Social Media Monitoring perspective? Let us take a look at the many possible trends we are expected to see in next few years.
What will social media look like?
1. More privacy and security: In the current climate of social media, it is more important than ever for brands to find and implement methods of building consumer trust. This begins with how they connect with audiences. Privacy concerns are on the rise as social media users are becoming much more aware of how their data is being used. Because of this, the future of social media will see an increase in users opting for what is known as “Dark Social”. This involves any online social interaction that happens privately. In fact, 84% of consumers’ outbound sharing from websites now occurs via private, Dark Social channels such as these, and we will expect to see this increase in the next few years.
2. More video: It is no secret that video consumption via social media is on the rise. It is estimated that people look at videos 5 times longer than static content, such as text and images, on both Facebook and Instagram. Because of this, it is almost guaranteed that we will see even more videos all over social media in the future, including live videos, which have gained a great deal of popularity in recent years.
3. Less personal content, but more memes:
Social media users, in general, are sharing less personal information on major networks and prefer to showcase external content such as an interesting video or a funny meme they came across to their friends.
4. Premium services and fewer ads: Ads have been the plague of social media for a long time now and social media users are starting to get fed up. However, many people have been willing to sacrifice Ad-less experiences for free, ad-saturated ones. Premium services could be on the rise as social media users tend to prefer high-quality images, videos, and audio as that is what they have become accustomed to in recent years. But only time will tell if they are willing to spend money on it.
5. Mobile-focused experiences: The future of social media is mobile. An estimated 3 billion people will have access to mobile phones by 2021. Additionally, more and more people are using their smart phones as their main source for accessing social platforms. That is why future platforms will be designed with smart phones in mind from the start.
6. Less typing: It is likely that 50% of online searches will be carried out through image and voice by 2021. With the ever-increasing popularity of voice and image search as well as audio snippet messages, social media could see the act of typing become obsolete in the future.
7. More visuals: With the popularity of social media platforms such as Facebook , whatapp , Telegram Instagram and Snapchat, we are already starting to see a massive increase in visual-based content. Because camera access is so much easier now than it was a few years ago, as virtually every phone has a built-in camera, photos and videos will continue to saturate social media.
How will Social Media Monitoring be affected?
Due to the fact that privacy and security among social media users are holding a lot more weight in the current climate, Social Media Monitoring and Social Listening will, of course, be affected as users modify their privacy settings. It’s so important for brands and Social Media Monitoring companies to take users’ concerns seriously and do everything they can to ensure that they feel protected and that their trust won’t be violated or exploited. Social Media Monitoring will also need to take visual mentions very seriously. When it comes to brand logos within shared images and videos, brands need a way to monitor and measure that data, as well as the textual mentions of that brand. That is why a logo detection tool is vital for Social Media Monitoring companies to provide to their customers. To find out more about logo detection technology, for Social Media Monitoring, click here. So, there you have it. These are just some of the social media trends we will expect to see within the next few years. It is clear that social media will be undergoing some changes, but for the most part, many of these trends have been predicted as we’ve been seeing them unfold in real time.
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