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I’ll admit I was a slow-follower when the iPhone launched ten years ago. I was suspicious of Apple’s intent — I was not fan of its closed, vertically integrated model — and the market’s infatuation with apps felt like a fad that would ultimately fade. When I finally did get an iPhone, I felt complicit in the what amounted to internet climate change: slowly but surely, our new addictions were bound to swamp all that we had worked so hard to build on the open web. As Tristan Harris and many others have pointed out, the economic incentives driving our mobile landscape (in short: advertising) are based fundamentally on the science of addiction, and addicted we certainly are. And as we’ve learned from tobacco and processed foods, an industry based on addiction preys on the young. In what I hope will be a landmark piece in the Atlantic, social scientist Jean M. Twenge, who has studied generational differences for decades, concludes that the first generation of teenagers to grow up with a smartphone in their hands is demonstrating wildly different patterns from any group she’s previously researched. And those patterns are not good....
Fast-forward to the waning months of 2016, and the magic is a little harder to feel. Certain corners of the social world have become uglier places, with some in the business world calling for a draw-down. But the pitfalls of political partisanship weren't the only things companies struggled to circumnavigate last year. From a more practical standpoint, it turned out that just having an audience on social media doesn’t mean you actually get to reach it.
And as we head into 2017, the fact that social media is paying ever fewer dividends to many brands and their marketers is becoming more apparent. So what comes next?...
Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms seem to push out changes every other day. We round up the ones you need to know before 2016's over. Though 2017 is around the corner, social media platforms are rolling out an impressive amount of new features and changes. We gathered up the most important and recent implementations to be aware of.Consider this your cheatsheet into 2017....
Like last year’s predictions deck, we’ve pulled together a select group of 70 top marketing minds who rock the digital trenches every day, to find out their vision for “What’s Next in 2017” in social media and content marketing. They live it, breathe it, and know what’s working today, so no doubt we’ll get a glimpse into the crystal ball and reveal key trends based on their insight and experience before they happen.It wouldn’t be the first time. Last year, 69 folks weighed in (you can check out the full piece here: http://bit.ly/2016ContentSocialPredictions and they overwhelmingly predicted that live streaming video would dominate 2016. They couldn’t have been more spot on, with the explosion of Facebook Live in April 2016 and Twitter’s Periscope surpassing the 200 million broadcast mark. So what will they say for 2017? Read through and see if you agree with their predictions, and compare word clouds to last year’s answers versus what they had to say for the coming year. ...
The real conversation for media companies, according to Hernandez, isn’t about websites and apps. It’s about audience and control. Platforms like Facebook need the content—otherwise, they wouldn’t be courting publishers to the tune of millions of dollars. Publications need the targeted distribution those platforms can provide, especially since almost half of Americans regularly get their news from social media. It’s a symbiotic relationship, not a zero-sum game. “Empires rise and fall,” Hernandez said repeatedly throughout our conversation. “No matter which empire or brand or platform is rising, it will eventually fall. But journalism will be a constant.” Look at Twitter, which has mainstream cultural relevance but struggles bring in ad revenue and compete with other major social networks. That’s why it killed off its video platform Vine in late October (R.I.P., Vine—you’ve given us some great times). Or look at Facebook, the largest social network in the world, which remains incredibly valuable and influential, but has started to take on a lot of criticism about political censorship, fake news stories, and inflated video engagement data. “The influence of Facebook, you can see cracks in it as Snapchat has started to amplify,” Hernandez offered. “Empires rise and fall. And who knows what’s next?”...
As social media networks continue to evolve at a breakneck speed, so does the demographic of users on the respective platforms. We looked at the data and pulled together current 2016 trends with early predictions about where social media users will go in 2017. Key points - Facebook isn’t dead, yet. Millennials are still on Facebook, they’re just using the platform in a different way than their older counterparts. Rather than sharing personal stories and updates, they’re sharing third-party content. - Instagram ads bring big brand awareness. 97% of branded Instagram campaigns have generated a significant increase in ad recall. This is expected to grow even more as Instagram ad targeting becomes even more advanced. - Video will dominate. Video content will be responsible for 85% of search traffic in the US by 2019. There is already a massive rise in video content, especially on Facebook. - Snapchat might revolutionize ads. Leaked documents from the company show Snapchat is looking to capitalize on their large, young demographic. This includes image recognition technology to introduce a new round of advertisements that encourage users to share a brand’s message through user-generated content....
The status box is an icon of the Information Age, a period dominated by desktop computers and a company’s mission to organize all the world’s information. The icons of the Experience Age look much different, and are born from micro-computers, mobile sensors and high-speed connectivity.
The death of the status box is a small part of a larger shift away from information moving toward experience. What’s driving this shift? In short, the changing context of our online interactions, shaped by our connected devices.
You are not your profile
To illustrate how this is playing out, think of Facebook and Snapchat.
Facebook is an Information Age native. Along with other social networks of its generation, Facebook was built on a principle of the desktop era — accumulation.
Accumulation manifests in a digital profile where my identity is the sum of all the information I’ve saved — text, photos, videos, web pages. (Evan Spiegel explored this first in a 2015 YouTube video titled What is Snapchat?). In the Information Age we represented ourselves with this digital profile.
But mobile has changed how we view digital identity. With a connected camera televising our life in-the-moment, accumulated information takes a back seat to continual self-expression. The “virtual self” is becoming less evident. I may be the result of everything I’ve done, but I’m not the accumulation of it. Snapchat is native to this new reality.
You are not a profile. You are simply you. Many people think Snapchat is all about secrecy, but the real innovation of Snapchat’s ephemeral messages isn’t that they self-destruct. It’s that they force us to break the accumulation habit we brought over from desktop computing. The result is that the profile is no longer the center of the social universe. In the Experience Age you are not a profile. You are simply you....
We live in interesting times in the digital agency world – a time of constant change in our business landscape that provides both immense opportunity and a real threat to the survival of agencies that fail to adapt.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this landscape over the last year or so. I’ve spoken with team members and peers in Canada, and with senior colleagues across our global network. As I’ve done so, I’ve highlighted five key landscape shifts that are changing the way that agencies and teams like ours need to operate: 1. Newly (re-)accelerated change in social networks 2. Less “social”, more “media” 3. Decline of community management (in some areas) 4. The (actual) year of mobile 5. Ubiquity of rich media...
Younger generations have officially begun choosing to avoid or least maintain a low profile on Facebook and Twitter — for many years seen as the two most used and relevant social networks.
In fact, that might be the very reason they are choosing to avoid the giants of the social media world –everybody else is there, and both are saturated with targeted ads and irrelevant content.
So, where are those users headed now, and what are the key trends for social media in 2015?
2015 is going to be an interesting year for marketers. Based on what I’ve seen over the years and my decade-long experience, I think there are going to be a lot of changes.
Before you start planning how you are going to market your business, read the 10 predictions below. If you follow them, you’ll have a leg up on your competition.
Here are 10 marketing predictions for 2015:...
The team at Trendwatching has put together a list of ten opportunities# brands can leverage in 2015. As noted in the report, each trend also (potentially) contains a counter-trend. From the report...
The digital marketing industry is experiencing a major transformation.
The current state of digital is directly tied to data. Data are everywhere, informing marketers about audience interests, consumer intent, and device activity.
As mobile use continues to increase and media is progressively being bought programmatically, consumers expect a seamless and entertaining online experience.
With marketers and their agencies well underway with planning for the year ahead, here are a few trends that likely will be top of mind in 2015...
Welcome to the share economy, also known as collaborative consumption and peer-to-peer rental arrangements, where people around the world leverage unused capacity of things they already own or services they can provide by leveraging them for a profit. A down economy, coupled with the ease-of-use and reliability of the Internet, has given rise to a network of part-time entrepreneurs turning personal assets into income....
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Mary Meeker's annual Internet Trends report is one of the most closely watched reports in the tech industry, and this year's presentation underscores the growth of mobile, particularly on social platforms that now control the bulk of ad spending and time spent by users.
Here's a look at seven of the most interesting stats in Meeker's more than 200-slide deck presented at Re/code's Code Conference today.
It’s clear now that social media marketing is here to stay, and its massive staying power is attributable to one key characteristic - the fact that social media keeps evolving. It responds to new tech like mobile devices, constantly exceeds users’ expectations, and competes within itself to bring us more and better features. Here’s what you should consider to make the most out of your social media marketing efforts this year: - More live-stream videos.- Increased capitalization of chat-bots. - Increased usage of ephemeral contents. - More social media platform consolidations. - Increased usage of multi-channel digital marketing strategies to address the challenges in acquiring organic social traffic. - The use of virtual reality and augmented reality in social media, especially on Facebook, as a norm. - More personalized content and ads.More traction for social media influencers....
The social media landscape continues to evolve in sometimes predictable, oftentimes surprising ways, as new technologies, platforms and methods of content delivery arise to grab hold of our imagination and continually alter how we communicate. Savvy brands that stay ahead of these trends hold a huge strategic advantage by being well prepared as these shifts occur. Here are 10 social media trends for 2017 that brands should be well aware of as they seek to meaningfully reach–and interact with–new and existing customers....
The purge is happening. At least according to the universe of alt-right users on social media: Many of them claim that in recent days their Twitter accounts have been suspended and that their posts on Facebook are not being promoted or shared like they used to. It’s all part of a crackdown on "fake news" in the wake of reports that misleading reports shared on Facebook and Twitter helped influence the election. To many, these efforts are an overdue attempt to maintain online civility. But to others it’s blatant censorship."Hateful and harassment are subjective terms. "For those alt-right individuals and other social media refugees who feel that their views are suppressed, there’s a new social network that promises a digital space for completely free and unfettered communications. Gab, a platform that looks and feels like a combination of Twitter and Reddit, is meant to "put people first and promote people first," as it was described to me by its founder. And this week, it’s been attracting thousands of users, many of them alt-righters exiled from Facebook and Twitter, though its founder insists that it aims to expand beyond that community and build a more diverse audience....
Social media has taken the world by storm. Currently, there are over 1.96 billion social media users in the world, and that number is expected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2018. The trends that shape the future of social media drastically affect other elements of the digital world, specifically in terms of marketing. Today we’re going to look at ten predictions for the future of social media and how they offer exciting new tactics and strategies for today’s digital marketers. 10 Future Social Media Trends Affecting Marketing Today Whether it’s a new technology or a growing need, social media is setting the precedent for how people will consume content and make purchasing decisions online. In fact, social media is already influences 78% of consumer purchase decisions, and that number is only set to grow. Let’s take a look at ten predictions for the future of social media, and how they are affecting today’s marketing best practices:....
On Thursday, Britain made its choice.
The vote to leave the European Union prevailed by a razor-thin margin, dividing and shocking the country. Markets responded negatively, with the pound tumbling to its lowest since 1985, and prime minister David Cameron announcing he will pass on the baton to someone from the leave campaign.
The only certain thing now is that there will be plenty of uncertainty to come, while the U.K. figures out what happens next. Here’s a rundown of what Brexit could mean for the U.K. media industry.
With there be any immediate changes?
Not really, no. Negotiating the terms with which the U.K. exits — like setting up alternative trade deals — will take at least two to three years. During that time the U.K. will remain under the E.U.’s jurisdiction.
The U.K. will be at the table, but it won’t participate in shaping future E.U.-wide laws or deals that could affect the country — like the GDPR, the new European data laws that Brits will still have to comply with....
What is the next big wave of social media?
Maybe it’s Peach — or another hot new social network. Maybe it’s a strategy like posting times or text faces.
It’s really hard to say!
(And yet here I am saying it…)
To ride the wave of the next big thing in social media, it often takes a lot of trial-and-error, a good deal of trendspotting, and some courage to try new things. I’ve spent some time reading up on what’s to come for social media and I’d love to get your thoughts on three new trends that might be monumental....
A new Xerox ‘State of Customer Service in 2015’ survey reveals that almost half (49%) of consumers believe that they will not have to pay for their media services by 2025 – regardless if they prefer traditional media (48%) such as film, TV, music, radio, news and sports outlets established in the pre-Internet age or new digital media (47%), such as social media, which exists exclusively online.
Today, 43% of consumers pay to access their favorite media outlets. Two thirds (66%) of these high-value, paid subscription media consumers disagree that the quality media they have become accustomed to will be available for free in the coming 10 years.
The report asked 6,000 media consumers in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States to reveal the status of media in their lives, finding that dependency on the channel through which most of today’s media is consumed, the Internet, is not set to waver in the next decade. In fact, over two thirds (69%) of consumers predict that access to the Internet will become a basic human right in a decade’s time....
For better or worse, younger consumers are more able to form meaningful relationships through digital channels.
That, at least, is according to new research from digital marketing agency Deep Focus, which based its findings on a survey of 901 “mainstream” 18-34s, and 302 18-34 “trendsetters,” late last year.
In fact, more than one-third of this demographic now consider “eLationships” as meaningful as in-person relationships, Deep Focus finds.
Plus, nearly a third (32%) of the young respondents reported feeling “close” to people they had only met online, while more than three-quarters (76%) said they had friendships based solely on social-media interactions....
Social Media has cemented its hold on businesses as more and more marketers indicate that they are placing a high value on it and are wanting to master social tactics that effectively engage their audience. The past year has seen an increase in Social Media Marketing through countless studies, practices, industry trends and even some major acquisitions in the space. However, the exciting possibilities are yet to come as Facebook and Twitter announce potential “buy” buttons that help drive an even more personalized experience to consumers. Trends such as paid amplification, content directed to new wearable tech, native advertising are just some of the examples of what’s to come in 2015.
With the wide variety of trends ready to launch in 2015, we decided to reach out to experts and get their predictions for Social Media in the upcoming year....
Alright, so these are the 10 most popular posts published by SocialMouths in 2014.
The criteria I used is very simple: Most shared on social media, according to BuzzSumo. I’m also adding the top 11 to 15 at the bottom of the post....
What do buyers say is the most important signal of vendor credibility? What type of content is most effective? What do marketers rate as the single most valuable SEO tactic? What are the top barriers to adopting social business practices?
Find the answers to these questions and many others in more than 100 social and online marketing stats from 20+ different sources....
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Still makes you look cool. I Gotta READ This!
I'm worried about this research with the recently revealed teen suicide rates. Ack!