2016 is just days away, which means it’s time for marketers to start thinking about the social media trends that could make or break their entire upcoming year. And, with social media evolving extra fast now, top marketers are smart to be taking the time to think about 2016 social media trends and how they can apply these trends to their strategies. These astute marketers who are taking time to assess emerging 2016 social media trends before the year kicks off are smart because they are going to be able to identify opportunities before the rest of the marketing world has a chance to catch up with them.
Marketers who are able to beat other marketers to new social networks and capitalize on trends first are the most successful. Preparing for the unexpected shifts in the way we use social networks will be immensely advantageous for the companies these prepared marketers work for.
These are the 2016 social media trends top marketers can’t ignore:
1. Your social video efforts need to evolve.
The social video landscape is going to grow even faster in 2016, which means that it’s going to get more complicated for companies to succeed with video marketing efforts (especially organically). The video landscape is going to get more crowded and confusing, making it so that one video can’t survive or thrive on every platform. Smart marketers in 2016 are going to make special cuts of each video, for each platform. This means that the days of only uploading one cut to YouTube and blasting that video out across every platform are coming to an end.
2. Messaging platforms will continue their explosive growth trajectory.
Posting to social messaging platforms is becoming less common. People, especially millennials, are choosing to message each other more frequently for increased privacy. This means that marketers have a fun challenge to begin to tackle in 2016: figuring out how to make one-on-one contact with customers feel more organic, casual, and unforced.
3. Ad blocking is going to be even more common.
Over the past year, use of ad blocking software has risen 48%. This means pop-up ads, banner ads, and similar ad formats are likely going to encounter an even bigger hit in 2016. While this makes “easy” marketing more difficult, it poses a fun challenge to marketers. Marketers will need to figure out how to create more (and better) content for brands. People don’t like blatant advertising, which means the adage content is king will most likely ring true even more so in 2016.
4. Snapchat becomes more TV-like, less social network.
Marketers are going to begin realizing that Snapchat isn’t a social network, it’s an entertainment platform. This means that instead of trying to create social experiences, the keen marketer is going to focus on creating entertainment that makes viewers watch for a long period of time.
5. Social networks will increase their efforts to keep users on their sites.
Social networks are going to increase their efforts to keep users on their sites. We’ve already seen a few announcements that show how this will begin to come to fruition over the next year. An example of this is Facebook announcing Notes coming back to life with a huge Medium-like redesign and content creators such as Buzzfeed committing to posting original content directly on Facebook. A second example of this trend actualizing is Twitter beginning to roll out Buy Now. Buy Now will make it easier for customers to discover products and purchase them directly on Twitter. This means that selling products will happen directly on the Twitter timeline.
Companies are going to need to begin to really think about their on-platform presence and how to create successful conversation with an understanding that people may not have the easy opportunity to click-through to their websites any longer.