What’s next for social media marketing? Rumours and changes for 2016
As we approach the second quarter of 2016, let’s take a step back from the craze around Virtual Reality and look at what revelations are shaping around social media this year.
Starting off with the big giant Facebook.
Last year Facebook gifted us with Dynamic Product Ads and Lead Ads that brought increased engagement and lower costs for many businesses. This year Facebook focuses around the launch of Oculus Rift, but by no means marketers should expect to be abandoned on their journey to reach customers’ hearts.
Last month Facebook changed their News Feed Algorithm (again) and based it on the probability the user will interact with the post.
The same month company released Canvas Ads – a feature that sets to battle slow loading speeds of mobile websites. Why mobile? Mobile e-commerce is an area that brands are yet to take advantage of (only 2% of purchases are from mobiles right now, according to Emarketer) and slow loading speed is the top reason people abandon a website.
And for advertisers that want to engage with more than just an image, Facebook plans to release Live broadcasting feature. With Periscope mounting their user base to 10 million last year, Meerkat accumulating 2 million users, Twitch having 500,000 people watching live streams at any given moment, and Snapchat having 8 billion video views per day, it is no surprise that Facebook is investing into the Live video industry.
The 10 year old Twitter is facing challenges left and right at the moment. After the recent announcement of the first ‘growth-less’ quarter for the company, CEO Jack Dorsey is looking for ways to engage users, get back on the growth path and please increasing demands of advertisers at the same time. So what changes can we expect from Twitter?
Twitter, just like Facebook, redesigned its timeline algorithm to show relevant content as opposed to most recent one. Thus, you might have to reconsider your Twitter campaign if its only goal is to post several times per day. Quality over quantity.
With Twitter Moments released last year, we are yet to experience the monetization of the feature. The big update allows users to look at any big events or news happening around the world real time. While brands are yet to be able to take advantage of the update, it is wise to keep those Real Time marketing strategies nearby in case the change does happen.
Character increase from 140 to 10,000. This is a big one. The beloved feature of many users is set to be changed. The news has produced a lot of criticism already, however, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey assured that the company wants to give people “… more utility and power.” What does this mean to marketers? It means that Twitter could become the next blog website. Or it could become the medium for all the storytelling creative…
More ad options. The launch of ‘Conversational Ads’ last year was praised by many marketing executives, however, the social media giant is still far from the selection of Facebook.
Lastly, we can expect the roll out of ‘Buy Now’ button outside of US, more image/video options in addition to Twitter Camera (only available to celebrities now), and much, much more tweets!
Timeline changes. Yes, Instagram as well. Not surprisingly Instagram is following its social media mother Facebook and changing the timeline to display posts based on relevance instead of recency. What does this mean for the brands? Linear storytelling can no longer be used and the quality of content will once again prevail.
More ad options. Instagram has accumulated over 200,000 advertisers after opening up to brands last September. It would be safe to assume that we will see more ad options for the channel and not only in an image format. Guinness launched the first 60-second video ad on Instagram during the Superbowl this year and short videos are producing significantly higher levels of engagement than images. Brands understand the power of video and it is a trend we will likely see for the advertisements.
Messaging Applications
While not necessarily social media sites, the rumours are too big to be left out. It might change the way we see social media in the future.
6 out of 10 most popular apps are messaging apps. 49% of US mobile users use mobile messaging apps (eMarketer). Why does that matter to marketers when there are little to no advertising options?
Last year Facebook launched Facebook M, a virtual assistant set to compete with Siri and Cortana. Integrated into Messanger, Facebook M can help you find a birthday gift or order a meal from a takeaway. It is a hybrid between artificial intelligence and people (handling the difficult demands) making sure your request is fulfilled. Moreover, rumours are saying that Facebook will take a step further and integrate a bot store to Messenger. A bot store would allow customers to download specific programs that interact with Messenger and allow them to order a pizza, reserve a table, or order a taxi by sending a message (Uber has already announced that users will be able to order cars through Facebook Messenger in 2016). The bot store could completely change the game as it would make individual apps meaningless. However, it is a question how open consumers would be to use messaging apps for their everyday purchases. The upcoming F8 conference in April should answer our questions whether the rumours are true or not.
WhatsApp is also rumoured to open up to brands this year. Unlikely in the form of third-party advertising and more as a notification service, nevertheless, brands need to be ready to take advantage of the 1 billion monthly users pool.
Takeaway:
To sum up, there has been many exciting changes to social media recently and even more to come. The trend seems to be that the social media giants are taking control into their own hands over what content to show which leads to improved targeting and personalization. Video and live streaming are slowly stealing the spotlight and with Virtual Reality devices coming out this year, it is unlikely to change anytime soon. The rumours surrounding messaging apps would allow even closer relationships between customers and brands, yet, they are only rumours for now.
What other social media changes and rumours do you know about?