Social Media Trends 2017

What is going to happen to Social Media in 2017 I hear you ask? Well, here are 3 social media trends that are being predicted for 2017.

  1. Larger platforms are getting rid of the ‘social’

Facebook holds around 1.8 billion monthly users and since 2013, younger demographics began deserting Facebook as they started to view it as ‘uncool’. Mark Zuckerberg has responded to this by loosening the Facebook label and effectively unbranding the social media giant. Other apps, such as instagram, whatsapp etc are gaining followers by segmenting themselves into specific usages.

According to recent surveys – Facebook, including messenger remains the most popular social platform with 32% of 12-24 years olds saying they use it the most. Snapchat registered second with 26%. Regardless of recent gains, snapchat isn’t wasting any time celebrating. They’re repositioning themselves as a ‘camera maker’ and are diversifying. Snapchat’s strategy is representative of the growing trend of ditching their ‘social’ tag. Other companies such as Pinterest are also adopting this idea – they are classifying themselves as ‘a catalogue of ideas’ rather than ‘social’. Twitter have followed suit and shifted to ‘news’.

But what is behind this shift in social strategy? It is about evolving social media’s role from a fun distraction, to a vital everyday behaviour.

  1. Ride the Virtual Reality Bus

Oculus Rift, Playstation VR, Gear VR… not heard of these yet? You soon will have! Soon these virtual reality (VR) headsets will be in your living rooms. VR is an immersive experience in which your head movements are tracked within a three-dimensional world. The game Pokemon GO that I’m sure you have all heard of majorly influenced this. This app game was just a little taste of augmented reality leaving us hungry for more.

Facebook and Snapchat are both keen to jump on the VR bandwagon. Snapchat has long had augmented reality inspired lenses and are rumoured to have big plans!

Social Networks are no longer standalone. They’re becoming more like electricity – less visible and yet more embedded in people’s lives.

  1. Chatbots

In 2016 chatbots emerged as another trend to watch. Chatbots are all applications that reproduce a code of conversation in order to generate automated communication with users. Chatbots make it possible to order Ubers, book reservations, etc. all by text message. As this technology develops we expect it to become much more prominent in 2017.

 

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