Trend Alert: 8 Social Media Trends for 2017

Social media is ever-changing. We saw this this year with Facebook’s push towards live video, with Instagram adding the ‘Story’ feature, with Twitter (finally) removing the character count from image uploads.

According to social data intelligence company, Talkwalker, we spend about 2 hours a day or 15% of our waking time on social media. It’s no small amount by any means, and social media is itself trending. But, what exactly will it bring us in 2017?

Talkwalker shared with Allwork the following 8 social media trends that experts expect to see in the coming year.

You can read Talkwalker’s original blog post here.

8 Social Media Trends To Look For In 2017

1. The Power of Social Media Giants will Increase

Michael Stelzner, CEO and Founder of Social Media Examiner believes traffic to websites will decline and that blogs will shut down. “If you want your content seen, you’ll need to house it inside the companies that control the toll stations. Google, Facebook, Linkedin and more will incentivize content creators to not link to off-site content.”

We’ve already seen how content is starting to be strictly filtered in various social media platforms and search engine results.

For his part, Eric T Tung, Social Media Pro via Forbes and Social Media Advisor, believes that more acquisitions will take place, and that power will “collect in the hands of a few.” More importantly, Tung points out that “people will be less and less tolerant of marketing crap”, which means businesses will need to focus on education, entertainment, and original valuable content.

2. The Fight Back Against Fake News Will Begin

“Post-truth” was word of the year in 2016, as chosen by the Oxford English Dictionary. This in itself should be a warning. Rand Fishkin, Founder of Moz, believes that, “Twitter (will) double down on features that limit abusive aspects, and Facebook (will) address the issues of fake news, false claims, and inaccurate ‘facts’ on their platform.”

Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich, suggests marketers do three things to avoid being negatively impacted or penalized from this trend. “Verify the validity of every piece of news before we share it anywhere, build an internal discussion around what to do if a competitor spreads fake news about our organizations or executives, refuse to do work with anyone who wants us to do this.”

3. From Social Networks to Social Messaging

According to social media influencer Isabelle Mathieu, “the biggest social messaging apps now have a larger community than the biggest social networks.”

“These apps (messaging apps) have a wide audience and offer several attractive features to brands for e-commerce and client support.”

4. More Targeting and More Integration

As more people and brands use social networks, more noise is created; making it hard for all messages to be heard. Dave Chaffey, CEO of Smart Insights, is expecting “to see more use of services and APIs to integrate social media with CRM, marketing automation, and social media prospecting and retargeting ad platforms.”

Neal Schaffer, CEO of Maximize Your Social, believes 2017 will be an evolutionary year. He recommends that businesses embrace influencer marketing, paid social, and visual content. “Brands need to graduate from throwing $$ at people with large networks and instead focus on influencers that truly help them meet their objectives.” He further adds that the days of organic social media success are over and that “it’s not about paying for playing, but how much you pay to play.” As for visual content, Schaffer believes that “visual content is not a commodity, and this is where brands should be investing more of their budgets,” as this will help them reach and attract a wider audience.

5. The Social Storytelling Evolution

Andrew Hutchinson, Social Media Manager at Social Media Today, believes that “we’re going to see more emphasis on ‘social storytelling’ to help better engage audiences on social platforms.” He believes that this trend will attract younger users, who will be the ones that’ll drive future social media trends. He recommends brands and businesses “start investigating and putting into action steps to add more immediate, multi-scene narratives that help better connect users to their brand story and purpose.”

6. Virtual Reality Meets Social Media

Martin Shervington, Google Partner and Google Small Business Advisor, says that “2017 will see the next phase of platform adoption in Virtual Reality.” This will change the way brands interact with consumers and clients and the way they ‘feed’ them new types of creative content.

7. Trust is The Next Frontier

With people combating fake-news, businesses will need to focus on fostering genuine trust with their audiences. David Amerland, International Speaker on Data Trends, says that “When the traditional barriers to connectivity that were posed by the technical challenge of overcoming lack of proximity, access to content, an interactive digital presence and a high-quality connection, are removed what truly remains is the perception of whether we can trust who we are dealing with or not.”

Tim Fargo, CEO of Social Jukebox, believes the key factor lies in “having content that converts people into paying fans. When you can get attention and engender trust, you’re on your way to getting paying fans” (or in your case, workspace members).

“The desire to get attention should always be governed by the requirement of deserving it.”

8. Businesses Will Need To Learn To Sell On Social

Marsha Collier, Founder of CustServ Chat, recommends businesses refocus their approach to selling on social. “Rather than chasing shiny objects everywhere, center on the psychographics (what your customer cares about) versus their demographics. These days passions are more powerful than statistical data.”

Ian Cleary, Writing on RazonSocial and Social Media Examiner, believes that “there is no reason why people will not buy on social media channels if the social media channels create an environment for sales.”

There you have it. It’s time for your social media strategy to evolve and for you to find ways on how you can sell your flexible workspace memberships through social networks.