The Future of Social Media

Social media has changed drastically over the years and long gone are the days of using Facebook to simply connect with friends and family. Increasingly, companies are using social media to advertise, promote and offer services to a wider audience.

However, with the dramatic increase of smartphone usage, consumers are just a click away from the Internet, accessing social networks and downloading data. They have become more savvy online, wanting personalised, exciting social experiences. They want to feel in control of the content they choose to view. So, what is the future of social media?

50 per cent of mobile phone users access the Internet primarily on their mobile according to Digital Buzz, meaning it has never been easier for companies to engage with consumers. Due to this, social-mobile marketing is on the rise.

A good example of this is Starbucks’ Tweet-a-Coffee campaign. By following the Starbucks twitter account, customers are now able to buy coffee gift cards or even buy a coffee for a friend. Not only does this allow Starbucks to interact with its consumers on a personal level, it makes a customer’s experience more memorable and satisfying. It also expands the online presence of the brand.

As there are so many social networking platforms, consumers are using each network for different reasons and also perceive messages differently on each. Brands must therefore ensure that messages are tailored to each social network and that messages are exciting enough to capture consumers’ attention.

In order to offer social networking users tailored experiences, the future of social media could involve developing a new way to communicate between social networking sites. At the moment, users can only communicate with one another through the social network platform. By allowing users to communicate with others on different social networking sites without having to join every platform will make users’ social experience faster, simpler and personalised to their needs.  

Consumers also want a tighter control over who can see the content they share. Users of social platforms are now using more private social apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat that allow them to freely message and send photos to their contacts without worrying about their activity being tracked.

If the future of social media is that platforms become much more private and social circles tighten, it will be much harder and more expensive for companies to access newsfeeds.