5 Social Media Trends to Look Out For in 2017

Being aware of the latest trends in social media is a must no matter what type of business you run.

Even if your business itself doesn’t rely heavily on social media, it’s still incredibly useful to be aware of what consumers and potential business customers are craving when it comes to online content and services.

With this in mind, below are some of the biggest social media trends to look out for in 2017.

1. Virtual/augmented reality video

There’s already been a strong trend towards more visual content over the last few years, with an explosion in popularity of visual social media platforms, including Instagram and Pinterest.

More established platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have also become much more visual. This appetite for visual content means that more focus is going to be put on more novel experiences, including virtual and augmented reality on social media.

2016 has been called the year of VR, with the release of both the Oculus Rift and the PlayStation VR headsets respectively. As VR and augmented reality become more mainstream, the technology will become easier to use and will be implemented more in social experiences, including on social media platforms.

2. Increase in live video streaming

Live video streaming services such as Periscope saw a huge surge in popularity in 2016 and that trend is set to continue. More content providers are realising the appetite their audience has for something immediate and as a result are making use of services such as YouTube Live and Facebook Live.

Live video can be a truly excellent way for brands to connect with their audience. It is different from other forms of social media content in that it's immediate and unfiltered and therefore provides another way to connect with your followers.

3. Chatbots

If you haven’t heard of chatbots already then you will soon. They have gained a lot of popularity in the last 12 months, in no small part due to the incorporation of chatbots in Facebook Messenger. In April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that third parties would be able to take advantage of Facebook’s messenger platform in order to create their own chatbots.

Chatbots are particularly useful at improving real-time engagement with customers. Many businesses currently use a combination of live chat, email and phone support in order to assist their customers. As chatbots improve and their use becomes more widespread, it's likely that a lot, if not the majority of customer issues will be dealt with through them. The ability to intelligently deal with customer issues in real time without the need for human intervention is just round the corner.

4. More difficult to get organic traffic through social media

The fact that social media is so popular is a double-edged sword.

Yes, there a huge amount of people on the various social media platforms at any given time but that also means that there’s an abundance of content with too little space for it. This has caused major social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to remove chronological timeline updates, meaning content providers must pay in order to gain visibility.

For businesses and online marketers, this means that a multi-channel approach will be best from now on. Instead of putting all your efforts into social media marketing, it’s better to focus on a mixture of content marketing, organic SEO and email marketing.

5. More automation

The fact that there are so many ways to market a business nowadays, combined with the growing number of social media platforms means that automation is a must for businesses that want to market in an effective way.

Not taking advantage of some of the excellent marketing automation applications that exist could end up costing your business a lot. It’s been shown that marketing automation helps businesses to boost revenue significantly and a growing number of business owners are now making automation a key part of their overall marketing strategy.

These are just some of the trends likely to be seen in 2017 where social media is concerned.

Be sure to keep checking back to the blog for more IT news and tips.

Enjoy Christmas and our very best wishes to you all for the forthcoming New Year. A healthy & prosperous 2017!

Image source: Freerange Stock