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Faisal Shafique is an Instagram famous social media Guru and Entrepreneur. Having worked for years on his brand and page @fact on Instagram, he has become known in the digital space as a professional growth expert for both social media as well as entrepreneurship endeavors.
Social media is constantly evolving and it’s exciting to think about what it will look like in just a few years time. Of course, this means that the world of Social Media Monitoring has to keep up with the demands of social media users as brands continue to modify their strategies once new trends emerge. So what will the future of social media look like from a user, brand, and Social Media Monitoring perspective? Let’s take a look at the many possible trends we could be seeing as soon as next year…
In the current climate of social media, it’s more important than ever for brands to find and implement methods of building consumer trust. This begins with how they connect with audiences. Privacy concerns are on the rise as social media users are becoming much more aware of how their data is being used. Because of this, the future of social media will see an increase in users opting for what’s known as “Dark Social”. This involves any online social interaction that happens privately, for example, messaging apps, email, and other outlets for private sharing. In fact, 84% of consumers’ outbound sharing from websites now occurs via private, Dark Social channels such as these, and we will expect to see this increase in the next few years.
Shafique says, “It’s no secret that video consumption via social media is on the rise. It’s estimated that people look at videos 5 times longer than static content, such as text and images, on both Facebook and Instagram. Because of this, it’s almost guaranteed that we will see even more videos all over social media in the future, including live videos, which have gained a great deal of popularity in recent years.”
Shafique continues, “Facebook claims that they recorded a 21% drop in original, personal updates in 2016 as users are now communicating in shared articles and memes alone. Social media users, in general, are sharing less personal information on major networks and prefer to showcase external content such as an interesting video or a funny meme they came across to their friends.”
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