Social Media Predictions for 2019
18 Dec 2018
As we start to kick back and get back into the Christmas spirit the DMA Social Media Council share their predictions for the social media world in 2019. Here, council members James Ainsworth, Head of Content at Prophecy Unlimited and Victoria Jenkins, Senior Account Manager at agency:2 share their insights around potential economic growth and advances in technology.
DMA: What is the economic outlook for the industry?
JA: The more platforms that emerge (TikTok, Neighbourly etc.) and the more the existing ones acquire those emerging platforms or clone their features, in the short-term, the need for creativity and marketing messages on social channels looks strong. Couple that with the decline of organic reach and the need to utilise paid media spend to get anything seen is also indicative of a very bright future for social media platforms and media agencies.
VJ: There are lots of opportunity for economic growth in social media, especially among emerging markets. Advances in AR and VR technology allows brands to connect with their online customers better than ever before. With the growth of chatbots and hyper-targeting of ads brands will focus next year on increased personalisation of the customer experience. As social is used increasingly frequently as a search channel (with a greater proportion of searches via images and speech) its importance as a selling platform for brands will only continue to grow in 2019.
DMA: What are your predictions for 2019?
JA: Sadly, 2019 will likely be riddled with suspicion and distrust. Lack of authenticity in the Influencer landscape due to fuzzy guidelines and no regulation is a problem for the consumer experience but something that brands, agencies and influencers alike should seek to address for the greater good. Further cautiousness will spread from consumer suspicion of the platforms themselves. Facebook’s numbers haven’t fallen off a cliff as a result of the emerging detail around their handling of consumer data and their connections to 3rd part applications, but the platforms have a lot to do when it comes to transparency and would do well to remember ethics when it comes to what is in the consumer interest.
VJ: The ‘storification’ of social. We will continue to see a rapid growth in the ‘storification’ of social across Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat and even LinkedIn. The consultancy firm Block Party found that sharing via stories is growing 15x times faster than feed-based social sharing and that creation and consumption of stories is up 842% since 2016[1]. Facebook’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, has announced that “the Stories format is on a path to surpass feeds as the primary way people share things with their friends sometime next year.”
It’s important that brands ensure that they are creating engaging vertical images and video content specially designed for the Story format. New formats will focus on making Stories as interactive as possible, for example Group Stories allows members of a Group to collaborate on a story and add emojis and reactions in response.
Dominance of Video Content. Video content will continue to dominate on social media and experts are suggesting that up to 80% of what we consume online in 2019 will be video content[2]. We predict seeing a particular rise in live videos, as these allow brands to immerse customers in the behind the scenes of their industry like never before.
DMA: Where are the growth areas in social?
JA: The dying art of community management in social media is something that should be explored further as an opportunity for growth. Proactive social media communications, rather than reactive interjections from brands will better serve any content that is created, by connecting it to a relevant audience and encouraging natural conversation around a consumer need. The challenge is in scalability but front-foot social media comms encourages better analysis of data and segmentation from the outset, to sustain engagement and increase the chance of conversion with those consumers at moments that matter to them.
DMA: What effects will technology have?
JA: Technology will speed up the rate and volume of interactions through social channels. If you think where we have come in a short space of time from Forums to Twitter to live video broadcasts or Stories video functionality on every platform going, being a creator of content is an option for all – not just the media or brands – the playing field for technology and platforms has levelled significantly. What you can do with your mobile phone goes way beyond making calls and playing ‘Snake’. Of course, the proliferation of hardware, back-end advances and other IT infrastructure, doesn’t necessarily mean that it is of quality; technology has helped make things noisier and more immediate with content and media creation and consumption habits dramatically shifting and having significant knock-on effects for our Global society.
VJ: Customised Chatbots. We predict seeing a rise in the number of companies using chatbots for customer service. Gartner has estimated[3] that by 2020, 25% of customer service and support operations will integrate virtual customer assistant or chatbot technology. AI will also allow for increasing personalisation for customer user journeys. Recent research by Selligent revealed that 74% of consumers expect brands to “treat me as an individual, not as a member of some segment.”
More Immersive Storytelling. Customers no longer want to passively view brands stories, they wish to participate in them too. The rise of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) allows consumers to engage with brands on social like never before and for customers to virtually test out products before they buy them. It’s likely to lead to a greater number of impulse purchases made via social media, as consumers are exposed to a greater volume of high-quality AR social media ads.
[1]https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/02/stories-are-about-to-surpass-feed-sharing-now-what/
Please login to comment.
Comments