On Monday 7 January’s The #SocialMediaShow I looked ahead to 2019 and what might happen in the world of social media. Below you’ll find a summary but please watch the video for more predictions and greater insight. I’d also love to know what you think will happen this year, so please get in touch or comment under the video on Facebook.
Social networks
- Facebook and Twitter will be split up with more barriers being setup between services. For example, Messenger will be separated from ‘main Facebook’ and perhaps Groups and Business Pages too. Government regulation might enforce the break up of Facebook. On Twitter, a new news app will be spun off thereby leaving ‘old Twitter’ to die a natural death.
- Once services have been split up, this will open the way for subscriptions to be charged for each part eg Business Pages on Facebook and Twitter’s news app.
- Instagram and LinkedIn will see the highest growth of the ‘top 5’ social networks.
Content
- Content will become more social and less broadcast. It will be best to focus on character, personality and context with less automation.
- Stories will be big and will start to replace the News Feed on Facebook and Instagram with LinkedIn experimenting too.
- Posts and tweets will increasingly become more visual with GIFS and emojis featured heavily.
Technology and features
- AI – Artificial Intelligence will increasingly be used across social media, particularly in the areas of customer services, search and personalised recommendations.
- AR – Augmented Reality will become commonplace. Consumers will be able to visualise the new leather sofa in their lounge or the new sunglasses on their face.
- Facebook will finally get around to improving its search.
- Watch parties will become more popular on the social and business sides of Facebook.
- Facebook Shopping will follow Instagram Shopping although perhaps won’t be as successful as the former although Facebook Live with shopping could take off.
- LinkedIn will launch webinars and video communication, with the latter using Skype technology.
Delivery/Consumption
- The main growth will be in audio with podcasts becoming more popular.
- Sponsorship and adverts in audio content will be more commonplace and a great way for business to engage customers more personally.
- Smart speakers and voice assistants eg Alexa, Google Home have seen large growth in sales this year although their levels of use is unclear. However, use with social media will really take off. I currently send WhatsApp messages in the car using Android Auto, so why not a tweet?
- If 2018 was the year of the influencers. 2019 could be the year of the micro-influencer.
You can see how my past predictions have done by reading my predictions for 2016 and 2017.
The #SocialMediaShow is primarily aimed at small businesses and social media professionals. It’s purpose is to increase your knowledge and improve your use of social media for your business, organisation or charity.
If you would like details and a quote for tailor made one-to-one training or an in-house workshop where I’ll demonstrate how you can make the most of social media for your business, organisation or charity, please get in touch.
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