Hot Social Media Trends that are defining the future

During the past decade, social media has been evolving in extreme ways. While it used to be a simple way of communication and expression, using social media has become almost a lifestyle element by now. Those platforms are billions of dollars’ worth in revenue, and the social media influencers are now getting almost close to Hollywood celebrities!

A decade ago, social media was something used mostly by young people, often college students as a way of communicating with their peers. Now they are fully fledged media platforms where users consume not only entertainment but also news and other media features as well. Social Media has completely transformed the way people consume information and communicate with each other. Looking at how far it has evolved within a mere decade, it is interesting to see what will become of it in the future.

This is how the social media landscape looks at the present according to data taken from Pew Research.

• 88% of the age group from 18 – 29 years;
• 78% of the age group from 30 – 49 years;
• 64% of the age group from 50 – 64 years;
• 37% of the age group from 65 years and older use at least one form of social media

The most popular and actively used social media platforms currently are Facebook and Youtube. Instagram is used by over 35% of adults in the US which is a significant increase since 2016. 75% of Facebook users visit the website daily.

What these data suggest is quite clear. Most of the internet users are almost addicted to using social media. This addiction is relatively higher in the young generation, but it does not mean that adults are too much different either. The frequency that people use social media contributes to the future of social media content creation and marketing.

Video content is reportedly the most popular marketing tool in social media with the best ROI rates according to 52% of digital marketers. For this reason, even the social media platforms which were predominantly text-based – like Twitter – are now getting more and more video friendly. It does not matter what kind of video it is, let it be a tutorial, an entertaining clip or an ad, social media users are used to giving them their online time. There is a great demand for video content from creators who are popular among users. They simply cannot get enough.

Nevertheless, it is important that the marketing teams do their homework when it comes to using video as a marketing tool. Different channels expect different kinds of videos. For an example, Youtube may get high view counts for a 20+ minute video, while Twitter usually has success on videos that are less than 5 minutes in length. The best way is to customize your video content according to the channels and distribute them across platforms.

GoPro is an impressive success story when it comes to user-generated videos as a marketing tool. The reason for the viral success of their products was nothing that they strategically put out there, but simple and genuine user videos. GoPro Youtube Channels has over 6 million subscribers, and they get millions of views and high engagement on their user-generated videos. They created a community aspect within their user base which was extremely successful in getting their name and the products to new markets and users.