14 Jul Social Media Trends Set to Explode in 2017
Social Media is the most rapidly changing industry. It adopts new and discards old trends at much faster rate. Technology is responsible for triggering the rapid change in social media. More than the technology it is people that affect the popularity of a trend followed all over the internet. We aim to take you on a journey of “Social Media Trends Set to Explode in 2017.”
Real-time Video content
Video content is without a doubt most influential content available on the web. This is true that more people prefer to watch the video over reading content. Video content has become more authentic with live videos on social media. There has been a constant surge in the live video content. Social Media Examiner found that in 2016, 14% of marketers took to live video for promotion. And this year, 43% of marketers are planning to use live video as a mean of interaction with their audience or customers, according to a survey by Wyzowl.
Live video concept has transformed social media for good. It offers an authentic content that comes with credibility. That is why; news media is often making the use of Facebook live videos for live coverage of an event and happening. Twitter’s live streaming app Periscope was first social media tool that let people create live videos. Large popularity of this trend led Facebook, and Instagram to come up with live video options.
Live streaming of social media has taken e-commerce to a completely new level. Big or small brands today are exploiting live videos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to live to stream their events. This way, they succeed in engaging more audience for themselves and their products. There could be more features coming up this year to make video streaming even more exciting. Facebook may soon launch 360-degree capabilities in its live video that may be a boost to live video content.
 Messaging apps
This is a no surprise that WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger and Viber have a larger user base than Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. An estimate of 4 billion users uses messaging apps all over the world. Therefore brands this year can target these messaging apps to take users attentions. Moreover, some brands have already started making use of messenger apps to communicate with the customer. Hyatt makes use of Facebook Messenger by offering a 24-hour open channel of interaction to their customers. Guest can make a reservation, get a recommendation for their trip and ask questions.
E-commerce on mobile platform
The world of internet users is increasingly shifting from desktop to mobile platform for interaction and update. The popularity of mobile platform to advertise is evident from the fact that Facebook last year earned 80% of its revenue from selling advertising space on the mobile platform alone. Yes, the figure is crazy. Facebook made more that USD 7 billion last year. Same goes for Twitter, the ad revenue of the company through advertisements is following an increasing trend.
The success of Facebook and Twitter has inspired Snapchat to enter the same game. The image sharing app is recently launched a new advertising Application Program (Interface API), which is making it easy to buy an advertisement space. The image messaging mobile application has also introduced a variety of video ads and sponsored filters on its mobile-based platform. It has also introduced advertising content in –between user stories.
Social Chat Bots
There is huge likelihood that chatbots may dominate the future of social media. Facebook have them already. Businesses are choosing chatbots to interact with their customers. Chatbots make it quick and easy to respond to customer queries and comments. They are gradually revolutionizing the way brands conduct businesses with their customers. In customer support services, one-third of customers prefer social media over telephone conversation to receive customer support services. This may also mean elevation in texting load for customer support providers. More developed chatbots have potential to outdo present means of customer support.
Chatbots are a product of Artificial Intelligence. Dominos was first to experiment with such an invention of AI. It let customer order pizza by tweeting a pizza emoji to @Dominos. The tweet was later confirmed by a bot at the backend. The bot did it by scanning the tweet and the order was processed.
But now many other companies have entered the market. A fast food chain named Taco Bell recently revealed its TacoBot within the Slack which is messaging platform that is used to place an order for a taco. Through Chatbots on Facebook Messgengers, people an shop. make purchases and read the news.
Virtual and Augmented reality
Presently, there is need of more technological innovation and development in the sphere of virtual and augmented reality. Concepts of these computer technologies aren’t new. We can trace their existence from 1995 when concept of virtual reality and 360 degree videos came to being. Much recently, in March 2015, Youtube let users record 360-degree videos for advertisements. Many companies are using this platform to promote their causes through digital media platform.
 
Augmented reality in other hand was brought to people’s hands through Pokemon Go. Much could be seen coming this year in AR. Recently; Facebook CEO Mark Zukerberg acquired Masquerade, which is a liver filter and selfie app for live streaming video. Let’s see what is going to be next big trend in social media in 2017.
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