3 Factors That Will Mold The Future Of Social Media

Where is social media heading? A glimpse into the exciting future of social media 

The future of social media will revolve around these key areas:

• Localization
• Mobile
• Privacy

How will social media evolve in the future?  What does the future of social media technology look like?

The world of social media was envisioned to connect people and to create relationships that will transform the world. Over time, the social scale started tipping and appealed to businesses. Social media has fostered a new world of virtual relationships that go beyond merely the place where you live, work, or spend time.

This is NOW.

While Facebook and Snapchat roll out update after update, there is even bigger change happening that will alter the broad landscape of social media.

Let’s explore 3 factors that will mold the future of social media…

Localization As The Future of Social Media 

If you own a wedding photography service in Memphis, Tennessee, would you want your Facebook posts to be popular with people in London, England?  No, right? 

It makes sense to target people who are in the same local area or region as your business. In turn, building your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media followings keeping your business location in mind attracts more sales. 

Here is how social media companies are helping businesses to leverage geo-location tagging and localization to maximize their target audience reach:

Snapchat: Collaborating with Foursquare to help members use Geofilters when they are near or in store locations. Snapmap is a new feature that allows Snapchat users to know their friends’ location as well as trending events from all around the world. 

Facebook: Facebook is working in stealth mode to create a range of local search features including Facebook Professional Services, City Guides and several other options based on:

• Business popularity
• Price range
• Location

And others. In fact, Facebook Pages already have some of these features integrated now. 

Google My Business: A Google product that helps businesses register their NAP (Name, Address and Phone Number) online even if they do not have a website. These businesses get listed in search results when users search online using location search queries. 

Mobile As The Future Of Social Media

Mobile has changed the digital landscape. It has also fueled the social media usage thanks to mobile apps and mobile websites. 

Marketing Land estimates that one out of every five minutes of digital time is spent on social media websites. One of five – WOW, right? 

There is also a growing popularity of social messenger apps like:

• Facebook Messenger
• WhatsApp
• WeChat
• Instagram
• Wickr (encrypted)

Think about it: Our mobile phones are always in our purse or pocket.  Always with us.  Anywhere and anytime accessibility, connectivity and social interaction with personal and public circles.

No surprise – Mobile messenger apps have already started implementing ads based on user behavior. 

With those things in mind, it is fair to say that the future of social media is mobile. 

Privacy As The Future of Social Media

According to Business Insider’s Messaging App report of 2015 users are steadily spending increased time on private messaging apps over interacting publicly on social platforms. Users want to have more privacy in what they share, to whom they share, and when it is shared. 

The increase in privacy controls, setting private circles, restrictions to who can see your stuff, all hint at the growing popularity of privacy as a cornerstone to the future of Social Media. 

It is important to note that Facebook, Google, Twitter, Instagram, and other social platforms revise their privacy policy often to better protect the privacy of their users.  In addition, Facebook already offers encryption options, and entire encrypted apps, like Wickr, are starting to gain attention. 

How To Prepare For The Future Of Social Media

From ‘Social Media is the Future’ to the ‘Future of Social Media’ quite a lot has happened in this world! 

Facebook, especially, caters toward the individual user.  However, they have made many changes in the past few years in favor of businesses. 

The one sure thing is change!  Businesses using social media need to be prepared to continue to stay informed about social platform changes.  This will require entrepreneurs to dedicate time to following updates.  For bigger companies, part of the social media marketing team’s responsibilities should be to stay aware. 

All social media strategies should be flexible to re-strategizing to be consumer-centric while being mobile-ready, privacy-friendly with ability to target most ideal customers. 

Using social messenger apps for customer support is a good example.  Chatbot solutions allow businesses utilize time-efficient, automated yet private marketing messages to their followers. Well-done messenger strategies amplify returns compared with traditional email marketing. 

Using the location settings, geofilters and tags on social media will help businesses be found more easily by their potential customers. Clever use of Geofencing will allow display of targeted ads that will lead to more in-store foot traffic resulting in additional sales volumes. 

All said, the future social media platforms will be geared toward mobile, localization and privacy.

Do you have questions about the information above?

How do you think social media will impact the future?