Every so often an outsider app like Vero captures the imagination of the easily distracted. Heralded as the “Facebook and Instagram killer” of our time by journalists and media commentators that don’t even gif yet. For a fleeting moment, these new apps enjoy rapidly rising downloads, some overblown PR and, if you believe the headlines, seem to threaten the social landscape as we know it.
To put your minds at ease here are the eight things you need to know about the current state of social media:
1) Vero. If you say it out aloud it starts to rhyme with Ello, Peach, Google + and Meerkat. Vero is a three-year overnight success and enjoyed a ‘sizable’ jump in downloads in February this year. When I say sizable I mean three million in total downloads. Compare this with Facebook’s 2.13 billion monthly active users (MAUs). If Vero wants to have any chance of long term success it has a very steep climb ahead of it.
Vero isn’t worth a look or a moment of your time and I bet by April you’ll forget how to spell it.
2) Smarter algorithms are good/necessary for marketers and users. That nerdy ‘A word’ has been thrown around nearly as much as Bitcoin tips from that dude who’s always in the work kitchen. The rage against the algorithm is potentially the reason Vero got as far as it did by promising they’ll never use an algorithm…ever.
Algorithms are essential to any social media platform of any relevant size. We scroll through the height of the Statue of Liberty every single day on our social feeds. As platforms become more popular it’s simply not possible to keep things chronological.
Learning the quirks behind the ways the algorithms work on the major platforms is the difference between make or break with many digital campaigns today.
3) Snapchat is not dead – don’t believe everything Kylie Jenner tweets. Snapchat might be having a rough time after its users have been circulating a petition on Change.org with over 1,254,065 signatures and counting, to reverse the layout of the latest update. However, 187 million people still use the app each day. Although it’s had a rollercoaster ride since the IPO it’s still holding a massive amount of youth attention and it is a worthwhile platform to engage on if your audience is spending time there.
Perhaps some of that genius thinking and execution that saw the launch of Spectacles will again see the rise of Snap Inc. continue.
4) Instagram starting to sound like it’s parents? True fans of Instagram have been outraged a number of times. Tears happened when the logo changed colours, the algorithm came in and when advertising began on the platform. But all 800 million of us wiped away those tears to take pictures of our lunch and share it.
There is testing going on in select countries where a new Instagram messaging platform called ‘Direct’ is being trialled. We’ve seen this as a natural progression on Facebook where Zucks said that the platform was getting too big to do both messaging and content well and they needed to be separated.
Direct, when downloaded, will pair with your Instagram app and disable the DM feature of Instagram. If this goes ahead it will totally kill the terminology of ‘sliding into his/her DMs.’
Instagram remains a powerful beast and advertising here often yields very high conversions. Make it work better buy building Instagram-only ads, not just by sharing Facebook campaigns across all the automatic placements that FB suggests. Instagram is visual, make your advertising suitably visual and ensure your mobile shopping experience is slick. People are buying straight from the feed.
5) LinkedIn is offering up some decent low-cost reach/impressions across it’s platform as it puts its advertising revenue pants on. Microsoft are pretty keen to start making that $26.2 billion acquisition look good on paper. A struggle for LinkedIn is the user frequency on the platform. It makes it harder for advertisers to build a case when people use the platform far less that the other major networks. There’s a lot of data there and no doubt some low hanging fruit.
6) 2018 looks like the year of AR. Snapchat and Facebook are going in hard on AR this year. There will be a series of large announcements over the next few months with these players vying for the edge in the next reality. It’s the beginning of the true mix between physical and digital worlds and these two platforms seem to be the best placed to make mass adoption of AR a reality.
Snapchat will begin rolling out AR lenses created by third party creators. This opens up a world of possibility for brands to have a play in the AR space.
We’ll see the fruits of Facebook’s private beta test group soon too. They’ve been working with over 700 of the world’s best agencies, developers, brands and content creators to trial their AR beta ads platform. If this goes right it’s a game changer for the digital & physical marketing worlds.
7) Twitter is nearly cool again and is seeing somewhat of a resurgence. Users seem to enjoy the fact Donald Trump can tweet up to 280 characters in length now although according to CEO Jack Dorsey, people aren’t tweeting longer they are just tweeting more. Engagement and bots are still an issue for the platform but there is a renewed focus in cleaning this up. The smart marketers never abandoned twitter or at least kept their ears to the feeds as a lot of insights from social conversations can be learnt here. For many brands Twitter is a customer Q&A stream but that’s ok. Investing your time in the platform during 2018 may yield some good results.
8) YouTube remains the video beast and although it’s been in the sites of Facebook for most of 2017 nothing is taking away from the attention and traction of the platform. As many different platforms get into the digital TV market YouTube is seeing growth here but stiff competition from the likes of Netflix and Hulu continue to make progress tough. Platforms like Facebook Watch still need to iron out some kinks and prove their place in the market but it’s the next space to watch.
Want to slide into my DMs with your opinion? How about we start slow by leaving a comment below.
16K Agency founding partner and lead digital marketing strategist James Towers