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20 Must See Social Media Trends 2015

Date post: 15-Jul-2015
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Stay ahead of the curve with our top 20 social media 20 trends in 2015.
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Stay ahead of the curve with

our top 20 social media 20 trends

in 2015.

Augmented reality has come on in leaps and bounds in the past year; aided by the Oculus Rift. 2015 is the year it cements its place in history as the future of video, not to mention the opportunities there are for gaming.

If you haven’t heard of Oculus Rift but want to experiment with AR, we highly recommend spending a little money (around 10 British pounds on Amazon - http://amzn.to/1Iqofg1) on Google Cardboard (https://www.google.com/get/cardboard). Designed for Android phones but now available on iOS - this simple technology (literally cardboard and a couple of lenses) is great fun and won’t break the bank. You will not be disappointed!

Virtual reality

Snapchat was reportedly the fastest growing social network in 2014 and they appear to have conquered the ‘flitty’ but highly prizes teenage demographic. In fact 15% of teens globally using the app!

If you fancy getting in front of these guys, then you’re going to need deep pocket’s approx 550,000 GBP per day should do it. Like anything new and buzzy, ads were always going to start off at a crazy price allowing for the brands that can afford it to claim the glory of a ‘world first’. It was the same story for Twitter in 2013-14 if you remember.

Look out for new, more affordable ad formats for Snapchat in Q4 and Q1 od 2016 and beyond.

Trend 2Teens make it Snappy!

Facebook has repeatedly decreased organic post reach for the past couple of years, and sadly for brands, this trend will continue in 2015. Of course Facebook claims it is so that their users only see the best high quality content, however the general consensus is that it is a money making ploy. Either way, if you want your brand to be seen in the Facebook ecosystem you are going to have to spend more money.

According to Fox News, Facebook’s ad revenue increased 64% in 2013 and that was before the drastic decline in organic reach!

- don’t leave out a Facebook ad budget in your marketing plan for 2015!

Facebook is officiallyno longer FREE for brands!

Neck Nomination, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, No Makeup Selfie, Feeling Nuts, Coffee Moustache Challenge - believe it or not, they were all in 2014.

In 2014 we were inundated with these nominations and, challenges and to be perfectly honest, we got bored of them. Any brand that seeks to utilise this mechanic to make a campaign go viral is treading on thin ice. Perhaps in 2015 a new style of nomination will rise, but please, please don’t ask me to nominate anyone else, I’ve lost enough friends as it is!

Oh no... did I just see a nomination for my first ever Facebook photo to go back up!!!??? GRRRRRRR!

We're bored of nominating

Digital (and specifically, social) marketers now have to fully embrace all forms of marketing, both offline and online, above and below the line. If there is an advert on television, it needs to link to social media. If there is a Facebook App designed for a brand, it needs to be synonymous with the brand message. If you run a press campaign make sure it drives people to your social to get the most value.

People are now cross-platform, therefore strategies need to be focused on cross platform targeting; it simply isn’t enough to gain traction in one area and ignore the rest.

Multi-format content marketing

As Facebook loses its ‘cool factor’ with the 16-26yr old audience, these digital trend setters go in search of new and cooler social networks to join. This is driving a rise in new, niche (and often well funded) social networks. These networks will promise the world; no brands allowed, no advertising, full security and anonymity, etc. – Sites like Ello have emerged in the past few months that claim to have all the benefits of Facebook with none of the draw backs, but can this model really work?

We have our doubts, without ad revenue income streams these new social network, may struggle... unless they can perhaps use Jedi mind tricks to convince their members to pay a subscription!?

Social networks go niche!

With a minimum spend of 15,000 GBP per campaign, Twitter advertising used to be ludicrously expensive for most. However this is not the case anymore (and hasn’t been for the past 2 years).

It is now on a par with Facebook advertising, and some say far more user friendly, targeted and beneficial from a ROI standpoint. As Facebook decreases organic reach to around 1-2%, brands may decide that it makes more sense to spend their money with Twitter instead.

Twitter has a new fee structure that allows brands to pay for performance rather than just clicks and re-tweets meaning that you can get more bang for your buck.

Hurrah for Twitter!

Better ROIfrom Twitter advertising?

Instagram has been popular with the millenial generation Ys for the best part of 4 years now, and we expect to see 2015 be another year of growth for both image and video content.

For those that market to the millenials generation, it will be essential to make your presence known on Instagram, Vine and/or Pinterest and to grow a following. It may even be worthwhile sponsoring a highly influential Instagrammer who will promote your message to your target audience. Don’t leave this channel out of your strategy for 2015!

Instagram is nolonger a hangout for hipsters

According to research by Edison, nearly a quarter of American internet users (12yrs and over) who have contacted a brand through social media expect a reply within half an hour, even if they sent a message at one in morning on a Sunday!

Statistics like this put shivers down the spine of even the most hardened marketer, as it just reinforces the need for social networks to be managed 24/7 - 365 days a year.

It will be essential in 2015 for brands to be even more vigilant in communicating with their audience and not at them.

Trend 9 Social media becomes

essential for customer service

Ellen DeGeneres did it, so did Kim Kardashian - they ‘broke’ the Internet, obviously not literally! No doubt in 2015, celebrities will try it again. Any brand/agency that can orchestrate virality on this scale will cement their place in history!

Recently, Gangnam style broke YouTube as it exceeded the number of views allowed with 2,147,483,647. Since then, YouTube has made a new video cap of 9 quintillion, we shall see what happens when this limit is reached!

Now... what can we break next!?

Let’s break the internet...again!

Marketers are caught between a Dwayne Johnson and a hard place; pictures simply don’t convey enough information anymore so they must use videos. However, most audiences don’t have an attention span longer than 30seconds so the video has to be as enthralling as possible, while conveying the brand message. No easy task! However, there may be another way! Companies such as Hooplr (http://www.hooplr.co/) are releasing special static GIFs that blur video and images together. These are images... videos... that move when a mouse/finger is passed over them, when the mouse/fingers stops so does the video. This means that every user’s experience is different.

Pictures will always have a place in the social sphere, however we believe that soon the online world will look similar to a newspaper from a Harry Potter novel.

Pictures are so last year it’s all about short punchy videos!

When John Lewis released it’s emotionally charged penguin advert for Christmas, the ad showed how a toy penguin is for life, not just Christmas. Shortly after, Penguin Biscuits released a simple image, which stated, “This penguin is for lunch, not just Christmas”, needless to say - the ad went viral immediately.

This style of clever, responsive marketing is the holy grail for most marketers, but it does require a finger on the pulse, with some capacity/budget available to help the cause when the opportunity arises.

Think about how quickly brands put a crown on the ‘head’ of their product when they found out there was a royal baby on the way?

Before Marketers have long speculated that Google+ was on the decline, and after the highly publicised departure of Google+ chief evangelist Vic Gundotra last year, along with TechCrunch declaring Google+ “The Walking Dead”, the platform is quickly making the descent into obscurity. In fact social butterflies spend more time on Myspace than Google+! ComScore suggests that users spend only an average of 3 minutes on Google+ whilst Facebook users on average spend 405 minutes per month.

Could 2015 be the year we see G+ suffer the same graveyard fate as Google Answers, Google Buzz and Google Wave?

Will Google+ go the way of the Dodo?

Trend 13

According to Mobile Statistics, 378,000 iPhones are sold every single day! To put that into perspective, less babies are born in the world every day than this (Source: mobilestatistics.com)

More than 1.75 billion people use a smartphone, which is nearly 25% of the population of Earth! The point is, smartphones are big business and before any marketing activity takes place, they need to be taken into consideration (especially since 30% of Facebook users use their phone).

With new wearable technology such as the Apple Watch being released in 2015, we expect this figure to increase significantly - smartphones are now the primary channel for checking social updates.

Marketers canno longer avoid mobile

In 2014, Facebook and Twitter trialled their beta ‘buy’ button with the assistance of selected retailers, Amazon US being one of them. The posts were limited for testing purposes so you may not have seen them, but essentially the selected few who did see them and could use them merely had to click the button, input their payment details and hey presto they had bought that item.

It is unknown whether the trials were successful, but we’re confident 2015 will see Twitter & Facebook roll out this service for brands and take a healthy commission for transactions whilst they are at it!

Social “buy” buttons could be extremely lucrative for social networks, BUT every effort will need to be made to make the transactional process as quick and easy as possible.

Social retail therapy

Vlogging, or video blogging, has become extremely popular in recent years. The idea links back to people not wanting to read a blog and preferring to watch a video, hence bloggers stopped writing and started talking.

Vlogs often have the same if not more influence as a regular blog, so expect to see forward thinking brands signing 6 figure deals with the most influential. With the growing emphasis on unpolished, human-centred and consumer generated content, companies are realising that customers want to hear the truth from real life customers, not so much brands themselves.

The rise (and further rise) of the vlogger

The launch of iOS 8 and its various health apps have driven the fitness technology market no end. If you haven’t already got a FitBit or Jawbone, then it’s likely you’ll have one by the end of the year and you’ll be competing with your mates (through social networks) to complete more steps and burn more calories a day than them.

These genius Bluetooth devices sync directly with your phone so that real-time progress can be seen, creating a more competitive you!

The rise (and further rise) of the vlogger

Can social technologyreally make us healthier?

Before you think this is the lazy man’s option to posting content, think again - 6-7 years ago brands were posting perfectly good quality content on one or two social networks.

We now have many more proven ways to distribute content successfully to far larger communities and a wider selection of social networks. So, instead of creating swathes of new content and hoping it engages your communities, have a search through your old content, tweak it (if needs be) and bring it back to life. There’s big savings to be made here!

Don’t be afraid torecycle old quality content

We recieve on average, 3000 promotional messages per day. To say bombarded with marketing is an understatement!

With all of this noise, it’s time to take a more riske stance in order to stand out from the crowd. But as each brand adopts this principle, the bar for normality moves up.

Consider that in the 1930s it was inappropriate for a woman to be nearly nude in a picture, now it is considered the norm. Rightly or wrongly consumers have become desensitised to shock campaigns and taboos, which means that if you really want cut through you need to be prepared to take a few more risks every now and then.

Riské isn’t risky anymore

2015 will see people customising as many facets of their life as possible, on and offline. People want one of a kind phone covers, they want clothing they designed themselves and they want this to continue right through their online presence also. Social networks that start to oblige these users and offer full customisation options will be valued far more than those that offer a one size fits all format.

Due to this desire for individuality, internet users will favour social channels that let them express themselves visually.

“i want a double mocha, skinny decaf latte with sheep’s milk and cinnamon”-welcome to

the age of individuality

Thank you for reading...…

We hope you’ve taken somethingfrom these fascinating trends.2015 is certainly going to see ahuge amount of change associal media explodes even more and intothe tangible goods market!

To this end, we’re poised andready to provide guidance onyour own social mediaexploits and would like to takethe opportunity to invite you to take advantage of our offer of coffee and cake with a member of our incredibly sociable team!

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--To redeem call Hayden Allen-Vercoe on 0203 411 9111 (ext 901) or email [email protected]

FREE COFFEE & CAKE!


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