22 MARKETING EXPERTS SHARE THEIR BOLD PREDICTIONS FOR

THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

#FutureOfSocial

The Question We Asked

“What is your boldest prediction for the future of social media

marketing?”

#FutureOfSocial

Social Media Marketing is slowly going to drive less and less traffic to websites. With platforms like Snapchat increasing in popularity and with Facebook continually

updating their algorithm, it you see less traffic from social networks, as some don't make it easy to promote

your website unless you advertise.

Neil Patel

(Co-Founder at

Crazy Egg and

KISSmetrics)

#FutureOfSocial

Social media marketing is going to be less about content curation and more about

content creation. We're seeing hints of this with the reintroduction of Facebook notes,

and the recent rumors that Twitter is building a new product that allows users to

share messages longer than 140 characters. For too long businesses have

gone on autopilot with social media. Consumers are sick of seeing the same link-

baity garbage sprinkled throughout their newsfeeds. They want more heart. They want more originality. These updates are going to give businesses and brands the

opportunity to invest in the human side of social media again. The businesses that

embrace this change will continue to find value in participating in these online

communities—the ones who don't will soon find it a lot more challenging to connect

with people.

Sujan Patel (Co-Founder at

ContentMarketer.io and VP of Marketing at

When I Work)#FutureOfSocial

My "boldest prediction for the future of social media marketing" is that companies will become more dependent on seemingly opposite ends of the

spectrum: Becoming more dependable on social media tools like eClincher in order to automate and scale and get the job done effectively and efficiently while at the same time becoming more human, authentic and transparent

with their engagement with other users in social media communities.

Neil Schaffer

(CEO of Maximize Your

Social and Co-Founder of

the

Social Tools Summit)

#FutureOfSocial

Social media marketing has grown up a lot, but we’re only just now starting to cross over into it becoming serious, a

necessary element for all businesses. While you may have been able to get away with not having a branded social media

presence for some time, consumer habits are changing and those that fail to change with them will quickly fall behind, in

all sectors.

How this evolution will manifest in 2016 will through a wide scale shift in marketing and communications mindset.

Programmatic targeting will become more important, data and analytics more mainstream. The greatest benefit of social media is data, we’re slowly starting to realize that, but no one really knows what it all means, what the possibilities are with all this insight. Because we’ve never had it before. We’ll see the rise of social analytics, the evolution of data translation,

and the wider shift towards using the resources we have available to us in a more intelligent way. In this process, we’ll also shift further away from traditional outreach methods like print and television, as more spend shifts to focused, refined

digital campaigns. This may not seem like such a bold prediction – really, it’s pretty much a no brainer – but the

impact it will have will be significant, particularly as younger generations of digital natives, those who’ve never known a world without social media or online ad targeting, shift into more lucrative demographic brackets and force a change in

mindset in order to meet their ever-increasing expectations of marketing.

Andrew Hutchinson (Writer/Moderator at Social Media Today)

#FutureOfSocial

Looking forward, social media entities will continue to mature into full-fledged media entities. Don’t agree? Check Facebook’s ever-growing advertising revenue stream based on increase number and price of ads.

This will result in 2 key trends:Increased social media marketing spend. Marketers will need to support their social media presence with tailored content,

better distribution using paid tools and technology and social media advertising. Translation: Increased marketing spend.Increased focus on blogs as owned social media. Blogs are an underrated content marketing and social media tool to achieve

key business objectives. They support customer information needs at every step of the buying cycle.

Heidi Cohen

(Chief Content Officer at

Actionable Marketing Guide)

#FutureOfSocial

In-the-moment updates will dominate. Social media is already “in-the-moment” by nature,

but there are some posts that are more “in-the-moment” than others. For example, take

Periscope, which was recently acquired by Twitter—it allows users to give a live video

broadcast of some stretch of their lives. Compare that to simply taking a video and

posting it later—Periscope users collectively watch 40 years of live video each and every day. Instagram and Snapchat also support on-the-go,

in-the-moment updates as opposed to late-game retrospectives, and could collectively herald in a new era of immediacy in social

media. If it catches on, you can forget about scheduling all your company’s social media posts in advance.

Jayson Demers (Founder and CEO at AudienceBloom)

#FutureOfSocial

Marketers will embrace the power of live streaming to build trust with the community like never before, which will shift the content marketing

strategy as a whole from creating marketing and sales content to creating employee led content that is shaped and molded by the

community conversations and live streaming comments.

Brian Fanzo

(President of iSocialFanz

LLC)

#FutureOfSocial

I predict that, very soon, we will begin to see real retraction in the social media industry. We're in a period right now where we're still seeing multiple

new platforms birthed, with plenty of room for growth. Even the largest social network, Facebook, is still growing, adding millions of new users each month. That won't last. Soon, consumers will not just say they're weary of trying new networks, they'll express it through an utter disdain of

anything new. New platforms will see so much struggle to gain traction that they'll quickly fold,

and that will lead to extreme caution on the part of investors. Without investors to back them, ideators

will find it hard to build solutions for perceived problems.

Instead, the remaining networks will continue to evolve and expand their offerings. We're already

seeing this today, with Facebook in particular. They've added video and are quickly becoming a rival to YouTube for video consumption. As that

capability matures, and it becomes easier to use the Facebook platform in manners similar to

YouTube, smaller video solutions will die off or be purchased. So those who hate it every time there's

a new social network announced, and who only want to use their favorite few platforms, rejoice!

Your day is coming.

Mike Allton (CMO at SiteSell and

Social Media Marketing Consultant at The Social

Media Hat)#FutureOfSocial

For marketers thinking about approaching social media from a networking and community building aspect rather than a marketing and sales aspect can be very difficult. Brands need to attract customers, but breaking through the clutter is challenging. Everyday brands and marketers are spending millions trying to get you to use, keep using, and share that you love their brands. But why aren’t they doing everything they can, and using some of

those millions to do it (probably way less that they are spending on those marketing campaigns), making experiences with their brand remarkable. Opportunities to do this are given to brands each and every day and

they simply, turn their heads, rave about their latest and great “campaign’ as if it were a military conquest, and pass up ways to really create customers for life. We are not there yet, but my boldest prediction is that brands will

start to realize that they will stand out by "Liking" them before they "Like" you.

Ted Rubin

(Social Media

Strategist, Keynote

Speaker and Author)

#FutureOfSocial

Facebook will turn into AOL. That doesn't mean that they'll go old-

school, or offer Internet service, but rather that Facebook will continue to

encapsulate the entire web experience all on its platform, just like

AOL was when it started. Have you noticed that videos played within

Facebook don't count toward YouTube views? Links and other external

content is preloaded and opens within Facebook too. In a way, they'll be like AOL 20 years ago, offering content

and experiences through their platform. Marketers will have to work

even harder to get people to their websites, and will probably have to

resort to paid ads to see a difference.

Eric T. Tung (Social Media Strategist

and Speaker)

#FutureOfSocial

Facebook will create more millionaires than YouTube with their video platform. Video will dominate on every level- live interactive video as well as pre-recorded videos. Today’s

social media user is interactive, and we’ll see more people using live streaming on their personal Facebook profile pages, like “Mentions For Profiles”.

Bottom line: Video + Facebook = more wealth for brands and more fun for people!

Sandi Krakowski

(CEO and Founder of A

Real Change

International Inc.)

#FutureOfSocial

Automating certain tasks on social media isn't anything new, but I think we will be debating the ethics of some forms of automation much more

readily in 2016. I love some forms of automation, but I've never been a huge fan of automating

engagement, however we're now entering an age of robots and artificial intelligence and the

landscape is about to change. There are new artificial intelligence tools that are starting to do

a very good job at intelligently engaging with users on social media- so much so that the individuals aren't even realizing they are

speaking with a robot!

Whether we like this or not, we are going to see more and more tools using artificial intelligence to help businesses find new leads and engage

with existing customers on their social networks - particularly in answering common questions.

There will be a lot of backlash against this kind of automation, and mistakes will be made, but like it

or not, artificial intelligence is here to stay. We need to learn how to use this new power

ethically and productively.

Ian Anderson Gray (Co-Founder of Select

Performers Internet Solutions, Social Media Consultant

and Speaker)#FutureOfSocial

Facebook Search function usage grows so rapidly that Twitter becomes less relevant in terms of surfacing trends and Google ad revenue begins to suffer as users turn to FB

search for more refined context for local search.

John Jantsch

(Founder and

President of Duct

Tape Marketing)

#FutureOfSocial

Social platforms will institute conversion tracking that will definitively provide attribution metrics that profoundly impacts marketers’ attitudes toward the power of social media. Additionally, conversion options will be plentiful to push the conversion closer to the social interaction rather than driving them through a complex funnel.

Douglas Karr (Co-Founder and CEO of

CircuPress, CEO of DK New Media and Founder of

Marketing Technology Blog)

#FutureOfSocial

The future of social media marketing is more ads. I'm not happy to predict this, but it's true. To maximize the visibility of ads, social networks throttle back the organic reach of social posts, especially posts from brands. I expect we'll see an algorithm within Twitter within the next 12 months. Just as in

Facebook, this will reduce the reach of posts and increase the visibility of ads. This in turn increases the value to advertisers and the subsequent ad spend ...and eventually the share price of the social

network.

Andy Crestodina

(Co-Founder and Strategic

Director of Orbit Media

Solutions)

#FutureOfSocial

I think there will be two big trends emerging for social media in the coming years. The most impactful social media trend I see

moving forward will be social media buying power. It has already begun on channels like Pinterest, but there will be a huge rise in e-commerce on social media networks that

makes products instantly available and easily accessible. The hunt for seeing something

online and trying to find out where to buy it will be over. The second will be driven by deep data and analytics more than ever before. Brands will use these insights to

hyper target their audience through content, conversations, posting times and created

extremely effective and targeted strategies to connect with their audience that will yield

incredible results.

Katie Leimkuehler (CEO at Leimkuehler

Media LLC)

#FutureOfSocial

In 2016, cyber security - or rather the lack thereof - will make headlines. Despite some prominent social account hacks in the past, many brands and individuals have not been taking the cyber threat seriously. Major hacks that will lead to huge data losses and privacy breaches as well as social media

phishing attacks will shake up social media marketing as we know it. I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid, I don’t think I am.

Natascha Thomson

(CEO at

MarketingXLerator,

Social Media Consultant

and

Author of 42 Rules for

B2B Social Media

Marketing)

#FutureOfSocial

I boldly predict that in 2016, organizations will give marketing robots the boot and fully embrace a more thoroughly human approach to marketing.

We’ll see more partnering with influencers, advocates taking active roles in brand messaging,

and the creation of genuine relationships with audiences. Both B2B and B2C marketing will sport

a much more human face.Rob Zaleski, (Marketing Manager at MarketingProfs)

#FutureOfSocial

My prediction for the future of social media is all about transparency. Customers want direct communication with companies now, and they want transparency in the process. This is why videos, live streaming, and live chats are so important. Whether it's keeping people up to date on delays, availability, mistakes, upcoming products, company changes, employee insights, and more, customers want this information in real time.

The more you can put the "face" of your company out there, the more your audience will interact, engage, and purchase from you. If you haven't figured out ways to incorporate this into your social media strategy yet,

now is the time to investigate the new tools in community development (podcasting, live streaming, live chats, etc.) to share this with your audience.

Jenn Herman

(Social Media

Consultant and Trainer

at Jenn's Trends and

Director of

Communications

at PKL Services)

#FutureOfSocial

Madalyn Sklar(Twitter Marketing Influencer,

Blogger and Podcaster at madalynsklar.com)

"We're going to see more on social selling in 2016 because people are getting a handle on how to manage their social media, now they want to

monetize it. My newest online course is called "Tweeting for Profits" because my community wants to make money from their efforts on social. Most people are not beginners anymore. Social media has been around for awhile. They are becoming advanced and they want to

go to the next level.

#FutureOfSocial

Stephanie Frasco

Clegg (VP of Social

Media at Convert with

Content, Founder of

Social Media Plans and

Founder of Triple

Threat Media Group)

"In 2016 content will still rule for businesses to get in front of the right people. But context will be more important than ever. It's going to be about real-time geographics.

Where you are at the moment, who is near by, and what content relates to that."

#FutureOfSocial

Betsy Kent (President of Be Visible

Associates and Content Marketing,

Blog and Social Media Coach)

"My prediction for the future of social media is that we will be

moving toward end of free reach."

#FutureOfSocial

Key Trends

1. Live Streaming Will Continue to Grow

2. Real-Time Engagement Will Become Key

3. Greater Dependence On Analytics

4. Increase In Paid Advertising

5. Social Selling

#FutureOfSocial

Connect With Us!

Make Your Prediction

Do you have a prediction for the future of social media marketing? Share it with us by using the hashtag: #FutureOfSocial

#FutureOfSocial