14 Jun What to Expect on Social Media in the Second Half of 2018
I don’t know about you, but the first half of 2018 has flown by to me. As social media marketers, we are constantly staying up to date on what is happening in the space and trying to anticipate what is going to happen next. We recently did a check-in on our 2018 social media predictions and it is time conjure up some new predictions for the back half of the year.
Facebook Will Continue to be in the Spotlight
I think that it will take at least the remainder of the year before Facebook gets out of the hot seat. Just last week that platform had to make another apology statement that a software bug accidently switched the default privacy settings of 14 million users to public. Not ideal timing as Facebook is trying to gain back trust of users and their privacy concerns. Good thing Facebook’s apology campaign will run throughout the summer.
Reviews will Play a Bigger Role on Social
Both business reviews and ad reviews will have a bigger role on social. Facebook announced they are testing a new scoring methodology for brand pages which takes into account ratings, reviews and recommendations shared by users. We could see this role out more widely within the next few months. They also announced this week that they are allowing users to provide feedback on ads. By going to their Ads Activity tab, people can view ads that they’ve recently engaged with and complete a brief questionnaire about their experience. Users will also be prompted to give feedback on brands whose products they’ve purchased after clicking through from a Facebook ad. If you don’t already have a strategy to generate reviews on social media, now is the time to create one.
Snapchat will Continue to Innovate at the Benefit of Instagram
Snapchat will continue to push out updates and innovations to try to keep their dwindling user base engaged. The real winner with those updates is Instagram. It is no secret that soon after Snapchat releases new functionality, Instagram releases something very similar. It appears we might be seeing a ‘Discover’ hub launching soon on Instagram with influential users and publisher content. If these publishers and users jump to Instagram’s Discover hub, that could be the final straw for Snapchat.
Stories will Become the New Newsfeed
Has your Instagram behavior changed since the platform introduced Stores? Stories are now the first place I look when I open the app. After I scroll through Stories, sometimes I continue scrolling through the newsfeed, sometimes I don’t. This mirrors the user behavior of a lot of people on Instagram. This chart from Recode shows the explosive growth of Stories and I don’t think it will be slowing down anytime soon. The social channels realize that be focusing a lot of their innovations on the Stories feature. Expect to see a lot more Story content in the back half of 2018.
To see if our predictions come true, stay tuned for weekly social media updates through Social You Should Know.
