18 Jul A Decade Filled With Social Media Changes
Pardon me while I use my best grandpa voice.
Back when Ignite started in 2007, social media was a simpler time. Myspace was the top social media site, Facebook was new, and we were fine with it. We didn’t have all these newfangled networks to keep up with like Instagram and Snapchat. And apps? I’m pretty sure even Chili’s wasn’t serving anything called apps back then.
Alright, I’m gonna get off that guy’s lawn now.
Ignite has been serving up social media for some of the world’s best brands for 10 years, and we’ve seen a lot of changes. Take a look at this list of the top social sites from fall 2007:
Not only are some of the names on that list part of the internet graveyard, but notice how different the overall traffic is for these sites compared to today. Myspace was the top social site in the United States and had 68 million unique visitors in a month. Worldwide, Facebook averages nearly two billion monthly visitors. That astronomical leap in active users has been paralleled by changes in the social landscape.
In 2007, Facebook launched brand pages which enabled brands to have a presence on the channel which were distinctly separate from personal accounts. Years later they added sweepstakes, promotions, and finally premium ads in 2010. This signaled a huge leap in how social media has become the “pay to play” world it largely has become.
A decade ago, if a brand wanted to be on social media, not only were they being innovative, that probably meant building a simple Facebook page. Compare this today where the vast majority of people have at least one social media account but may have several and use each one differently. By 2012, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and others entered the market, giving individuals and brands more places to reside on social. Finding where your audience spends time on social and how they use it can become an incredibly detailed conversation.
If you wanted to share a piece of content on social media 10 years ago, it was pretty straightforward: write some copy and maybe attach an image. Now, once you’ve landed on which channel(s) on which to reach your audience, you and your brand still have a full menu of formatting to choose from. Additionally, what performed well in the past (remember when photos were king?) may not get any traction with your fans.
So you’ve figured out where your fans are, what sort of content to create, and how to respond to them, but then the algorithms and rules change again. What do you do? Thankfully, we’ve seen thousands of changes in social media over the last 10 years and we know how to stay in front of them. We would love to chat about how we can help you and your brand. Drop us a line!
