The Future of Social Media: 3 Predictions for 2017

Warren Knight — January 6, 2017 Follow @warrenknight

Did you know that there are 2.3 billion active social media users? Social Media is here, and it’s here to stay with 91% of retail brands using 2 or more social media channels to market their business.

A new year is here, which means the internet will be predicting what 2017 has to offer. There are going to be hundreds of articles talking about the future of Social Media in 2017, so I want to make this article unique, and talk about three of MY predictions, as someone who has had 2.5 million impressions online, 150,000 website visitors and a recent appearance on Sky News discussing this topic.

Here are the 3 predictions for the future of Social Media in 2017.

1. DATA

Whilst content is still king, and will continue to be, I want to talk about the data that we collect as a part of our marketing plan, that helps shape the way we communicate with our target audience online. Regardless of whether you are a small business, or a large business; understanding data is key.

Just posting on Social Media, in the hope that something will connect is no longer enough. Social Media users have risen by 176 million in the last year, which means there are more of your target audience than ever before.

People buy from people and to get to the core of what your audience WANTS to see from you, you must be able to collect and analyse all of your data. A recent study from TrackMaven analysed 51 million posts, from 40,000 different businesses over 130 industries and found that Instagram dominated in the “interactions per 1,000 followers” section of the study. Doing your research is key, and finding the data that will help you market using the right platforms, to the right audience will be so important in 2017.

Part of understanding your data, and sharing content that is engaging is to build your social proof online, which is something I have experienced after my appearance on Sky News on the 29th December.

Data is going to be a very important trend for 2017, especially if you’re like me and will be running webinars, online trainings, advertisement campaigns and working with various partners, and reaching a new audience online.

2. TOOLS

As I have said above, Data is my first prediction for 2017 for the future of Social Media and to be able to collate your data, and turn it into usable information, you are going to see more and more tools throughout the year of 2017 that offer more than just one significant feature.

Throughout the year of 2016 I tried and tested at least 100 tools that all served a different purpose. Regardless of your business size, you will not have the time to test as many tools as I have, and the companies creating these tools understand this, and will start partnering up, and offering more than one service.

To give you an example; LinkedIn have acquired Lynda.com. Whilst this may look like any other acquisition, it isn’t. LinkedIn have already utilised the training content from Lynda.com and created a new hub inside of LinkedIn called LinkedIn Learning. This is giving all of it’s users a central place to not only professionally connect with people all over the world, but also learn, and improve their skills without having to look elsewhere.

AUTOMATION

The third prediction of mine for 2017 is the importance of automation. As I have said above, we are becoming more and more time short, and because of this we must find a way to still engage and reach our audience, without it taking away from building a business. I always say Social Media will not fix a broken business and this couldn’t be more true throughout the year of 2017.

If you are going to automate your Social Media content throughout the year of 2017, you must have a clear goal in mind for what you want to achieve. Collect your data, use your tools to analyse this and then automate your content on Social Media to achieve your outcome.

I hope that my 3 predictions for the future of Social Media in 2017 will help you plan for success. I would love to hear what you think is going to be a key part of Social Media in 2017, and whether YOU agree with my predictions.

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