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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights® 1
Keeping up with social media updates and trends can be overwhelming.
That’s why we put together this trend report which includes a summary of major updates to social networks and how businesses can benefit.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights® 2
Keeping up with social media updates and trends can be overwhelming.
That’s why we put together this trend report which includes a summary of major updates to social networks and how businesses can benefit.
See what happened in Q3 2016 on: • Snapchat • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook • Pinterest
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights® 3
What’s Trending on Social Media?
Video keeps rolling… Live video continues to dominate the social media conversation, as we’re seeing an ongoing focus on this across numerous platform updates. Live streams are being used for everything from product releases to music album announcements to event coverage.
The continued focus of live video, combined with the looming presence of virtual reality, shows that social media platforms are continually looking to remove the walls in communication.
Personal, customized feeds… Social platforms are taking a consumer-first approach, giving individuals the control to see only the content they want to see.
These updates are being put in place to moderate brand penetration and improve the personal experience. Measures are also being taken to eliminate cyber bullying and re-establish these platforms as safe, welcoming communities.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WHAT’SHAPPENING ON
SNAPCHAT?
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Snapchat Introduces Playlists
Snap Inc. has removed the autoplay feature when viewing stories. Users are now able to watch one story at a time, or select a series of stories from their preferred friends, rather than having to view the whole feed.
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How Brands Can Benefit By focusing on creating strong and interactive stories, the views generated result in a high-value unit of engagement, as users are consciously choosing to view the material.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Snapchat = Snap Inc.
Snapchat is now Snap Inc., as the company moves away from being a one-hit wonder and works toward developing a wider range of products, like SPECTACLES.
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What are Spectacles? Spectacles are a pair of glasses that feature a tiny HD camera near the lens that make it easy for users to create and share memories via bluetooth or wifi (coming soon).
Image drawn from spectacles.com
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Bitmoji & Geostickers
An increasingly popular trend among Snapchat users has been the recent integration of the Bitmoji app. Users are able to use their self-constructed caricatures to show off what they’re up to.
Also, the app has added location-specific stickers that Snapchatters can add to their snaps. The stickers are currently available in select major cities around the world.
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Image pulled from mashable.com
Image pulled from mashable.com
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Resource:Want to Know How Brands are Using Snapchat?
Discover how some of the top brands are using Snapchat to engage and entertain their followers.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Resource:Learn How to Tell an Engaging Snapchat Story
If you want to grow a following on Snapchat, you need to learn how to tell entertaining stories. Get an understanding of story structure along with Snapchat Story content ideas when you read our Snapchat Story guide.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WHAT’SHAPPENING ON
TWITTER?
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WAITIN’ ALL DAY FOR THURSDAY NIGHT
Twitter’s biggest headline of the quarter comes in its launch of a live-streaming service for Thursday Night Football. Reviews have been mixed on the product, but its viewership is increasing weekly (3.1 million on Oct. 6) and the platform is continually updating the viewer’s experience. Twitter has also announced partnerships with MLB, NBA, and the NHL, as well as several TV outlets.
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How Brands Can Benefit NFL partners, as well as outside brands, can grow awareness by tapping into a centralized conversation. Not only can brands interact with Twitter users and engage in hashtags, but it’s only a matter of time until sponsored content makes its way into the feed.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Get that
Think you deserve to be verified? Sell yourself. Twitter opened an application process for users who believe they’re worthy of the blue checkmark in an effort to identify a wider range of key individuals who are involved areas of public interest.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Stickers!
What could be considered a ripple-effect of Snapchat’s success, Twitter has introduced stickers to images / videos, letting users further express their creativity outside of 140 characters.
Did we mention that images no longer count against the 140-character limit? Tweet on, tweeters.
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Image pulled from firebrandgroup.com
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Your feed, your way
Twitter also introduced a few updates to help users better control what they do and don’t see within their feed.
Notifications: Customize your settings so that you only receive notifications from the people you want to hear from.
Quality Filter: Feel like your feed is being littered with irrelevant content? You can apply Twitter’s new quality filter to eliminate that undesired content from your feed. This filter will not apply to the accounts you follow, only outside content.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
My moment
In the past, Twitter has used moments to chronicle important events, putting collections of related tweets in one place. This feature is now available to the public, letting users create moments around their favorite events.
How Brands Can Benefit
Brands can use moments to curate conversation around events, product launches, trending topics etc. Sharing these moments across platforms not only showcases conversation, but also drives traffic and conversation around a brand’s work as users look to have their tweets shared within the moment.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WHAT’SHAPPENING ON
INSTAGRAM?
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Instagram has announced a handful of updates to supply brands with valuable insights and revenue opportunities. At the top of the list, the app is now shoppable. Brands are able to add a Call to Action to ad campaigns, shortening the path between the initial impression and desired outcome.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Business Profiles
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With launch of its analytics interface, brands are able to gather intel such as audience demographics, periods of high traffic, and engagements vs. impressions.
How Brands Can Benefit
By using these insights as a driver for a brand’s Instagram strategy, businesses are able to key in to their target audience and maximize performance across posts.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Stories
In a move that was met with mixed reactions, Instagram added a look-alike feature nearly identical to that of Snapchat. Users now are able to post an image that expires after 24 hours. The image can be edited with text, drawing tools, and select filters.
This feature eliminates one of the more daunting tasks faced by individuals/brands looking to make the move to snapchat, the need to grow an audience from scratch.
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How Brands Can Benefit Tip: Use these stories to provide exclusive content (i.e. behind the scenes looks, product reveals, announcements, etc.)
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Stop the hate
As cyberbullying becomes more and more prevalent across social interaction, platforms are taking action against it. Twitter announced it’s quality filter this quarter, and Instagram is making strides in maintaining an open and welcoming community.
By tapping the gear in your profile’s upper-right corner, you can access comment settings. By adding a customized or default list of keywords, Instagram will filter out comments that are identified as offensive.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WHAT’SHAPPENING ON
FACEBOOK?
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Pay to Play
Facebook announced an algorithm update that not only reduces click-bait content, but also cracks down on branded posts. The update has drastically reduced the impact of organic content and has forced brands to re-evaluate their paid strategies on the platform.
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How Brands Can Benefit It’s hard to look past the obvious dent this update is going to make on a brand’s social budget, but there is a hidden benefit for brands that are highly in-tune with their audience. Strong targeting strategies drastically reduce variable costs such as CPE, CPC, and CPM.
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Improved Ad-blocker
An update to Facebook’s consumer experience allows individuals to provide ongoing feedback to the platform on which ads they do or do not want to see.
How Brands Can Benefit By creating relevant content that your audience wants to see, your brand will not only reach the target audience, but it will continually improve the sentiment surrounding the brand.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Messenger is gaining momentum.
The latest app to break the billion-user milestone, brands are moving to Messenger in what has become the most personal form of communication available to marketers, bringing customer service to the forefront.
How Brands Can Benefit Messenger now connects individuals with a brand representative directly. A consumer-first approach creates valuable earned media opportunities for brands.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Video, video, video.
Facebook continues its push for marketers to create video, announcing an array of updates on both Facebook and Messenger.
• New tools for 360-degree video • Cross-posting for multi-page managers. • Improved insights to better evaluate
video performance. • Instant (live) video added to Messenger.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Branded Content in Instant Articles
Brands are now able to piggy-back off the Facebook product, as instant articles can be saved to a reading list in a virtual magazine.
How Brands Can Benefit
Placement is key for brands when working with Instant Articles. As consumers will associate the sponsor with the content, marketers need to focus on brand-relevant articles.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
WHAT’SHAPPENING ON
PINTEREST?
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Customization and Communication
Pinterest is taking notes on what its users want. In recent months, the platform has upgraded search features, added the ability to share pins through external apps, and given users the ability to choose what appears on the home feed.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Shopping made easier
With fashion, cooking, and DIY projects at the center of Pinterest content, shopping has long been a focus for the platform.
Pinterest has improved the shopping experience with: • Improved product discovery • Virtual shopping bags • User options to save ‘Favorite’ brands • Streamlined checkout
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights®
Video keeps rolling
Video continues to be a content giant across every social platform. The how-to and activity-focused environment created by Pinterest makes the move an obvious one.
How Brands Can Benefit Consumers appreciate content which encourages participation. If brands feature recipes, how-to projects, or step-by-step assembly, these videos provide an eye-catching option outside of the traditional static-image.
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SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 The Social Lights® 31
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