Business Owners Tell All: 2018 Social Media Predictions

New Year, New Social Media Trends?

These entrepreneurs seem to think so! With social media changing as frequently as it does, it’s almost unfathomable to try to envision what these social platforms will look like 12 months from now. One thing that is certain, however, is that business owners need to be prepared to stay on top of social media’s ever-evolving advancements and best practices. To give you a taste of what to look out for in the coming year, these 10 entrepreneurs are sharing their 2018 social media predictions for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and beyond.

Social Media Exclusive Product Launches

Launching new consumer products on Social Media first will become the norm. Initially, to early advocates in the testing phase of a product launch. Then followed by the full launch of the product. This will deliver the immediate feedback from advocates and also enable exponential awareness among followers and other likeminded consumers. This year saw Arby’s successfully launch their venison sandwich on social media, the sandwich generated plenty of buzz online which lead to it selling out in 15 minutes in Minnesota, and 90 minutes at an Arby’s in Atlanta.

Paige Leidig, CMO of NetBase

Industry Influencers over Celebrity Influencers

Instead of celebrities of different fields, real experts of the respective fields will drive the community by their valuable opinions on particular brands. People will depend on influencers’ comments on social media before going for any brand.

Andrei Vasilescu, CEO and Digital Marketing Specialist at DontPayFull.com

Social Media Stories

There will be a rise of ephemeral content, the stories function available on several social media platforms. Additional platforms are adopting the function due to its rising popularity. Many claim to gain more organic views from stories than posts!

Gerry Johnstone, Community Manager at Ledger Bennett

“Pay-to-Play” Business Advertising

Social media will become more about pay-to-play than earning traffic organically. Even without threats to net neutrality, it was inevitable. Once Facebook figured out how to make small businesses pay to reach its own company page followers (Likes), all other social media platforms would need to pursue this same model.

Joshua Feinberg, Chief Thought Leader at SP Home Run Inc.

Live Streaming

On a personal user level, live streaming has become a normal part of our social media experience. However, this is one area where businesses have not been focusing on yet, since the bar for using live streaming tools on a commercial advertising basis has not yet been set. Since the potential of live streaming is major, as more users begin tuning into live channels, businesses will begin seeking to find ways to connect with them. Businesses that are able to figure out how to use these tools in 2018 will be able to capture the potential of live streaming before it becomes a widely used advertising channel.

Mike Sims, Owner/Founder of ThinkLions

“In The Moment” Marketing

What’s really game-changing in the realm of Social Media is the trend I see taking place right now and continuing to gain popularity in the forthcoming year – providing your audience with the experience of “being in the moment”. The rise of live video, ephemeral content that triggers FOMO, the popularity of chatbots and widespread buzz over AR are all direct extensions of this “in the moment” trend.

Olga Andrienko, Head of Global Marketing at SEMrush

Audio Content

We anticipate the growth of podcasting and Alexa voice in the coming months. There will be surge in people producing long form audio content. With people’s time being limited, they want to utilize their opportunities to gather information while commuting, working out, etc. People love to multi-task. So audio gives them a way to do two things at once, whereas reading on a smartphone or watching audio can only be done alone.

Adam Alson, Founder of DoubleDown.Digital

Smarter Bot Technology

Many popular Facebook pages already have Messenger Bots tied to them. Most have debatable quality experiences. I expect high quality bots to start rising to the surface and rapid iteration on bot quality as bots provide a DIRECT line of communication to followers in a world where algorithms make reaching followers much harder.

Sydney Liu, Co-Founder of Commaful

Direct Message Marketing

I think this year more brands will start to take direct message marketing seriously, and will use DMs (whether on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc) to engage users/fans/customers and even create new business relationships / partnerships. But it needs to be done WISELY so as not to be seen as intrusive, or worse, disingenuous.

Alycia Yerves, Creative Director at Alycia Yerves Creative

2018 Social Media Predictions: What Are You Expecting?

How do you expect the social media landscape to change over the next year? Which social media trends from 2017 do you expect to carry over, and which will become obsolete? Which of these 2018 social media predictions will you be utilizing in your business’ marketing plan? Sound off in the comments!