Social media has changed a lot in the last 12 months and the only real certainty is change for the next 12 months too. With a number of new social media networks coming on the scene, big changes to the largest players and plenty of excitement in the area the moment – it’s going to be exciting. So, even though we’re running the risk of being unpredictable, let’s make some social media predictions for 2014.
Twitter went through its IPO in 2013 and saw a significant interest in its shares and a massive boost in price. Of course, now Twitter’s gone public it will need to focus on its finances and accounting. We saw some sign of things to come with the introduction of promoted Tweets and Lead Generation Cards. Expect to see a range of new mainstream monetisation options in the New Year to keep things on track.
Disappearing Social Media
Privacy was a big concern in 2013 and expects a number of social media forms with the erasable abilities to come to the fore. Snapchat has done very well for this reason and there will be a number of Snapchat based alternatives in 2014, perhaps some more orientated towards grownups.
Facebook had a hell of a year. The social media site may have had a not so great IPO in 2012 but its share priced increased dramatically on the back of a number of changes. It introduced its 20% rule for images, hashtags and social search as well as the fact it pushed changes to its EdgeRank and Newsfeed and really orientated itself in the right direction. In 2014 we at fusewave.co.uk expect more of the same from Facebook and even more monetisation.
Google+
Google’s social media site has become increasingly a necessity and it will continue to do so in the next 12 months. AuthorRank will play an increasingly large role in social and also SEO, so if you’re not on that bandwagon, you need to do so now. There will also be a push to get Google+ into the mainstream, away from it being a consumer only tool. This was seen with the intro of an innovative Hashtag system and other changes. We can’t wait for Google I/O.
SEO
Expect social signals and SEO to become more and more aligned in 2014. We’ve seen all sorts of correlations between rankings and social media and though cause and correlation aren’t always aligned, we’d imagine there will be a definite move towards publically linking the two in 2014.
Amazing Campaigns
We came across some brilliant campaigns in 2014 as companies went from questioning whether to invest in social media, to thinking more along the lines of how they could nail social media marketing and stand out. KitKat, Oreo and a number of others really shone and showed us some innovative campaigns that really stood out.
Local
The rise in SoLoMo will continue with a number of new local social media sites and communities. The likes of Amazon backed NextDoor and other similar networks will really shine and we’ll certainly see small social media sites that focus on local areas to become more popular. Such a factor could lead to a number of potential changes in the social sphere for small and big businesses alike.
So, as we can see there are a number of interesting and exciting changes on the horizon potentially in 2014.
Author Bio: Cormac Reynolds is a lover of social media and has written for a number of sites in the area. He enjoys sports and getting out to the countryside for walks.
