22 Nov True or False? Revisiting Our 2016 Social Media Predictions
2016 proved to be an exciting year in social media. From Snapchat to Facebook Live and everything in-between, social media continues to evolve and adapt to our changing lifestyle. At the end of 2015, we made a list of predictions that we thought would happen in 2016. Now it’s time to look back at some of those predictions and see if our magic 8 ball was telling the truth or not.
Snapchat Will Die a Quick Death
When Snapchat was first introduced, who would’ve thought it would grow to be as big of a social channel as it is now? We certainly didn’t. In fact, we had it slated to die in popularity due to an overdose of brands joining. Our Director of Strategy, Kailee VanDamia, explains a little bit about why Snapchat didn’t die: “Brands have been slow to adopt due to the expensive ad options and Snapchat has pushed brands away from organic channel management by providing no metrics whatsoever. However, with their impending IPO, this is expected to change quickly. We’re seeing more ads in the feed, changes to algorithms, potential programmatic placement options, Snapchat gimmicks like Spectacles, etc.” Who knows what 2017 will bring to the platform and if it will continue to be successful.
Twitter Will Finally and Successfully Reinvent Itself
Who better to answer this than our very own Twitter expert, Derek Roessler. When asked whether Twitter has managed to reinvent itself as a publisher’s platform, Derek very quickly responded with a big negative. “Thanks to trolls, harassers, and general abuse, Twitter has been less successful in earning support from big business. Facebook spending continues to grow, whereas Twitter had multiple potential buyers walk away, largely due to harassment on the channel.”
Social Buying Will Continue to Take Off
Social ad spending has always been a growing piece to the social media puzzle. But did it continue to take off as we predicted in 2015? We decided to consult our media buying expert, Misi McClelland, for the answer. “Social media ad spend has long been expected to rise year over year. As thought by many, this year proved fruitful, mainly for Facebook, who has captured the lion’s share of ad revenue.” With this continued growth, we can expect 2017 to be an even bigger year for social media buying.
There you have it. Just a few of our 2016 predictions and what ultimately became of them. Now this leads us into the biggest question of all… What will 2017 bring to the world of social media? Make sure to check out our blog for our 2017 predictions and see.
