Watch Out For These 7 Social Media Trends in 2018

From all of us at Jigsaw to all of you… Happy New Year! It’s already 2018 and the season of holidays are over. It’s time for you to switch from holiday mode to work mode and up your game for 2018… For all the brands and marketers out there, here are the latest social media trends we expect to see more of in 2018 based on what we’ve seen in 2017.

1. Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality

At first, social media was just text, then came photographs, videos, GIFs and memes. The next big thing is AR and VR which will take off in 2018 as big companies like Facebook, Google and Apple keep introducing new tools and services incorporating these technologies.

2. Live streaming

Live streaming dominated the whole year of 2017 and will get even bigger in 2018 as now many audiences and brands are more comfortable with the content format and experience on live streaming in 2017.

3. Focus on Generation Z

Time has come for your brand to switch your focus from millennials to generation Z. Born between mid-1990s to mid-2000s, Gen Zers is the first generation who grows up 100% online and is slowly entering into the labour force. Thus, marketers have to adjust their social media marketing strategies to stay ahead of the game.

4. Online Hangouts

The rapid growth of apps where you can live chat with multiple people at the same time, made a splash last year, grabbing the attention of major social media platforms’ like Facebook and it’s a trend that goes hand in hand with live streaming and Z generation.

5. Privacy and open source

2018 will be a year, more people lean towards platforms and social apps that maintain user privacy as their top priority or offer open source APIs, so the users are sure their information won’t be sold to advertisers.

6. Gamification will extend to social media apps.

Gamification, applications of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts, will make a significant impact on this year. We expect to see a rise in social media and gaming hybrid apps in 2018.

7. Ad growth

With the decline of organic reach on social media platforms, we’ll see a bigger shift in ad growth in 2018. Though we are not sure yet that paid advertising is not the only way to get seen or not, brands will definitely have to increase their budget in social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to get sufficient results.

Social Media Marketing Challenges in 2018

1. Less Organic Reach

Organic reach keeps declining on many social media platforms year by year. Therefore, brands have to have better strategies for consumer engagement and outreach formats to build a very specific and highly engaging community than just trying to please everyone.

2. Social Media Video Peaking

Video shined on social media advertising last year more than ever and will continue to peak in this year as brands reaped amazing results with video advertising. As different social media platforms offer different video capabilities, brands will find it challenging to build a strategy that balances their business goals and the video offering of each social media platform.

3. Tool Fatigue for Brands

With new social media tools popping up everyday, brands and marketers will face tool fatigue trying to tap all the new audiences that come along with the new tools. And this creates it more challenging it for marketers and brands to find them and focus on the right tools that bring them the most ROI.
So, there you have the top social media trends we think will explode in 2018. If you need any help or insight in planning your social media strategy for 2018, of course, you can get in touch with us.

For now though, here’s to a year of online marketing success!