Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for social media platform predictions in 2017!

A great deal has happened in the last year in this industry: from new Live video functions, to Snap’s Spectacles hardware, and Instagram investing in story action.  So what does this all mean for 2017?

Facebook Predictions:

A longer approval process for publisher content and link to website ads. Without a doubt, the battle for relevancy is as hot as fake news publishing/marketing. We’ll see lots of both. If social media were a drug, it’d be probably be a cigarette: relevancy is like nicotine, and fake news is the tar. And you might be able to quit for awhile, but you’ll probably be back.

More eCommerce ads. When Facebook mentioned the future implementation of Multi-Products being featured in a single News Feed, it became a shark feeding retail themed frenzy (AdWeek http://bit.ly/2eY1kim).

Facebook meddling with A.I. stuff. With top players like Google, Twitter, Snap, Amazon, and Microsoft getting in on the AI action, Facebook is starting to “play” with the way the platform functions.  We’ll be seeing some large changes – from AI messenger, to concierge shopping that could position the platform nicely. The ghost in the machine is becoming a very trendy, if not very real topic.

Video EVERYTHING. Vlogging and video ads have become very powerful in the Facebook world, and will continue to grow within the platform. I’m sure they will have Facebook business pages soon dedicated to vloggers only.

VR Chatrooms. This sounds weird, but with VR becoming more popular and the technology rapidly advancing, this could be another way to interact with your friends and family.

LinkedIn Predictions:

More ad features. There are some limitations here, mostly surrounding sponsored content and text ad features. But we believe LinkedIn will look to expand the platform to be more cost effective and diversified.

Video ads. We’re surprised this is still not allowed in the platform, but LinkedIn will catch on. Predominantly, LinkedIn has taken a very conservative view of popular marketing trends – maybe more so in an effort to maintain the professional demeanor of its user-centric focus and content.

Remarketing ads. Similar to video ads, this could be huge for B2B professionals and we hope it replaces the current text ads (please oh please).

Company page follower campaigns. It’s hard for startups to acquire their desired following – having these types of ads in place will help smaller companies garner greater reach.

Twitter Predictions:

Cracking down on harassment. Twitter has already started to ban individuals discriminating others, but it’s not enough to keep the trolls at bay.  More action will be taken to crack down on cyberbullying and nasty tweets.

Fake news. Similar to Facebook, Twitter has become a source for many to receive quick and concise news, but not all the news they get is factual. There’s a LOT of clutter to work through, but we’ll see Twitter rise to the occasion.

Video replies. Twitter may have killed Vine off a couple months ago, but the fan base still remains.  Having similar characteristics like vine with simple 7 second or 10 second replies would be a cool add on to the platform, and compel that particularly unsatisfied crowd to use the feature.

Snap Inc.:

Increase in group activities. With Snap’s new announcement on the 13th of December with regards to “Groups”, we believe it will incorporate more of the group element in the future.  Whether it will be group activities or a similar gaming style like the Pokemon Go craze, there’s some interesting activity going on with this concept.

Virtual ad placement with “Spectacles.” Delving into the hardware space here, we’re not sure if this is going to go belly up like Google Glass. However, Snap is unique to this application – and at a better price. We could see what Google Glass was meant to be, in the form of Spectacles in 2017.

IPO.  It’s no secret that Snapchat will soon be publically traded.  I think 2017 will be the year, opening between $18-$24 a share.

Increase in advertisers – Right now, if you’re looking to advertise on Snapchat you need to go through one of their partners, which could be quite spendy.   I think it will soon be open to more marketers, depending on the industry.

So there you have it.  Predicting the future isn’t easy; if anything, the best prediction is that further disruption in the social media industry will continue. Marketers will still scrape for space in the digital advertising ecosystem, and new platforms will gather new insights on how we (both as marketers and consumers) interact with our rapidly evolving digital tech. And as we already know – it can change in the blink of an eye.

So keep your peepers peeled in 2017!

Christopher Warden