Where is Social Media going in the Future? Let’s take a look!

Organization Name: The Future of Social Media

Industry: Social Media

Name of contact: varied (below)

Web References: varied (below)

The Future of Social Media:

Social media has reshaped our society unlike any others; it is the future of how people will communicate and do business. However, many would still argue that social media is a time waster. Much like people who see the glass as half empty. I prefer to think of social media as a tool. At the end of the day, when you have gathered knowledge and information, it boils down to preference.

For example, at the dinner table or at a sporting event in casual conversation, newsworthy topics come up. My mother-in-law will have read about it in the newspaper, my husband will have viewed it on CNN at work, and I will have read it on some form of social media platform, whether from my mobile phone or laptop.

As a computer savvy creative professional, I have embraced social media as a tool to create, share, exchange information, ideas, pictures and videos in virtual communities and networks. I look forward to what the future holds for social media, and hope my skills and knowledge in this area will lead the way to a fulfilling creative career in the K-W region.

So, where is Social Media going? Let’s take a look:

Personal:

• Personal Relationships – People use social media to meet and get to know each before physically seeing one another. Many relationships will be established online in the future. Just like Twitter and Facebook widens your business, a platform called Tinder helps individuals with their potential love life. Tinder allows individuals to introduce themselves to new matches and get to know new people and see if there is a possible future. Meeting new people that you would not have encountered on your day to day routine. More and more online dating platforms will likely continue to surface on the internet.

• Family Relationships – Family dinners and holidays often come with heads buried in smart phones, laptops and tablets, checking social media. Often more focused on documenting what’s going on and checking out what’s happening with their connections, then actually living in the moment.As social media continues to grow and become an even more powerful force in our social communications, it will become even more important for families to balance technology with the core traditional family values in a world powered by technology.

 

• Friend Relationships – As we know social media can be a great way for teens to connect with their friends and communities that help identify their likes and interests. There are a lot of negative things said about social media but there are a lot of positive things as well.Social media has opened a new door to people who are too shy to make friends face to face. It allows people to put away the awkwardness of going up to someone and introducing yourself. A social media platform called Snapchat, (a photo messaging application) threatens to change the landscape as the next big thing in social media.
  

Business:
The future of social media will offer many exciting, new opportunities for businesses to connect with their customers. That’s why today’s businesses must rethink their future strategies and shift most of their marketing efforts towards engaging with customers.

Social media is also changing the way companies market their products. It is now more than just networking, its a way of successfully building a brand. Without a direction in the form of a social media strategy, a business will suffer online. Positive brand experiences creates customers, and experience not only matters to customers – it drives results to the bottom line.

Education:
We are already seeing social media integrated into formal learning settings as designers build social platforms that are more school and classroom friendly, such as Brightspace, the world’s first truly integrated learning platform from the Kitchener-Waterloo company, Desire2Learn (D2L). Designed to improve learning through data-driven technology that helps deliver a personalized experience to every learner, regardless of geography or ability.

One can clearly see how the history of online learning, and the history of learning as a whole, has shaped the present day, and how things like social media and new technologies will affect the future of education. 

Healthcare:
The healthcare industry is changing with incredible speed, and one of the major contributors to this change is the dramatic upsurge in healthcare communication brought on by social media. Healthcare Social Media Analytics can bring incredible value by segmenting, analyzing and curating online healthcare discussions to answer your unique questions and needs. Learn more about Healthcare Analytics.

According to Dr. Bertalan Meskó, your doctor is going to be fully connected with you through social media and mobile health.

Technology:
I think this is where we will really see great strides in the future of social media. These days, everyone takes social media with them wherever they go. Soon, social media will be taking you wherever you want to go!

Television, radio, and even books and magazines (in digital format) will all have a social element in them. The future is increasingly connected and relevant information will be available easily and accurately.

The form that wearable technology will take in the future is also up for debate. Much bigger than smart watches and fitness bands, you can expect to see entirely different products emerge. Geo-locating social networks will mature and information online will be increasingly location specific. Imagine walking into your supermarket and getting a map of where everything is directly on your iPhone. Think helmets with built-in navigation systems, wearables for pets and smart buttons that could be pressed to change the colour of your clothes.

Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg referred to virtual reality as “the next major computing platform after mobile.” He explained that new platforms develop roughly every fifteen years, and that the acquisition of Oculus VR (still in development, is the Oculus Rift, virtual reality headset) is a “long term bet on the future of computing.”

Humanity:
Sherry Turkle, is a professor, author, consultant, researcher and licensed clinical psychologist who has spent the last 30 years researching the psychology of people’s relationships with technology.

Turkle’s research reveals: technology may make connectivity easier, but it comes at a cost. Are we more alone or more together in our digital culture? As we substitute face-to-face interactions with fast-and-easy – yet often shallow – communication via our gadgets, the result is too often one of alienation and emotional dislocation.

“What technology makes easy is not always what nurtures the human spirit.” — Sherry Turkle, MIT Professor Psychologist

Experts share their predictions on the future of social media and the ways in which it will impact businesses:

Angela Hadl, Owner and Marketing Consultant at Dive Mktg – @divemktg
“I believe that social media will become more intelligent, meaning that there will be more integrative tools that will streamline the posting and monitoring of social media for business. With these tools, reports will be more comprehensive and easy to interpret. This will help eliminate confusion regarding the messaging and goals among the sales & marketing departments (which we know are sworn enemies).”

Sarah Van Elzen, Director of Social Media at Hanson Dodge Creative – @sarahvanelzen
“Social media will continue to integrate into corporate culture and will help drive collaboration between silos (marketing, sales, customer service). Client/agency relationships will continue to evolve and much emphasis will be put on driving business value. Social media will always remain a channel for relationship management, driving awareness and engagement but programs that drive to purchase or absorb customer service costs will prevail.

Channel diversity will continue to grow. New platforms will launch and become relevant. Facebook will continue to grow towards the “older audience” unless they get serious about privacy and segmentation initiatives.

Social metrics and analytics companies will continue to fight for market share and pricing structures may change to bring in more clients. Social conversation trends will be folded into “big data” analytics and companies will utilize these trends for predictions and product development.”

Glenn Gow, CEO of Crimson Marketing – @CrimsonCEO
“Getting results will dominate social marketing. This will mean turning “engagement” into lead generation and an investment in social selling. B2B companies will invest 80% of their effort on blogging, LinkedIn and Twitter, and largely ignore Facebook, G+, Pinterest and others. Why? Because that’s where they will see results.”

Michelle Garrett, Owner of Garrett Public Relations – @PRisUs
“Social media will continue to play a bigger role in public relations as PR practitioners seek more creative ways to reach journalists and reporters seek sources for stories “on the fly.” PR pros must work social media into their strategy for media outreach and also for pushing out content. In turn,
content creation will also continue to become a bigger part of PR, due to social media.”

Ricardo Velez, Client Success Manager at Command Partners – @CommandPartners
“I predict the continued rise of SnapChat. New SnapChat Stories allow short clips to live for 24 hours, and we’ll see this become a unique way for companies to market themselves while generating revenue for SnapChat. This could lead to a push from Facebook to occupy the same space, which offered $3 Billion to buy SnapChat earlier this year, especially since a study noted that teens 13-17 are favoring SnapChat and Twitter over Facebook.”

The Evolution and Future of Social Media:

 

Lessons Learned:

If social media today has many benefits, it will continue to have many more as time goes by. People will continue to connect online, more people will use social media for different reasons and even the older generation will get on board with it.

Like anything related to the future, its the unknown that can be scary. I look forward to technological advancements and social media, but am fearful of the effects it will have on my family life, due to its highly addictive nature.

Every social media website has its negative aspects, but if used wisely it can definitely benefit us all. Social media depends on its users, so really, the future of social networking comes down to us!

References:

• Social Media Predictions
• The Future of Virtual Reality
• The Future of Social Media
• Healthcare Social Media
• Social Media and the future of personal relationships

Submitted By: Tina Geisel, SMBP Student, University of Waterloo

To contact the author of this entry please email at: tgeisel@sympatico.ca

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Programme Director, Social Media for Business Performance.