2016 Social Media Trends

It’s already March 2016 and many people have already published several articles on new Social Media trends. What I’d like to share with you here is a short list you might find useful.

Even more photos. But photos are not enough anymore, it’s time for even more videos. And not just replay what you recorded but live broadcast.

Live Video Streaming (live video broadcast)

Live video streaming is a content delivered live over the internet. All you need to start live broadcast is: a smartphone with camera, internet connection and mobile application that allows you start live broadcast. Here is a list of some of the live video streaming applications:

Periscope
Facebook Live Video Streaming feature
Blab.im
Wirecast Go
Live Air Solo

Many people are trying this form of communication on social media. It’s less controlled just because it’s live but it seems that people like that “realism factor”.

Snapchat on the rise

Up to last year many of us thought that Snapchat is mostly a social media platform for teenagers. That specific demographic embraced this application to the fullest but luckily for other demographics there’s a change. Finally rest of us gave Snapchat a chance and more and more users are moving to Snapchat and trying this tiny yet powerful application.

What is Snapchat?

This application allowed you to share short videos and photos and all of those are going to disappear after 24h. You should remember that anyone can follow you on Snapchat unless you change the app’s settings and narrow down that option. And if you think that you are safe because all photos and videos you are going to share will disappear after 24h….well, anyone who can see what you shared can screenshot what they seen on their mobile device.

Even more Customer Service via Social Media

In case you have enough of waiting on the phone to get hold on customer service representative you can try to reach company’s customer service on social media platforms. Why would you want to do that?

You save some time – there’s a chance that you are going to have a faster response from customer service representative on Facebook or Twitter (sometimes within 10min)
It’s not only one-on-one experience – when you communicate with the brand on social media other people can see your post and they can join the conversation

Music Subscription Service

Within last few years we moved from purchasing songs and downloading them on our devices to subscribing to music services. But what does it mean?

it means that you can subscribe to music services platforms like Pandora, Spotify, Google Play Music, Apple Play, Tidal, etc. and get access to millions of songs
by default you don’t download songs on your device – you just simply listen to those using internet connection. Unless you specifically want to have access to selected songs, then you can use “use offline” feature
for an average $9.99 subscription monthly fee you have access to millions of songs

YouTube RED

I’d like to give YouTube RED a chance. It’s a new music/video subscription service ($9.99/mo) offered by YouTube. What this platform offers?

watch uninterrupted – you can watch videos without ads
you can watch videos offline on mobile devices (save videos on your device) – it’s useful when you know that you are going to have limited access to the internet connection.
watch YouTube original movies and series
YouTube Music app – listen to the tracks you like ad-free, in the background, offline, and in audio mode

Podcast

Let’s start with what is podcast.

A podcast is a form of digital media that consists of an episodic series of audio, video, digital radio files subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication or streamed online to a computer or mobile device. (source: Wikipedia)

It’s like super radio on-demand. You decide when you want to listen to your favorite show. And to do that you need (in most cases) mobile application and then just select what you want to listen. Some of those applications will download episodes of your favorite shows so you can listen to those later. They also allow you to sort the newest episodes of your subscribed podcasts and help manage your subscriptions.

Here is a list of podcast mobile applications on iPhone/iPad and Android:

Overcast (free: Apple devices)
Castro ($3.99: Apple devices)
Pocket Casts ($3.99: Apple and Android devices)
iCatcher! ($2.99: Apple devices)
Downcast ($2.99: Apple devices)
Stitcher (free: Apple and Android devices)
Apple Podcast (default Apple application)
Podcast Addict (Android devices)
Doggcatcher (Android devices)

I think that we are going to see even more applications that support live video streaming. I’m still not so sure if Virtual Reality is going to be popular in the mainstream of users although we saw great Virtual Reality examples at SXSW conference this year.

Time will tell…