Social Media Trends
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The future of social media has been rarely predictable. Pinterest had an unexpected explosive growth over the last year. There will always be surprises, but there are also some emerging and continuing social media trends that we can both track and predict with a certain degree of confidence.
Emerging Markets
Social
Media usage is constantly rising everywhere but growth will continue to be fair
higher in emerging markets, as Internet penetration and more forms of online
engagement continue to catch up with those in more established markets.
According
to eMarketer figures in 2011 and 2012, India and Indonesia were
the two biggest emerging markets. In 2011 the two countries experienced a
social network user growth of 51.5 percent and 51.4 percent respectively.
Compare this to the US and UK markets, which grew by only 9.8 percent and 9.9
percent. In
2013 India and Indonesia are still expected to see the biggest growth, at 37.9
percent and 28.8 percent respectively. The established markets will pretty much
plateau, with usage in the UK predicted to rise by 7 percent and the U.S. by
just 4.1 percent.
By
region the Middle East and Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America will see the
largest growth rates. The implications for social media marketers are pretty
clear: get into emerging markets before they catch up with the rest of us.
Mobile Growth
Facebook
As recently stated “While most of our mobile users also access Facebook through
personal computers, we anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile usage will
exceed the growth in usage through personal computers for the foreseeable future
and that the usage through personal computers may be flat or continue to
decline in certain markets.”
Many
commentators predict 2015 as the year when mobile search and online activity
will overtake overall static usage worldwide. For social media that may happen
very soon. Nielsen’s Social Media Report 2012 found that 43
percent of U.S. users use smartphones to access social media, with 16 percent
connecting from tablets. Users have also increased their social app usage by 76
percent. This meant they were now spending seven times more minutes on apps
than on the mobile web.
This
year mobile engagement looks to rise even higher. However there is still a huge
divide between broadband penetration rates in developed and developing
countries (International Telecommunications Union 2012 report). In
emerging markets mobile access is still more affordable and reliable than
Static connections, meaning mobile social media are often the norm. These usage
habits are unlikely to change even as broadband infrastructure catches up. With
the recent implementation of 4G, mobile internet will be faster and more
versatile than ever before.
Multimedia Engagement
More
people are engaging with social media while watching TV. This can spike during
major events such as the Super Bowl. Sixty-three percent of users in the Middle East and
Africa use social media while watching TV and 52 percent in Latin America do
the same. People aren’t just chatting while they do so. They’re also shopping
and looking up relevant program and product information.
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