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2019 Social Media Predictions -- Mark or Miss?

social media trends, social media, Mulligan Management Group 2019 Social Media Trends

 

By De-de Mulligan

In December or January of every year, various organizations and bloggers make statements about what the next year is going to bring. As we are approaching the third quarter of the year, I thought it would be fun to take a look at those forecasts and how they did.

Please feel free to provide us your feedback about ones I missed or if you have a different view of the world. I’d love to hear from you!

 

Prediction #1: Dark Social is Gaining Traction

How would you know? It’s the sharing of content through private channels such as instant messaging programs, messaging apps, and email. It’s hard to track because it isn’t a public post for the world to see and for channels like Facebook and Twitter to analyze and serve up relevant content to you.

Miss.

 

Prediction #2: Authentic Social Postings

It depends on the company. Some organizations are taking a political and social stand on issues they have never opening supported before. For example, with a drive toward inclusion and diversity, some brands are using this as an opportunity to share how they support the LGBTQ community and don’t support racial supremacy, at the risk of upsetting their brand followers. Think Nike and Colin Kaepernick.

Mark, by some, Miss by others.

 

Prediction #3: More Transparent Postings

According to research conducted by Sprout Social, 50% or great of those polled want the following on social media:

  • Admitting the company made a mistake
  • Honest responses to customer and prospect questions
  • When the company has product or service changes
  • The company values
  • Their business practices

Mark for small companies, Miss for enterprise organizations.
 

Prediction #4: Facebook will Regain the Trust of Their Users

 

Miss.

 

Prediction #5: PPC Ad Prices will Continue to Rise with No Apparent Rhyme or Reason.

 

Mark.

 

Prediction #6: Group Use Will Continue to Go Up

Facebook and LinkedIn Groups have not hit their stride. Facebook Groups have a lot of passive watchers and a small percentage of active users (who generally use it as a bi*ching session).

Spammers dominate LinkedIn Groups. Most groups have little trust factors.

While people are not getting out of groups, they are not active in them either, thus defeating the purpose of groups.

Miss.

 

Prediction #7: The Increase of Chatbot Use

Yes, Facebook Messenger and others like it are the darling of the AI industry with their personalized response systems.

Mark.

 

Prediction #8: More Stories.

Whether it’s Snapchat, Instagram, or Facebook, stories have become popular for many reasons. They are entertaining. They can encompass different messages at different times of day. They disappear in 24 hours. They have filters.

Mark.

 

Prediction #9: Employees are Going to be Influencers

As much as organizations want this to happen, it isn’t. Influencers, by the very nature of this status position, is a paid one – either monetarily or with products and services. Employees generally don’t have a large enough sphere of influence, nor are they interested in promoting your brand to their friends and family, unless there is something for them in return.

Miss.

 

Prediction #10: Analytics Dashboards will be all the Rage

We learned to love dashboards when Google Analytics came out, and we found out our CMO and CIO love the data, too. While each social channel has their in-depth analytics, there are a few paid tools that will bring them all the channels into one dashboard (i.e. Buffer, Sprout Social, Raven Tools, Zoho Social). The problem? The metrics don’t give you customer sentiment, and they still keep channels in their verticals. However, there are some cool AI tools that are in beta today. Give them another few months (or years), and we will have a whole different level of analytics available to us.

Miss today, Mark tomorrow.

 

Brought to you by Mulligan Management Group

We are a full-service boutique digital marketing organization based in Hudson, Ohio. Serving clients all over the country, we specialize in social media strategy, implementation, and audit procedures. Give us a call at 330-472-7673 for more information about the way we can help you!

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