A recent article in Fast Company saw Hootsuite’s CEO, Ryan Holmes, predict five Social Media trends for 2016.

The first two predictions look at how larger corporates are starting to engage more fully with social media outside of their social media teams. The way that corporates are slowly coming on board with internal social networking, and the advancements that stand behind that shift; and how they’re starting to encourage their staff to share their updates. Given an eightfold increase in engagement from staff-shared updates, compared to those shared in the company name, that would seem a sensible move.

The third prediction looks at messaging apps, and how with improved analytics businesses could start to use them for marketing purposes. The fourth examines increases in Digital Marketing, and the increased sophistication that means people notice fewer ads in their feed, because the ads look more like status updates from friends and family. That coupled with the increased precision of targeting software and the simplification of the whole process, means that social advertising is likely to increase dramatically as more smaller businesses get on board. The last prediction concerns social video. The barriers to using video are eroding as streaming services such as Periscope, Meerkat, and Blab gain popularity, and the trend for shorter videos increases. It’s not my favourite medium, but I’d be an idiot to ignore it all together.

You can read the article by clicking on this link! 

Article by Ryan Holmes, CEO Hootsuite, and published in Fast Company on 9th December 2015