9 trends in social media 2014

By Sofie Sandell author of the book Digital Leadership

1) More and more businesses are getting better at experimenting with digital and social media, just look at the FTSE 500 or any big brands for inspiration.

Many brands are also starting to understand how their followers react to different messages on social media – they understand their audience – and this will lead to better engagement.

2) Social media is a huge element in business. If you wish to communicate with your stakeholders you need to use social media well.

To not use social media is almost as bad as not having a phone number and address. We must be able to communicate with businesses, organisations and people.

3) Using social media for sharing knowledge is already big, but this will take off even more.

People who are great community managers and have facilitation skills are in high demand.

4) Collaboration and quick and easy knowledge sharing will grow in organisations. We are learning how to use the social tools to facil i tate conversations and problems solving online.

Online learning is moving onto mobile devices. We feel a bit stuck doing online training in front of a computer. Apps and mobile friendly websites where you can do online learning on the go will grow.

5) Businesses are getting better at replicating digital projects – this will save them a lot of time and investments.

We want to be able to use the digital platforms again and again.

6) New apps will continue to be invented for all kinds of purposes. The apps that are difficult to use will be deleted the minute after they are downloaded.

Apps that employ great design that respects users will be the winners.

7) Private messaging Apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat are important. After I visited China and started to use WeChat I understood how big this platform will become.

If you are a brand marketer you should get into this area and start using private messaging apps in your marketing mix. There are also opportunities to integrate your online shop into apps such as WeChat which may be worth exploring.

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8) The popularity of short-form videos will grow and we will see them used as part of all major online campaigns. Start looking at Instagram for inspiration. What we learned from the Ice Bucket Challenge was that more or less anyone can create a video.

I also think that Facebook will launch a video platform. It would make sense from a user perspective to have a video platform available for use on Facebook.

9) Some people are going to fully embrace wearable technology. We are going to see glasses, watches, bracelets and maybe even belts and handbags that are connected devices.

Whether this will be good or bad I don’t know, but we are going to start seeing them in use.

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