SOCIAL
MEDIA
101.
WHAT YOU NEED TO
KNOW ABOUT THE
DIGITAL SPACE IN 2017
50 •
The Lion King
• April - June 2017
FEATURE
BY SEGUN DANIEL OGUNDIPE
F
orgive social media if it’s rapidly
becoming a sea of sameness,
where the challenge is simply who
can exploit what’s best, not who can
innovate the most. Twitter has tried
to be different but look how it is a
beautiful bride who has had no takers,
despite the best efforts of Donald
Trump Jnr. Snapchat is an even more
beautiful bride, but it’s haemorrhaging
money. What else is new? Facebook
and Instagram regularly rip off
Snapchat? Yawn. Facebook in trouble
for failing to stop fake news? Vimeo is
now into Virtual Reality, like YouTube.
YouTube is trying hard to be more like
Facebook, because Facebook Video
was itself an affront to YouTube. And
it goes on and on and on and on…
In terms of trends in a world where
reaching users the same way on social
media simply no longer cuts it, it is
difficult to predict future trends, but
less difficult to detail the things you
need to look out for. Here we go.
Standardization
Social networking platforms are
moving towards a standardized
platform. What does this mean? All the
social networking websites will offer
similar features to the users.
What works for one platform is copied
by another. Users see similar features
on all the social networking websites.
For instance: Snapchat, Instagram,
whatsapp and facebook all have
Stories. YouTube is testing a community
feature that will allow its users to post
and share text and images – just like
Facebook.
Live Video as Authentic
Content
Social media is becoming fascinated
with live, authentic content. Video
– all kinds of video – is the logical
conclusion of content, according to
the KPCB. In its Internet Trends Report
for 2017, video content will represent
74% of all internet traffic. And it’s
playing out: you’ve probably seen
more video content on Instagram,
Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter than
you’ve done on TV.
Social media has taken 'authentic
content' (a.k.a live video) to the next
level by offering content in real time.
Quite a number of shows already
stream on YouTube or Facebook.
Social videos have much more
engagement than any other content
format. The world of media is changing
thanks to live video.
