While you were busy promoting your company’s social media accounts, a lot has changed since the start of 2017 across the social media platforms. Read through our list of major changes in the social media marketing industry and see if you have been keeping up with the changing trends.
Snapchat goes public!
Snapchat had always kept secrecy about its revenue. In February 2017, Snapchat filed for IPO which revealed its parent company Snap made $404.5M in 2016, up from $58.7M in 2015; even though Snapchat’s audience growth deaccelerated from 17% between Q1-Q2 to just 3% between Q3-Q4.
Snapchat appears to be losing its war with Instagram. Snapchat’s growth slowed after Instagram (and then Facebook and eventually WhatsApp) cloned the stories feature. According to reports, by April 2017, more people were checking Instagram stories than using Snapchat.
Instagram’s stories overtake Snapchat stories
Instagram started 2017 with Snapchat styled vertical video ads between user stories. In June, a month after Snapchat said it’s daily audience has rebounded by 5 percent from Q4 2016 to Q1 2017, Instagram announced that its stories audience had grown by 25 percent.
Facebook starts monetizing videos
Facebook started testing ways for companies to monetize the videos posted on Facebook channels. The bigger question here is whether advertisers are comfortable with the limited control they have over the ads that roll within these videos.
Twitter increases user base but loses money
In Q1 2017, Twitter’s overall year over year revenue declined with the advertising revenue falling for two consecutive quarters! With Twitter overcoming the issue of slowing user growth with a stellar 6 percent increase year over year and with almost 14 percent increase in the volume of viewership; the declining revenue appears to be the next big roadblock that Twitter must now address.
LinkedIn starts retargeting
LinkedIn, the business-centric social network started retargeting option through a program called Matched Audiences. LinkedIn’s Remarketing is a very efficient way to target website visitors that did not complete the sales funnel.
Pinterest rolls out Lens
Lens, a new and exciting visual discovery feature from Pinterest, allows users to get inspired and creative by via a search through their phone camera. Now a user logged into their Pinterest account can point the camera on their Smart Device towards an object and discover a world of possibilities through a “related” search function.
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