Key trends in social media for 2015

Well isn’t this lovely?

Just over a year ago now, Marshall Manson and I smashed our heads together for several hours and came up with a fairly lovely document covering off our trend predictions for the year ahead.

Such was the warmth of the collective feedback of said presentation, we’ve done it again this year. Hurrah and hurrah again.

The document outlines a brief review of those ideas as well as a more in-depth look at the thoughts, trends and predictions for next year. However, if you’re a big cheat and don’t want to read the presentation (seriously, what kind of monster are you?) here are the cliff notes:

Trend predictions for 2014: Review
Marshall and I scored four for four with, ‘Disposable Content’, ‘Brand Banter’, ‘Facebook as a Paid Media Channel’, and a little thing called ‘Sub-dividing Communities’. Each and every one of them came true and, well, we’re pretty chuffed about that (the proof is in the deck below).

So without further ado, let’s move on to our Trend predictions for 2015:

Trend 1. Twitter Zero
Algorithmic content serving is coming very soon and, when it hits, and very much like Facebook before it, brands will need to understand not only what paid products are available but also how to use them.

Trend 2. The Video Battle Royale
‘Video’ was one of my ‘things that are not trends for 2015‘ however the BIG BATTLE FOR VIDEO AD DOMINANCE is 100% going to be a thing next year. With Facebook and Twitter both going all in on video-based ad products, we’re also predicting that Instagram’s existing ad products will also soon include video. Did you know Facebook outdid YouTube, on the video front, in 2014? We don’t think Google will let that lie… do you?

Trend 3. Teens & Anonymous Platforms
Less of a trend prediction more a piece of social / anthropological commentary, this section is about there now being a generation of teens who have grown up not knowing a world without an Internet. So what does ‘youth Internet’ look like? And why?

Check it out, you’ll see.

The presentation is embedded below.

And hey, tell us what you think on Twitter (@whatleydude or @marshallmanson) – we’d love to get your feedback!