And a quick look ahead

I have a confession to make. As an observer for all things social, I’m often asked to predict the course of social media as it unfolds on the consumer and business landscape. Here’s the truth—I’d probably be in better shape trying to predict the USD-INR exchange rate or the fortunes of the BJP in the next elections. Because nothing, I repeat nothing, changes faster, and more unpredictably, than the social media landscape. That disclaimer in place, here are my informed predictions—call them educated guesses, if you will—about how social media will evolve in 2014.

Google+ Resurgence: Google+ has long been tagged as just another social attempt in a long line of social letdowns by Google. Not any more—it’s quickly gaining steam and currently ranks second only to Facebook in terms of unique monthly users! What’s more, it’s increasingly harder to ignore. Take Google’s latest moves in this space— the redesigned YouTube comment section now requires users to have a Google+ account or a YouTube channel to comment. No longer is it just another social network, disconnected from Google’s overall strategy. With Google using the social platform to collect personal information, such as demographics of its users, location of your posts, who you’re with when you’re out and about, Google+ is increasingly proving itself to be an integral part of Google’s grand scheme, both in terms of search engine optimisation, capturing vital social signals and providing a more personalised search experience. It also helps that brands love Google+ due to its heavy visual appeal, and I expect many to focus their social media marketing efforts onto the Google+ platform in the coming year.

Images over Text: What makes something sharable? If you see the skyrocketing popularity of sites like Pinterest, Slideshare and Tumblr over the past year, one common characteristic emerges—the ‘shareability’ of visual content. In 2014, how likely a piece of online content is likely to be shared among users will be directly related to how many visual it is—both in terms of the number and appeal of the images used. Visual content will progressively become a vital piece of any complete content strategy, and social networking site Pinterest will continue to widen its demographic from being largely a ‘women’s only’ network and become an integral part of merchants’ marketing strategies.

Video Gets Hotter: If a picture tells a thousand words, imagine what a video can do? Short videos, in particular, are a quick, inexpensive way for a brand to tell a story, and Vine and Instagram have only fuelled the fire that was already ripe for the lighting. Videos will take a key place in the social media marketing toolbox for brand professionals, and the challenge for marketers will be to get their point across in ten seconds… or less!

Facebook Plateaus: With well over a billion engaged users, half of which are active on a daily basis for an average of 20 minutes a day, Facebook is still the dominant force to be reckoned with in this space, both for consumers and marketers. Yet, in several developed economies, Facebook growth is slowing down, and in some cases, decreasing at an alarming rate in the teenage segment in particular. Platforms like Snapchat—that let you send out messages (text, photo or short video) that auto-destruct after a preset time limit— are snapping away at Facebook’s heels by addressing privacy issues that plague the popular platform. For brands and smaller businesses too, Facebook is akin to a noisy marketplace, where it’s getting increasingly difficult to have your voice heard and build an active community without allocating considerable investments, both in time and money, and it may push these smaller brands to niche less crowded networks.

The Rise and Rise of Twitter: Fresh off its IPO, 2014 should be the year that Twitter takes its rightful place in the sun. Granted, with a public presence comes increased scrutiny, but the attention will bring a number of latent users and curious eyes onto the platform. And Facebook’s loss will be twitter’s gain—a study recently conducted shows an increasing percentage of teenagers were jumping ship from Facebook to twitter simply primarily because ‘there is less drama’ associated with being on twitter, as also that it was easier to fly under parents’ radars on the 140-character social platform. Brands too have rapidly embraced twitter, not only as a customer service and outreach platform but also for generating leads for potential sales.

Be LinkedIn…or be LeftOut!: Still holding steady as the place to be for business professionals, LinkedIn will power through 2014 with its new Influencers Program and position itself not only as a job and professional networking site, but as one of the largest sources of content creation and curation for professionals.