Social Media Predictions for 2015

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With the end of the year creeping closer and closer, it’s natural to wonder what 2015 will bring. No prediction is entirely accurate, of course, but we’ve seen some clues in this last quarter of 2014 that have led us to make a handful of social media predictions for 2015.

But, before I dive into the changes to social in 2015, let’s first note some trends that aren’t going away any time soon.

• Social’s predominance in everyone’s life (speaking broadly)
• The popularity of Facebook (it’s not going away)
• GIFS, video, imagery
• Random videos rising from obscurity, going viral in a short period of time

These are established trends, so my #1 prediction is that these trends will remain throughout 2015. The remaining 3, however, are more of “educated guesses.” Drumroll…

Social Media Predictions for 2015

Social media will want you to handle money through them.

Only a few weeks ago, Snapchat revealed Snapcash. Before that, it was discovered that Facebook’s Messenger app has a hidden payment feature, one that is not yet activated by the company.

Besides these examples, both Facebook and Twitter are experimenting with “Buy Now” buttons on their platforms, allowing users to purchase directly without ever leaving the platform. We don’t know exactly where this social prediction will lead, but we bet the trend will only increase in 2015.

Organic interaction on Facebook will drastically decrease.

Facebook announced a few weeks ago that, beginning in January 2015, it will begin limiting the number promotional page posts that appear organically in the News Feed. We talked at length about this topic here, so check it out if you’d like more details.

The bottom line, though: companies will have a hard time engaging fans on the platform.

We’ll see the proliferation of smart and social devices.

We saw the rise of the fitness tracker in 2014. We’ve heard talk of smart appliances, everything from your coffee maker to your refrigerator. My guess? Smart will become social and smart. We’ll see records on our favorite social sites of friends’ running habits, caloric intake, grocery shopping trends and much, much more.

I can’t figure out how user privacy works into this picture, so I’m not going to wager a guess. I’ll just watch what happens on that front. It’s an important issue, as privacy always is, so what happens might very well dictate the outcome of these social media predictions for 2015. Stay tuned…