A Very Trendy Future

The social media empire has grown immensely in the past 10 years and I am starting to wonder “Where or where is social media taking us into the future?”. Will we rely on it more in our day-to-day lives? Will it take over simple tasks for the regular human? Will we start seeing more technology in the workplace because of the growth of social media? Today I looked into where the world of social media might be headed.

Where are we now?

According to this article and Pew Research: 88% of 18- to 29-year-olds indicated that they use any form of social media.
Since this is such a dominating percentage, we must look at what is trending with the younger generation when it comes to social media to learn what will be the future of many platforms.

Video

Using videos to connect with an audience and to create a community, that anyone can be a part of. is one way that social media and marketing is heading. Since the younger generation is using the most social media, marketers have been creating videos to post online in order to capture their attention. We can only expect more of this in the future.

https://bit.ly/2Xp0NgJ

Storytelling

https://bit.ly/2ID6Zym

Stories that disappear after 24 hours started with Snapchat and have now been adapted by Facebook and Instagram. The appeal for the audience is that is exactly what it is, a story. People like stories, especially about other peoples lives or a company. To me it is almost like reading a magazine where you’re updated on the latest “tea” of your favourite YouTuber or that new release of a product. Except you don’t have to go down the street to a corner store and buy a magazine, you can watch it directly from the palm of your hand in real time. Storytelling seems to be headed to the future on a strong and steady pace.

Below are many more trends happening among other social media platforms.

Advancements in Technology

Although the above mentioned are trends that will continue on to the future and will have an impact on how we communicate with each other. It is very important (i think) to realize how far the world of technology has come and how that has impacted social media. 10 years ago we couldn’t talk to our friends from across the globe face-to-face on our mobile devices like we can now with almost any app out there. 10 years ago we couldn’t ask ourselves “I wonder how much a cow weighs” and have the answer almost instantly with the press of a few buttons or asking the question to a robot in our living room. The advancements in technology in the future will most definitely impact the world we know today and how we interact with one another on a day-to-day basis.

Tell me your thoughts on whether or not you think Artificial Intelligence will be one of the most dramatic trends and changes of social media in the future. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

https://bit.ly/2GIH7iZ

Where is social media taking us into the future? Follow this link to find out more. #socialmedia #trendingnow #future #artificialintelligence

Social media is trending among the millennials and here is how it may impact the future. https://bit.ly/2XnLiG4

https://www.facebook.com/

https://twitter.com/

Measuring the Immeasurable?

Plenty of small business’ are on social media promoting their products and services and if they aren’t already, they are planning to start their social media journey. When I think of success, I want to see numbers, graphs, statistics, or anything that I can say is a measurement of how successful, or unsuccessful, something really is. For a business, the goal is to be successful. But how do we measure this goal when in relation to an organization’s social media network? Below are just some examples that I found on how an organization might measure their success from social media:

1. Community Growth and Sustainability
2. Likes, Favorites, Re-pins, Retweets
3. Engagement, Shares, Comments
4. Social Media Referral Traffic and Visitor Increase to your Website
5. Email Collection
6. Increased Sales
7. Referrals
8. Word of Mouth

Although some of the above are definitely social media related (i.e. Likes, Favourties, Shares, and Comments) some would not be an accurate measurement of your company’s success’ and non-success’. Sure, you can measure the amount of people that say “a friend of a friend recommended me to your product/service”, but what about all of those private conversations happening where people are saying negative things about your company? We simply just can’t measure something like that with 100% accuracy.

For a small company, or maybe a company that is stuck in the past and just starting their social media adventure, there are many free online tools that can help to measure social media success. Below are a few that I discovered:

1. HootSuite
https://hootsuite.com/

“Measure the impact of your social media campaigns through comprehensive reporting. Measure conversions by social channel and separate ROI between owned and paid media.”

2. SocialMention
http://socialmention.com/

“It allows you to easily track and measure what people are saying about you, your company, a new product, or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time.”

3. Buffer
https://buffer.com/

“Schedule content and check analytics for all your social accounts in one place, rather than going to six different networks.”

4. Keyhole
https://keyhole.co/

“We accurately measure real-time and historical social media data, illustrating information in easy-to-read graphs and layouts that simplify reporting and strategizing.”

Is it Enough?

Although the above tools do provide some similar services, none of them will actually track every single conversation, every single comment, every single share, comments from friends of friends of friends. I will be using some of the above tools as I had never heard of them before but the question still stands…will we ever be able to measure the true successes of our companies social media accounts? I think it’s safe to say that we can get a pretty fair read on whether or not our social media accounts are successful or whether or not people are reacting in a positive way to our products or services. The tools above simply help to make this discovery more transparent and provide some of the most necessary information when it comes to measuring success.

Find out how your business can measure it’s online success with these simple tools: https://bit.ly/2T4VWCf 
#socialmedia #businesstools #measuringsuccess

Want to become a social media expert? First you’ll need to know how to measure success! Follow the link below to see how. https://bit.ly/2T4VWCf

“How to Measure Social Media Success for Your Small Business.” Marketing Matters, ymarketingmatters.com/how-to-measure-social-media-success-for-your-small-business/.

Price, Chuck. “Social Media ROI: 11 FREE Tools for Measuring Social Media Success.” Search Engine Watch, 24 Nov. 2013, searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2308870/social-media-roi-11-free-tools-for-measuring-social-media-success.

https://www.facebook.com/

https://twitter.com/

Disconnected

Have you ever been in the office, at school or out to dinner with some friends and you just can’t seem to stop looking a your phone? You might be a millennial. Do you feel some sort of gratification or ‘high’ when you get more than 10 likes on an Instagram post? You might just be a millennial. Does this make them entitled though? Entitlement is the feeling that you are deserving of special treatment or feeling as if you deserve something even thought you have not worked for it.

As a millennial myself, I can somewhat relate to the above video. But I do not believe it is all entirely true. I was very fortunate growing up and whatever I wanted I could have. I guess you could say I was spoiled but that was only because my parents wanted to provide me with a great childhood and not because I just asked. Although I was spoiled I always knew I had to work hard in life to get to where I wanted.

Dopamine. Ahhh…

What I do agree about what Simon Sinek is saying is about technology. It is scientifically proven that the use of cell phones and engaging with technology and social media, releases a chemical called dopamine. I think we can all admit when we get a text from that crush, a loved one you haven’t heard from in a while or that friend who texts you a funny meme, it feels good. Dopamine is the same chemical released into your body when you have an addiction (i.e. drugs, gambling, alcohol).

Check out this article from the New York Post. 
A Quote from the article:

“We now know that those iPads, smartphones and Xboxes are a form of digital drug. Recent brain imaging research is showing that they affect the brain’s frontal cortex — which controls executive functioning, including impulse control — in exactly the same way that cocaine does. Technology is so hyper-arousing that it raises dopamine levels — the feel-good neurotransmitter most involved in the addiction dynamic — as much as sex.”

Are We Addicted?

So are millennial’s addicted to Social Media and their cell phones? I think for the majority, yes, they are. It’s interesting that Simon mentions in the video we have age restrictions on smoking, gambling and alcohol but not on social media. Do you think setting an age restriction on technology would help our young population? It seems to be that we are in fact addicted. We look to our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter accounts to see who has liked our posts and how many likes there are. The more likes and comments the better the feeling. When we don’t get that what we are expected it doesn’t feel good and some of us even get depressed, lonely, aggressive.

Maybe the problem isn’t technology or social media in itself. Maybe the problem is that we don’t know when to turn it off. Is the feeling of always being connected so gratifying that we just can’t switch off when the real world is all around us? Is social media really affecting our ability to be successful in or career and our relationships with other human beings? Have we become disconnected?

Has Social Media Become an Addiction? Read about it here.

Has Social Media Disconnected Us From The Real World? https://bit.ly/2GB9COJ

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/entitled
yourbrainhealth.com.au/dopamine-cause-digital-addiction/
https://nypost.com/2016/08/27/its-digital-heroin-how-screens-turn-kids-into-psychotic-junkies/
https://twitter.com/twitter
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Facebook_logo_(square).png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQKxm8AOa7I

Where to start…

Hey hey hey, thanks for stopping by.

Where to start, where to start. Trying to discover a writing style for your own personal social media can be a difficult feat in itself but doing so for an organization is becoming just as difficult for myself. Ensuring that your style matches the organizations brand or personality seems essential to becoming successful in running a Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube channel etc. But how do we begin to discover this style? Where do we start?

My Thoughts

I’m hoping that writing blog after blog will help me to discover what I am capable of in terms of writing style. Writing something off the top of my head isn’t usually how I roll…when I post to social media (especially for an organization) it is well thought out and discussed with my other coworkers to ensure it is what everyone envisions as a great social media post. Maybe having more freedom with social media posts is what I need to be able to truly find my own writing style. Any tips from the audience? I am greatly open to ideas and suggestions and cannot wait to broaden my horizons when it comes to social media. I feel as if so many of us do not use social media to its full potential and I am excited to see what the future has to hold.

Where to go from here

I was directed to a great article which you can find here and was interested in the information the author provided. The article itself is called How to Create the Ultimate Social Media Style guide which in itself is one great headline to attract the reader. The article list 9 useful steps to creating a social media account that I myself am finding very useful. I find that I was unaware that an article like this one is what I might need to become a successful social media expert for my organization. Although using social media on a day-to-day basis is one great way to learn the ins and outs of what it has to offer, I think it would be beneficial for all us to research and read about what it actually takes to become successful at it.

I feel like I’ve rambled on long enough and I hope to gain some insight from you, my audience! How did you find your writing style? Do you any of you currently blog and if so has it helped in finding your groove? Any advice is welcome and I hope to become much better at this whole blogging bit 🙂

Is your business looking to start your very own Facebook Page? Follow the link below to learn how!
8 Steps to Successfully a New Facebook Page for Your Business

#FindYourStyle The Ultimate Social Media Style Guide https://bit.ly/2FSRRef