The potential evolution of social media and what you should focus on

The potential evolution of social media and what you should focus on

Just like websites and how they're built, marketing has evolved throughout the years, and that means social media platforms will play along and go with the flow as well in order to please everyone they can.  If a social media platform were to focus on large corporations first, they wouldn't live long enough to see any sort of seed money coming in, and that means the money is in the little guys like me and you.  Social platforms focusing more on the people will grow 10x more than companies who are setting up platforms with the idea they're going to just profit off of their users in one way or another.

Evolution is all around us online, just look at the search algorithms and how far along they've come since 1998, or look at how a website is built and the time it takes to get it live.  You can literally get a fully functional website up and running within a day using a domain registrar, WordPress, and a hosting account.  In the past, it would take much longer because you would have to custom code everything or edit a template for a week lol

Below are a few things I've been thinking about when it comes to the evolution of social media, and those things are:


1 to 1 relationships getting more attention
At the beginning of social media, there was a platform called Friendster that focused solely on building friendships and that's about it.  Now we have Facebook, which had the same idea, but it has evolved to become a platform for pretty much anything you need to do online.  You can chat with friends, customers, business partners, or you can watch tutorials in order to learn how to do something.  Social media platforms are getting too large, losing their touch with individuals, and that's why I think 1 to 1 relationships will get more attention over the next few years.

Social media platforms focus more on the overall picture and not the individual, and they're starting to take notice to people jumping ship, so they're starting to take steps towards a more personal approach to your profiles.

Pay for peace and quiet on social media
Some platforms may start charging a monthly fee so you don't see any sort of ads in your feeds or on the sidebars.  This is already a successful method in the mobile app industry, which makes billions a year, and people are paying to not see a popup or ad that disturbs their browsing or gameplay.

The price per month won't be anything crazy, because platforms will want more people to sign up and love the new ad-free services, so I assume it would be in line with a pricing like Netflix or Hulu and they will charge $10 or less each month.

Privacy will always be on peoples mind
When you talk about social media platforms, privacy is always within the top 5 notes of anyone making a new profile.  Over the years privacy has evolved for the better, and the individual making his or her profile is able to take more control over what they're posting, and they are able to actually delete it if they want instead of ghosting accounts or pictures.

Less addictive platforms proving quality atmospheres
A lot of bigger platforms have focused on building an atmosphere that pulls people back in, but now they're beginning to switch gears and make it more of a relaxed atmosphere in order to bring people in and keep them coming back on their own terms.  Social media addiction is an actual thing, and some studies say it's even more addicting than cigarettes, but I can't comment on that because I've never smoked lol

All mobile and no desktop type social platforms
Back when the bigger social media platforms started, there wasn't an option to go mobile since the smartphone was just a prototype and no one could actually access them.  This means that the big social platforms are sort of dual existence, one being a website and the other being an app, but newer platforms are starting to be solely apps and not relying on a website to run everything they have.

This is one of the biggest changes that I see coming, mainly because apps are getting bigger and better, and the cell phone usage across the world is increasing indefinitely across every demographic in the world.  More cell phones, more app only platforms, and more people not wanting to log into a website means this idea might come to a reality sooner rather than later.


In conclusion
If you can predict the future when it comes to anything online, you have a better chance to prepare, and this means you can be more profitable when these new features or platforms eventually get launched.  I would say to watch out for smaller apps who are gaining a lot of attention, because they may get acquired by larger companies trying to go solely app style platforms, and if you're already established on those apps then you have the traffic coming to you when they flood the gates of those apps


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Thanks!

Tommy Carey