Top position on a list of social media apps: sky-high or an attainable goal?
Look around! What do we look like? Sending messages instead of calling on friends. Speaking with parents on Skype because we cannot afford to visit them on weekends due to long distances between us. Spending hours sharing, liking, commenting and playing. Doing our business through social media, which results in saving money and efforts.
Whether you call it dependency, vital need, escape from reality, or option to cover kilometers in a blink - the fact remains: socializing on Internet has won a huge part of our lives, both private and business.
Only the lazy would not make use of the situation.
To get access to the army of social media users you may either address the existing apps as a marketing channel or let your own web or mobile app be developed.
Today we are going to speak on the most popular social media apps trends and features that attract millions of users and can be used for and in your own products.
THE WIND OF CHANGE
This would be childish to cherish any illusion that in the course of time engaging new leads on Internet has grown as simple as ABC.
Not quite. Nothing is simple when we speak of people, their behavior, and feedback. More so, if it refers to social media users. Their attention and loyalty are not so easy to be won and held.
The situation is more challenging as a new generation Z is growing up, and they appear to be more realistic as compared to the idealistic millennials, their predecessors.
You do not need to be a great statistics expert to understand that the young people born after 1995, are 20+ years now and in several years will become an ideal self-sufficient target for your business.
These young people are scrutinized by the public and widely discussed:
- They are a generation that is growing up in the world of the unlimited easy-accessible Internet, they are accustomed to using five screens (smartphone, TV, laptop, desktop, and tablet) and need “eight seconds” to filter the content as interesting or not.
- They are eager to influence the world and appreciate real values, people, and actions, not words.
- They prefer online shopping.
- They spend much time communicating online but prefer to control access to their personal content, etc.
According to Adweek 50% of 1,452 Gen Z respondents “can’t live without” YouTube:
- they prefer to search for How-to Info on YouTube (40%);
- they use it for shopping recommendations (16%);
- for catching up on the news they mostly use Facebook and YouTube (14%);
- For a good laugh, they go to YouTube (30%).
This is up to you decide, whether this or any other information on the generation Z people will be useful for your business.
But if your company is founded not just to survive but to prosper, thinking ahead and studying the new target would be of advantage.
FULL COVERAGE
The above mentioned in no way means that you should forget everyone except the Generation Z and focus on their preferences and choices only.
To cover all age groups, we suggest following the simplest way: looking at the most popular social networks from the point of view of the unbiased statistics.
According to Statista, three positions among the first five most used apps belong to the messengers: WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat. And the sixth one is also a messenger: QQ. This means, that users nowadays are actively engaged in messaging.
According to further statistic values, the number of the global mobile phone messaging app users will increase up to 2.48 billion in 2021 as compared to 1.82 billion in 2017 (Statista).
Do not miss the chance to contact the users through direct messages or through a specially dedicated channel, where you can share news, useful information, etc.
AUGMENTED VS. VIRTUAL REALITY
No more need to compare or counterpose. They both are more than real now and present another safe way to the advantaged future.
AR and VR market size is expected to boom in the next couple of years from 6.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to 215 billion U.S. dollars in 2021 (Statista). And this means about 35 times growth!
Facebook with its stable top position continues staying up to date and offers a new VR social media app launched in beta.
You have already started thinking over a VR or AR app for your business, haven’t you? Let the Force be with you.
LIVE VIDEO STREAMING
New technologies are appealing, but still, nothing is more real and valuable than existing reality and people around us.
Therefore, Periscope with its live videos enjoys popularity and is used on a regular basis by its fans: 20% users visit the platform several times a day.
The importance of being...real: the trend is rising and worthy of paying attention to.
STORIES OF OUR LIVES
Hardly there is anyone who has not heard anything about Instagram Stories. The same short live videos? Well, to some extent.
But you’d better be more attentive to various options offered. For example, have a look at the polls introduced in Instagram Stories. You have an opportunity to ask your friends and followers to choose between two options (anything you like: a new look, Christmas Eve decoration, updated company logo, etc.). And they will choose in real-time mode, so as you may see how many and whose votes each option receives.
It seems to be a very useful and practical feature for a social media network that accounts for 300 million users as of October 2017 (Statista).
TAKEAWAYS:
Whether your app is visited by millions of users or is just on the threshold of the popularity with the first loyal followers being your friends or exists only as a plan in your mind yet, take into account the following key ideas:
- be aware and informed of your up-to-date target preferences;
- stay real and close to users;
- never avoid direct communication;
- ask for users’ feedback;
- get involved with new technologies.
Let the sophisticated and experienced modern user be astonished and sincerely interested.
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