What Will Social Media Look Like in 2016?

By Victoria Stoklasa, CEO

Many of us in the small business world are making new year's resolutions to find the best practices for growing our companies. Are you prepping your social media strategy for 2016? Let's gaze into the marketing crystal ball and make some predictions for social media management in the coming year.

Traffic Tracking Will Be Difficult

Let's get the bad news out of the way: Tracking who clicks to your website from where is going to be a challenge next year, especially if users are accessing your company via smart phone or tablet. Chad Pollitt at Social Media Today explained, "Many mobile apps strip out what’s known as UTM parameters from links or simply obfuscate itself as a source. This causes analytics programs to view the traffic as direct as opposed to social or referral."

We'll See Fewer New Social Media Platforms

After a glut of newborn platforms claiming to be the next big things (you can read about three of them on our blog), development of new social networks is going to peter out. RokkMedia predicted that "there is likely to be a shift in 2016 as new and promising social media channels will soon be bought up by the bigger fish in the market. Therefore, there will be less opportunity for independently owned channels to get a foothold."

You'll Utilize One-Click Purchasing

Finally, your potential customers won't have to leave their preferred social media platform to find your products...you can use your Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram account as a one-stop shop. The folks at MakeUseOf explained, "As these social platforms increase the use of these Buy Now buttons, they receive a share of the cash...social platforms could help save merchants billions on banking fees by missing out the middle-man."

What do YOU think is going to happen on social media in 2016? Leave a comment and let us know!