Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Sources from different social-media arenas give us their takes on what developments we’ll be seeing in the coming year:

Mobile Messaging As The New OS

If you had told marketers 10 years ago that Facebook and Twitter would become a premium platform to reach consumers, they would have laughed. It might have sounded good in theory, but applying the concept and marketing dollars was more difficult.

As 2017 approaches, the conversation is shifting again. Social media isn’t going away, but more people are talking about expanded functionality in mobile messaging. And when you consider the combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than that of the top four social networks, it’s easy to understand why. Chat apps have intricate ecosystems with unique APIs and developers.

Look to mobile messaging to become the new operating system, giving marketers the ability to create personalized experiences via branded content — emojis, GIFs, bots. —Evan Wray, VP and co-founder, Swyft Media....

This is the time of year people post their prognostications for the next year. The predictions will be … predictable: More video! More Snapchat! More podcasts!

Well, OK. It’s pretty easy to make a prediction based on what’s already happening. But there are less obvious tectonic forces rumbling through our marketplace. Here’s a view of some of the underlying shifts, the marketing mega trends, you need be considering in 2017....