2018 Social Media Predictions

Social media change is inevitable. For marketers, major changes and updates to social platforms can sometimes cause anxiety around the feeling of having to “reinvent the wheel” time and time again. In 2018, we’d like to propose that you instead keep a positive outlook around social media changes. Updates to social media platforms can mean new opportunities are available for you to creatively reach your audiences that were not possible before! Here are our predictions for the four big social media platforms in 2018 that fresh produce marketers can get excited about:

Facebook: Let us spell it out for 2018: V-I-D-E-O. Whether it’s more video sharing from consumers, more video ads, or more live video, it is safe to say that video content is here to stay and growing. Specifically, we expect video ads to grow and gain new functionality and real estate within Facebook feeds in the upcoming year. This could even mean killing off those mid-roll video ads we’ve all most likely experienced. We recommend fresh produce brands make the commitment to invest in their video content in 2018 if nothing else, and potentially consider a significant contribution to video advertising as well.

Twitter: As Twitter continues to find ways to make their platform safer and more helpful to consumers, we predict that they will get stricter on their crackdown of bots and fake accounts. Brands using Twitter value the ability to listen and join in on conversations with actual people that purchase and love their products and services. To keep this benefit alive, Twitter will need to make sure that the majority of its users are in fact REAL people. Influencer marketing is also gaining more and more momentum going into 2018, which means brands need better ways to measure influencer clout. Facebook and Instagram have created several branded content tools to make sharing/analyzing influencer posts on behalf of brands simple, so we can easily see Twitter being next in line for this type of update.

Instagram: After Instagram stories launched in 2016, the feature quickly became insanely popular and began to compete with the likes of Snapchat. We predict that time-limited content will continue to be popular in 2018, and we expect Instagram stories will be the best opportunity for produce brands to test this. Instagram continues to find new ways to engage with users through stories including the recently released Instagram polls, so we expect to see more similar story features in the New Year, possibly involving virtual reality (another upcoming overall social trend).

Pinterest: Through 2017, Pinterest grew to 175 million active users, up from 150 million in 2016. We predict this platform will find even more new ways for audiences to engage within the app beyond simply pinning. They have previously worked on developing buyable pins so brands can easily prove purchases through the platform, but we predict they will make this process even simpler through in-app purchases which does not take you away from Pinterest. With increased levels of buyable pins, we also expect that Pinterest will improve analytics to support showcasing the path to purchase. While the current Pinterest Ads Manager gets the job done, we can’t wait to see more detailed analytics to further prove direct sales from the app.

What’s on your mind as you plan for social media for your brand in 2018? Download the 2018 Social Media Calendar today to give your planning a kick start!