With 2014 now a month old, we thought it’d be a great time to have a look at the next 11 months and lay down some predictions as to which social networks will begin to truly emerge as a force to be reckoned with.
Snapchat
Snapchat had a huge year in 2013, but 2014 will be the year that truly defines it. In 2013 they grew, fast - and also declined a multi billion dollar acquisition offer from Facebook. 2013 wasn’t without controversy for Snapchat though, with a major hacking story to end the year on.
2014 is the year that Snapchat needs to find a balance between creating a great user experience, and also welcoming brands into the picture. Some Snapchat marketing experimentation has been done with limited time offers and so on so far, but Snapchat needs to create and formalise a way for brands to get involved.
If they can achieve this without driving away users then 2014 will be a very interesting year for Snapchat, and will be worthy of note in terms of marketing budgets if engaging the younger demographic is a desire of your brand.
Instagram has been around since 2010, however there were two big changes at the end of 2013 that mean it has an interesting year ahead. First, Instagram announced Instagram advertising, allowing big brands access initially to test the concept. Early indications are good, with strong results seen and users reasonably untroubled and understanding of the need for some advertising. How this develops will be interesting this year, with a self-serve portal being widely hoped for to give smaller businesses access to advertise. If this does happen, this will be a big opportunity to engage with your audience in a new way and to gain Instagram followers and engagement.
The second change by Instagram at the end of 2013 was the launch of ‘Direct’, which was Instagram’s attempt to rival Snapchat with direct user-to-user photo exchanging. Whether this will take off is yet to be seen, however it is an interesting move by Instagram and Facebook to rival Snapchat in 2014.
At latest count, Instagram had 150 million monthly active users and growing, so Instagram is definitely worth considering as part of your 2014 plans.
We Heart It
We Heart It was founded in 2008 as an image based network, similar to Pinterest where you can ‘Heart’ your inspiration and create collections. As of December it was up to 25 million monthly active users, and the company has recently taken on $8m of funding to continue to grow. At present We Heart It is adding around 1m new users per month, but what’s interesting is that over 80% of the user base is under 24, making it another new destination for young people who are growing frustrated of the more mainstream social platforms.
We Heart It are looking to take on more money in 2014, and this could be another big year for them in terms of their user base growth - meaning they are a platform to keep an eye on over the next few months.
2014 is another big year in the development of Pinterest. Pinterest raised $225m in October 2013 to continue the development of the site. Last year Pinterest launched it’s business section, giving brands an opportunity to create their own environments with analytics within the platform too to help give it a push.
In 2014, Pinterest is likely to continue to grow in terms of audience, and in terms of it’s capabilities for business. We hope to see a full launch of sponsored pins and other tools to allow brands to make a real difference on Pinterest. On a like for like basis, Pinterest is the best platform for driving eCommerce conversions in a number of niches, so the ability to grow that out for businesses would be great news.
There’s countless other social platforms, both big and small that we haven’t mentioned in this piece - but our prediction is that the social media market is going to become increasingly fragmented this year so there will be numerous emerging networks to try to draw ROI from for your business.
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