A common belief is that social media activity greatly decreases during the summer. Indeed, in the past it was like that, but now things are different. Just a couple of summers ago, PCs and laptops were the main computer devices. As a result, when people were away on a vacation, they were also away from the web and their social network account. However, today we can access the Internet from anywhere thanks to smartphones and tablets. Therefore, the social media summer of 2014 will be hotter and more crowded than ever.
If you are a user, you would probably be interested in learning some information on the tendencies which are predicted to dominate the season. If, on the other hand, you are a business or a marketing professional, it is your job to familiarize yourself with the upcoming social media trends.
Location tagging – Location will be big on social media websites. However, it will be even bigger on social apps. In fact, a number of mobile applications focusing on location tagging were recently released on the market. While some of them attempt to easily connect you to your friends, by showing which of them are nearby, others reveal your buddies’ real-time coordinates so that you can avoid them. So, this trend will shift into promoting less social behaviors. That is often the irony with social networks.
Lifestyle-centered content – Ads on social networks have become quite irritating. Many brands are starting to realize that and they will take on a new approach – advertising not a product, but a lifestyle. In other words, they will try to market their brand by focusing their content on users with specific hobbies and lifestyle that go hand-in-hand with the given product there are attempting to sell. For instance, restaurant brands can promote their vegan meals by adding #VeganWednesdays and giving away discounts or coupons.
Hashtags are here to stay – Speaking of hashtags, they will continue to be added to posts and comments by both brands and users. Although there were rumours that some of the most popular social media platforms were considering to get rid of them, none of the information ended up to be true. As a matter of fact, hashtags make even more sense during the summer, because they can be playful and can summarize a message in a few words.
Mobile design – While most social websites offer a mobile app, not all users rely on them. There are still some who prefer to update their status or browse through their news feed via a browser app. As a result, many social networks have started to adopt mobile-like design. If you have logged in your profile through a desktop device lately you may have notices that fonts have become bolder and larger, whereas the content seems to be limited to the center of the screen. That is mobile. Therefore, even desktop websites will go mobile this summer.
However, the biggest trend will be the fact that social media websites will not be a ghost town in the summer of 2014. People will still get their vacation, but because of their mobile gadgets, they will not lose their access to the web. So, prepare for even more smiley holiday photos this year.
