How Social Media Has Changed Since 2014 (and One Major Trend You’ll Notice by 2017). Here’s how 5 major social networks have changed in the past 24 months Facebook Within two years, Facebook increased their dominance in the social space by claiming nine out of every 10 shares, up from eight out of every 10 shares in 2014. In that timeframe, the network has implemented dozens of changes, including several major developments in their News Feed algorithm directly impacting the visibility of brand and publisher content— and their referral traffic. A logical explanation for the specific surge in sharing would be the debut and growth of LinkedIn Pulse, the network’s onsite publishing platform. (This would also explain why we found the top publisher on LinkedIn is not so shockingly LinkedIn.) Pinterest is arguably late to the game when it comes to certain aspects like video content, but their ecommerce innovations are helping to reshape the network into the top social shopping platform. A comparison of our two studies reveal many niche publications saw a significant increase in social engagement. Besides more of their articles ranking within the top one million most shared, the average number of shares per article rose significantly for publications like Self and Refinery29 that are serving certain demographics— 162% and 114%, respectively. It goes without saying these niche publications post unique content targeting a specific audience, a trend gaining attention among the experts as an effective content strategy for brands. Any social marketing or content strategy trends do you see emerging in 2017?
In today’s hyperconnected age, brands and publishers alike have
new opportunities to interact with their audiences, but they also
face new challenges.
Increasingly, they compete with not only direct
competitors, but literally everyone when it comes to
reaching and engaging users on social media. Once more, they’re
forced to rely on social platforms driving a significant portion of
their traffic— networks with their own agendas that have the power
to halt that referral flow almost overnight.
In a world where our eyes are glued to a screen for nearly all
hours of the day, it’s a battle they’re forced to fight if they
want to be seen.
In a recent interview with Social Media Week, Vox Media’s VP of
Global Marketing Jonathan Hunt sets the scene well by explaining
“to not have a social strategy, or to go all in on Facebook, runs
the risk you’re not seen, and if you’re not seen you aren’t
relevant.”
Back in 2014, my team at Fractl partnered with BuzzSumo to analyze one million of the
most shared articles of that year to determine which
networks were seeing the most engagement and what publishers were
driving it. Knowing quite a bit has changed since then, we
decided to reboot our
study by analyzing one million of the most shared articles for
2016.
Besides realizing the number of social shares for the same
number of articles grew from 2.6 to over 3.0 billion in 24 months,
we discovered a few interesting changes among the key players and
stakeholders in social media.
Here’s how 5 major social networks have changed in the past 24
months
Within two years, Facebook increased their dominance in
the social space by claiming nine out of every 10 shares,
up from eight out of every 10 shares in 2014.
In that timeframe, the network has implemented dozens of
changes, including several major developments in their News Feed
algorithm directly impacting the visibility of brand and publisher
content— and their referral traffic. (Not to mention they’ve grown
their user data goldmine by acquiring other apps like Whatsapp and
Venmo not long after buying out Instagram.)
From the inception of Instant Articles in May 2015 to the
organic audience optimization tool in January 2016, some updates
directly benefit brands and publishers. At the same time, several
updates over the past 24 months have put
more emphasis on user generated content, likely in response to
comments and complaints by users claiming the network has given too
much power to publishers and advertisers.
While the professional networking site only sees 25 out of every
1,000 shares, LinkedIn has seen the greatest positive
percentage change with a nearly 14% increase in shares over the
past 24 months. Though it’s been around since 2003, recent
innovations like an updated messaging system in September 2015 and
new premium insight experiences in 2016 can be attributed to the
network’s jump in user growth, up
nearly 150% in two years.
A logical explanation for the specific surge in sharing would be
the debut
and growth of LinkedIn Pulse, the network’s onsite publishing
platform. Pulse merged with LinkedIn Today when 500 select leaders
in business were recruited to publish original articles. By 2014,
publishing on Pulse was expanded to all users with the mission of
helping members build their professional brand. (This would also
explain why we found the top publisher on LinkedIn is not so
shockingly LinkedIn.)
In distant second, though trailing far behind Facebook,
Twitter lost nearly 30% of their share count in two years,
down to just six out of every 100 of total shares. While
the network arguably maintains its reputation as the network for
breaking news, it’s widely known the platform is notoriously
slow to
innovate.
Though the network was quick to jump on the video content
bandwagon through the growth of Vine and later the acquisition of
Periscope, those channels have potentially
passed their prime – with…
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