Social Media Trends You Must Be Aware of

Social media is evolving, revolving and sometimes struggling. It seems there are trends which are there for a while now.

Some sites reflecting overall trends lose steam and die while others are born and/or accelerate.

Here is a number of them that are most important IMHO, social media trends you must be aware of:

Twitter automation for business, journalism and blogging – no more real people
Messengers kill social media sites. Who needs Facebook when they have Snapchat?
Image Bookmarking, image only social sites like Pinterest and Instagram boom
Website, blog and social media integration, inline sharing being the most obvious
Consolidation: Google, Apple, Facebook acquire everything and kill most tool off
Monetization, security and privacy disasters, startups sell your data!
Viral marketing meets content creation, viral content is the new normal
Online Reputation Management is main stream, everybody does that
Location based services, where are you, where are your friends?
Mobile social media, app only networks without a desktop equivalent abound

Of course I’m biased. I left out music social media which are booming too for example. Also I ignored video here but it’s booming for a decade now. It’s more than a trend.

What else is there to mention? Tell me. I want to see more than these social media trends you must be aware of below.

Last updated: June 22nd, 2018.

Updated May 24th, 2016. Removed 2 trends, updated others. Unlinked broken links. Replaced teaser image.

11 Responses

Agent SEO February 20, 2009 at 23:29 ·

It’s always interesting to watch the evolution of social media and to try to guess where it’s going.

I agree with you that many companies & professionals will begin using social more in 2009 as a way to interact with others in the industry & an avenue for online reputation mgmt.

Thanks for the nice list…
Dragan March 9, 2009 at 18:08 ·

What about Google Friend Connect? What do you think, should it be on that list?
onreact March 9, 2009 at 22:47 ·

I see no value in Google FriendConnect as of now. I tried it and nothing happened beside my avatar showing up on the website I added. Then I stopped using it and forgot about it. When even an early adopter like myself can find no use in it why should the general public?
Google SearchWiki is another thing. In a way it’s also a social media form. It will become much bigger as time goes by.
Dragan March 10, 2009 at 10:29 ·

Google SearchWiki has a great potential because of its playing field – search engine results pages. But I doubt many people will read comments – its only social feature. Problem with comments on SearchWiki is that 90% of them looks like advertisement for the page commented.
Kindel March 10, 2009 at 23:23 ·

I believe the niche social media sites will become more popular and the mega, one-size-fits-all sites will become less popular.

That’s purely based on my own feelings as I would rather congregate with others whose interests I share.
will March 12, 2009 at 16:51 ·

What about facebook? That site has exploded. I can understand why some social site die. They are just filled with spam and we are getting tired of looking at the same old thing…
Lindsay @ networx March 17, 2009 at 12:05 ·

I believe that in the future, the smaller niche social media sites will become more prevalent, with users desiring something that meets their unique needs more closely than the huge networking sites available at the moment.
Issac March 18, 2009 at 05:33 ·

Mobile social media, Twitter on the iPhone is prehistoric by now it seems.
i believe this gonna make a wooha in next 10 year.
our tech is getting advance and advance..
Sally March 20, 2009 at 09:31 ·

social media sites will get a good designation in the market after some time. Because people are not fully aware of Social media sites.
anon April 27, 2009 at 08:06 ·

Absolutely our technology is indeed improving each year comes and I can’t imagine what next!
TLorenzMG May 16, 2009 at 08:27 ·

i believe our technology has shown how huge it is and how it can be in the coming days