The transition of Social Media apps to attract content pool for consumption

Social Media came to us as an effective tool to revive touch with old, lost and forgotten friends. We hardly knew back then that social media platforms would soon continue to dominate and become an indispensable part of our day-to-day lives, irrespective of our age, location or social stratification. A recent study of social media users conducted by The Manifest, suggests that over 90% of millennials across the world use some, or the other, social media while nearly 80% company globally use them for marketing and other similar purposes.

This pretty much explains how the social media ecosystem has grown by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Each social media platform today is much beyond a mere digital bridge to connect with old friends or acquaintances. It is not an exaggeration that social apps and platforms are currently leading a global societal transition. While for many these apps are now a source of consistent income, for brands it is the most effective new-age tool for word of mouth publicity.

The aforementioned global societal transition is a possibility only because of how these agents of change have evolved with the help of time and technology. For instance, we all are aware of a global platform that started merely as a photo-sharing app but is now one of the best modes of influencer marketing. Yes, we are referring to the evolution of Instagram here. The app is currently leading the chart of social media boards. A benchmark of the app throughout its success story has been its unfazed focus on content, which has eventually made it a content-centric app.

Keeping up with all the latest trends in the ecosystem, Instagram made an early integration of video format content. Following this, it came up with the Story concept, which became an instant hit among influencers, common users as well as brands. Most recently, the platform introduced its Reels - a feature that would give any short video app a run for their money. The uniqueness and the first-mover advantages for Instagram have resulted in attracting just the right pool of content creators, which is why brands are willing to spend nearly 40% of their digital marketing budget on influencer marketing. Making use of this route gives the brand real engagement and eventually more conversions.

Another name in the list of most popular social apps is YouTube, which has always thrived on appealing visual content and a pool of creators who can create the same. The journey that started as a platform for anyone to upload a video has – basically a showcase for amateur videos – now evolved as one of the world’s most popular video distribution sites. Who knew that the platform that started with a 19-second video ‘Me At the Zoo’ would within 16 years change the face of video consumption across the world.

YouTube has taken leverage of subscribers to gain brand collaborations as well. A significant tool to attract the right set of content pool on the platform is Community wherein fellow YouTubers promote each other’s contents or channels, thereby establishing a sense of healthy community building. Besides, YouTube is also venturing into short video format by the name of YouTube shorts, to keep up with the current trend.

Well, any list of social apps cannot be complete without the mention of Facebook, which in many ways dominates the scene across multiple geographical locations. Even Facebook started as a platform to merely update status or photograph, but following its overwhelming success across the world introduced a set of features such as stories, videos and even expanded its list of services, including job portals.

Consumption of content has always been the biggest strength of Facebook. It also manifested the same in its recent deal inked with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in Australia for dissemination of news content. As per public data furnished by Hootsuite, Facebook reaches nearly 59% of the world’s total social networking population. The only platforms that are ahead of it are Google and YouTube. The stats pretty much explain how the platform attracts the content pool for consumption.

No matter which platform is leveraged, another undisputed fact about such apps is that the consumption of video content always supersedes any other form of content. Therefore, the content pool that is attracted for consumption is also majorly one that thrives on the video format. We saw it earlier with the evolution of different global short video apps like Tik Tok. Once they were banned, we saw the emergence of multiple Indian short video apps, similar to the trend of integrating video features by social media giants. While original content created by individual creators are being monetised by these apps, they are also catering in local languages, thereby opening up opportunities for a lot of localised brands as well as creators.

Future of social media apps

If the current and emerging social media trends are to go by, it should be no surprise if social apps take precedence over search engines when it comes to product research. The information collated from various countries suggests that the phenomenon has already become a reality in many parts of the world. Apart from this, going forward it would be a difficult proposition for businesses to maximise organic reach on social apps, as more and more platforms would shift towards pay to play modules. Besides, there can be extensive usage of engagement boosting techniques such as hashtags, contests or even newer forms of interaction.

The author of the article is Prerna Goel, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer at WhizCo.