Meltwater Digital Summit

One of the central questions he has been focussing on for years is “What exactly is it that makes people stop scrolling, sit and engage with a brand’s social media profile?” During the Meltwater Digital Summit he will answer this question and uncover the best strategies to stand out – and break the newsfeed. As a warm up for the summit, we already asked him a question on the most important changes of this volatile year.

Based on your experience and clients – what kind of changes have you seen in the landscape of social media this year?

When analysing the social landscape there are two critical inputs to understand: platforms and people. Both have undergone some significant changes this year in light of the externalities we’re all facing. Social media has been the saving grace of the marketing and advertising industry in 2020, with budgets increasing here despite cutbacks in nearly every other channel. 

As a result of the wider budget shifts, the platforms are going through a phase of consolidation. We’re seeing homogenisation of ad formats cross-platform, which is a critical step in securing more budget from advertisers, as now social ad creative can be scaled across multiple platforms easily. It does make things more competitive however. We’re also seeing a focus on e-commerce integrations, primarily the building of integrated tools that allow for platforms to capture more of the user journey i.e. Instagram Shops and Checkout. This is a clearly a long-term play aimed at minimising the impact of ITP integrations in browsers such as Safari and Chrome. All platforms are elevating mobile-first video content e.g. Stories, again another ploy to appeal to advertisers, but also one driven by user behaviour. Finally, this was the year that TikTok took over! It’s now a serious threat to Facebook and Instagram’s long-term dominance, especially in context of Snapchat’s resurgence. 

User behaviour is changing to reflect the post-pandemic lifestyle. Longer content is thriving on platforms once solely focused on short-form content and there has been a greater focus on socialising within private spaces like Facebook groups.

You can RSVP to the summit, completely for free, over here.