Facebook 🔵
Content from people we don't directly follow 👀
Displaying content on Facebook works in the form of posts from friends, family their status updates, and sharing experiences and photos. But this is no news to any of us.
What if we told you that Facebook wants to offer us more posts from people we don’t follow. It wants to catch up with the competition in the world of social networks. For example, TikTok, which offers us content from all users based on our preferences, and not just those we follow or not.
This feature should bring greater connection among people through FB and it should offer up to 40% of content from users we don’t follow.
For brands, this could be an opportunity to reach more people’s awareness, not just the group of their followers.
Engaging avatars from the world of Metaverse
Meta wants to amaze and excite people about the Metaverse world even more than before. It could achieve this by integrating digital avatars in more places within the app.
Additional possibilities will appear in sponsored items for avatars, themed costumes, new ways of connecting and engaging in the digital space. Prepare for a future where we will update and share our status on Facebook through avatars or connect with others through the identity of the avatars.
Source: Social Media Today
Posts from the VR world 🕶
We expect that Meta will provide us with new options for video calls or direct posting right from the VR world. This should show users what they miss when they don’t use VR. At the same time, it will showcase all the features of the VR world and arm against criticism of the appearance and functionality of this virtual world.
Given that many people are already using the Metaverse, Meta will also strive to raise awareness of its next phase of development – “glasses”.
Meta's AR glasses are still in development, but since it now has a more established supply chain for its “Ray Ban Stories” glasses, it seems we are not far from the next phase. AR-supported glasses will likely hit the market for consumers sometime in the second half of next year.
Source: Social Media Today
Instagram 📸
Instagram copies TikTok at every turn and desperately tries to fend off the competition, and it seems it has worked so far, as the app recently announced that it now has up to 2 billion active users per month. But what are the projections for this social network in 2023?
More AI-recommended content
Like Facebook, Instagram relies on AI content recommendations to maximize user engagement although it was not entirely welcomed. In July, after complaints from various users, Instagram announced that it would reduce the amount of AI-recommended posts in users' feeds. For Instagram, this is a significant change because your main source is now a mix of old and new posts along with random updates from pages you don’t follow.
Basically, it now looks like it’s not working, but Instagram wants to show people more of the best content from across the app, with a special focus on highlighting creators, whom it also considers a critical driving force forward. If Instagram can better please creators, it will see more of them publishing more frequently.
Taking it to the next level ⬆️
Instagram plans to expand content options in their app for 2023. This expansion should offer us new forms of AR and 3D content. At the same time, it plans to integrate NFTs and other new forms of creative content into the world of Instagram.
Expect new creation tools, such as GIFs generated from Live Photos on IG, as well as integration of 3D creation tools directly into Instagram itself. Imagine being able to activate AR straight from the creative tools in the app.
Source: Instagram
AR and other interactive ads
This leads to new opportunities for brands in AR ads and interactive ad formats that captivate users in all new ways.
Other platforms are already experimenting with this and again, as Meta tries to lead users into the next phase, these types of ads will be a key springboard and will also facilitate the creation of more 3D models for the metaverse space.
Live shopping 🛒
Instagram is still experimenting with the idea of shopping live. If this becomes a bigger attraction, it could mean a significant profit for the app while also enhancing its in-stream shopping capabilities. We can also expect significant pressure from Instagram through a new tab directly in the app.
We anticipate larger announcements about live shopping in early 2023.
Even more 🎥REELS🎥
Reels videos should also appear in more places within the app, as they are currently the fastest-growing content format. Instagram should also return to testing full-screen feeds for selected users who are most engaged with Reels and Stories.
Source: 9to5mac
Twitter 🐦
No one knows exactly what will happen in the world of the Twitter social network in the near future. Just because the network has a new boss, Elon Musk. However, we can predict based on Musk’s statements through his tweets.
Source: The New York Times
More pressure on subscriptions
Musk has repeatedly noted that he wants to use subscriptions as a tool to increase Twitter's revenue while also providing another step that will rid the app of bots, which is crucial to enforcing his approach to the network.
How will he do this?
There are different views, but it seems the most likely scenario is that Musk will want to charge companies a monthly fee for using the app by offering them upgraded analytics features and tools.
Musk has also floated the idea of charging users a small fee for tweeting, from which he later backed off, instead introducing monthly fees for verified profile users to maintain their verification.
Twitter 2️⃣.0️⃣
Elon Musk plans to launch so-called Twitter 2.0. This should include the option to use more characters per tweet, with a limit of up to 4,000 characters. Twitter has also reintroduced Blue Verified - the option to purchase verification. This is currently distinguished by the color of the verification badge – government profiles get a gray icon, businesses get a gold one, and everyone else gets a blue verification.
At the same time, it also introduces another tool to fight fake profiles, through company badges that will appear next to the checkmark boxes of approved profiles and accounts of employees of companies.
New algorithm
For Musk, another important step is the algorithm, which implements a way for users to better understand and verify their experiences with Twitter. He could achieve this by giving them the option to choose which algorithmic elements influence their main feed, allowing them to control their own display.
There are several interesting ideas, but we believe that the bigger challenge will be to truly get people to carry out the process of selecting and implementing algorithmic modifiers. Because let’s face it, most people just want to log in and see what’s happening on Twitter and in the world right now.
There could be a way in the app to simplify and enhance this, but trying to get users engaged with increasingly technical elements to define their experiences doesn’t seem like the way to improve the user interface.
LinkedIn 🏢
Improving video Tools 🛠️
Like all platforms, LinkedIn has seen more individuals consuming more video content in the app, and based on that we can expect LinkedIn to add more video tools and expand its existing features for intro videos and video chats.
Expect advanced video tools from LinkedIn that build on its Event features, including Zoom-like video conferencing options, live streams, and more advanced tools for connecting job seekers with potential employers.
The app already hosts plenty of video interactions that could be interesting, and you can expect LinkedIn to focus more on this, and possibly even add a dedicated video tab to the app.
Source: LinkedIn Engineering
More emphasis on sound 🔊
In a similar vein, LinkedIn appears to be an ideal place for hosting professional audio events and is making it a greater focus for professional engagement.
LinkedIn has been developing its “audio rooms” over the past year, and we expect it will try to expand this option to provide more lasting, accessible professional and specialized content within the app.
TikTok 🎵
New Payments 💰 to Creators
Payments for creators have become a problem for the app as its “Creator Fund” simply fails to provide an incentive for large creators to continue posting videos on TikTok.
The issue with the creator fund is that as TikTok grows, payout amounts shrink, so as TikTok benefits from creator content, those creators receive lower payouts.
TikTok is trying new tools to ensure that the top TikTok stars get paid. But as YouTube launches a new look at monetizing “shorts”, TikTok will need to explore other methods to keep money flowing. Otherwise, it risks completely losing its talented creators and, along with them, their content.
We expect TikTok to test a similar payment process as YouTube's video program, which pays the most successful videos a percentage of the total ad revenue based on views. It’s not a perfect system, but it would provide greater incentive for the best artists to stay loyal to the app.
Separation from the CCP 🐼
It is currently crucial for TikTok to prove that it is not connected to the CCP and that it operates entirely separately from the Chinese government. You can expect the pressure on TikTok to remain strong in 2023, which will likely force it to take even more actions to demonstrate that representatives of the Chinese government do not have access to user data or use it for other alternative purposes.
TikTok has already made an agreement with the U.S.-based Oracle to store user information in the U.S. This seems like a good step – and it appears TikTok hopes this will be sufficient, but we suspect that in 2023 it will need to go further to prove that China does not have access to information about users in the U.S. or other states.
And again, this could become a bigger problem for the app if already strained foreign relations worsen. A misstep could truly lead to TikTok facing bans once more.
