Social Media Live 2018: What The Future May Look Like

If there’s one theme you may have picked up so far from my blog, it’s that the world of social media can be a very weird place. From “like and share competitions” to shapeshifting beauty apps, it’s constantly offering us novelty ways to interact with both our friends and brands online. This week I got the chance to attend “Social Media Live” at the RDS for Blue Insurance to see how we can better leverage our own social activity. The event promised to “explore the exploding tensions that underlie what’s changing in how we use social media and shape what’s coming next”. What really peaked my interest in this event was the unusual way it was marketed. You may remember back in July when a VR headset wearing troop of young people marched around the city sending social media into a frenzy? Well that was them!

Image Via: Social Media Live

With an interesting mix of international speakers made up of Youtubers and media industry experts, I was excited to see what kind of insights they might have on the ever changing social sphere. David Nihill (The MC) kicked off the conference by joking that social media has changed even the simplest part of our daily routines. In years gone he remembers how we’d wake up and be summoned to use the bathroom before starting off our days. Now we’re summoned instead by our newsfeeds, notifications and the dopamine that comes along with that quick scroll. Nihill added that this can sometimes get to the point where we’d rather Google “how long can you leave it before your bladder bursts?” than get up to actually go. This set the tone for what was to come from the “You Talk Funny” Author.

The first speaker of the day was Elaine Doyle, the head of Youtube in Google Dublin. Doyle is an expert in all things video marketing and she explained in detail the multiple ways and video formats that marketeers can use to target their desired demographic. She also informed to a surprised audience that Youtube has a greater video viewership than all other social platforms combined. As for the future of Youtube and video marketing? Doyle predicted that AR (Augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality) will play a large role as video is expected to grow to 90% of all online traffic by 2022.

Second up was Katie Manor from Mediacom. Manor spoke about how agencies have began massively scaling up both their social strategy and creative departments in the last three years. This is of course a response to the huge growth in the industry and this trend will no doubt continue as we spend more of our time scrolling. Alfie Deyes was then interviewed by the brilliant Jess Kelly (Newstalk) about his own experience with creating content. Deyes is the boyfriend of Youtube megastar Zoella and between them they have over 15 million followers on the platform. The insight from Deyes was that whether you’re a brand or not, creating content that you honestly enjoy making (and would neutrally enjoy consuming) is the best way to grow an audience that care about you and what you have to say/sell.

The term “Influencer” has become almost like a dirty word in 2018. To debunk some of the myths around influencer marketing, there was a chat between Luke Townsin (Whalar), Chris Davies (Gleam Futures) and Jennifer Quigley Jones from Digital Voices. The trio spoke openly about their experiences managing clients and influencers on large scale partnerships and campaigns. On the idea that Influencer marketing is a bubble that will soon burst, the three came to a conclusion that it will just need to go through a “professionalisation” period.

During this period, both influencers and brands will begin to weed out some of the shadier dealings (i.e. fake followers) in the practice. They also stressed that finding influencers (big or small) that are passionate about a brand as opposed to just holding it up for a solitary sponsored piece is always the right way to approach things. As Chris Davies commented in one of his responses, influencer marketing is at its heart simply “word of mouth at scale”.

The next roundtable style talk involved a panel of Michael Nagle (Paddy Power), Katie Manor again and Verena Papik (TuneMoji). They were questioned by Donagh Humphreys as he presented the findings of his teams recent “Thinkhouse” study on Gen Z consumers. Gen Z (people born between the mid 90’s and mid 2000’s) apparently have a different outlook on buying than their millennial counterparts. They are the “Stars of their own story” on social and so present a great opportunity for brands to build a more meaningful relationship with them. They also interestingly scroll faster than the rest of us on feeds and loathe the fact that they spend more time “than they should” on social media.

Jana Damanbouri (Jungle Creations) gave her own findings on importance of making your content valuable to its audience. Every piece of content she added should be an “equal value exchange”. For example, if you want to sell an alcohol product, then create a video that includes the product as part of a novelty recipe for say a cheesecake. That way you’re rewarding the audience with something of value (the cheesecake recipe) in return for their attention. Stephen O Leary from Olytico then gave a great talk about Olytico’s work in the social listening and sentiment tracking area of social. O Leary also played their video collaboration with Irish comic act “Foil Arms and Hog” which is a clever example of both the nuanced nature of sentiment and how sponsored content can be done effectively.

Technology played a major part throughout the event with Grad Conn of Sprinkler speaking about validation and measurement for Chief Marketing Officers going forward. Conn then joined a panel discussion entitled “Whats coming next?” featuring Matt Navarra (Digital Consultant), Blaithnaid Healy (CNN International) and Andy O’Donoghue (The Gadget Buzz). They talked about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will begin to play a greater part of marketing activities as computers and data gathering becomes more sophisticated.

David Schneider (comedy actor turned agency owner) had everyone laughing with great examples of humorous social posts that his agency are famous for. He stressed that relate-able humour is one of the sure fire ways that brands can create “thumb stopping” moments. Nic Newman (Reuters) delved into the recent controversies in Facebook as he pondered the idea of whether social platforms should now be treated as publishers. Cian McDonagh from Three Ireland urged attendees to stay true to their own “brand tune” and touched on some of Three’s recent groundbreaking mobile first campaigns like “First Data”.

Finally, to finish Malachy Browne from the New York Times went into how AR and VR technologies are also informing new ways of reporting the news on social media. Overall, the day was an interesting look at both the factors that are influencing social media today and the technology that will shape its future! The main message common to all of the speakers however was that brands and individuals should always create valuable content that their audience will enjoy on the platforms they use the most.

If you’re looking to get your brand started on social or want to get more out of what you’re currently doing then get in touch with me today. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook for future blog posts and other content.