Social Media Predictions for 2030

The first Instagram post was a photo of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38, posted by Mike Krieger on July 16, 2010. When the platform launched, no one knew how gigantic it will become… it is now worth a monstrous 102 BILLION Dollars! It would have been great to predict this, right? Or to see the potential in organic LinkedIn usage, TikTok or understand how important video will become in the social media world. 

Whilst no one knows what social media will look like in 2030, we can spot patterns and make predictions, based on current user behaviors. It’s important to keep your finger on the pulse because as the platforms evolve, your business and personal brand will have to keep up. If you can be a successful early adopter of new features or social media networks - you’ll be more successful and get people’s attention.

Here are my five predictions for what we can expect social media to look like in 2030:

1] Small businesses will find adverts harder to buy

Could a 5-person business afford a national TV advert in 2020? Most likely not, but they could afford to reach 100,000 people on Facebook. However, this is likely to change for two reasons:

1. Larger corporations will shift their ad-spend from TV / Radio / Print towards social. The number of users will not increase as much as the amount of money being pumped into adverts, which means that cost of reaching 1,000 users will increase dramatically. Why? Because social media companies will want to earn more money without impacting the user experience.
2. As the number of adverts increases, people will become more immune to them (think how resistant you are to email advertising). Which means that cost per acquisition will further increase. We can also see a trend with the platforms giving more control to the end-user on what adverts they see, privacy is being protected. This means that advertising products/services to users not ‘wanting’ to see them will become harder. 

2] Social media will become your wallet

If you’ve watched Black Mirror’s ‘Nosedive’ episode or read Orwell’s 1984, you’ll know that even now, some features of social media networks can be compared to a dystopian society. But will this become more prominent?

WeChat, a Chinese social media platform, already allows ID storage, utility paying, getting access to public services (including booking doctor appointments), applying for visas, and checking driving records. Whilst we can’t imagine Facebook or LinkedIn doing this now, we couldn’t imagine their current features in 2010 either!

It’s likely that in 2030 you’ll be able to order takeaways, prove your identity or pay for a train ticket, all through a social media application.

3] Influencers will become more important

As in-platform advertising becomes more expensive, brands will turn towards endorsing people who are popular on social media in exchange for attention from their audience. Even now, TikTok allows brands to buy a post from approved influencers, this will only increase and your popularity on social media will further determine your status in society… only 100k plus followers to enter this private club!

4] AI and VR will become more prominent

We will see an improvement in Artificial Intelligence technology - call centers and human-responders will slowly go extinct and all your social media queries will be answered by a chatbot. Automatic translation between countries will happen, making the globe even more accessible. Taking it one step further, AI technology may become so advanced that people will be able to purchase subscriptions to ‘virtual friends’ (anyone watched the movie ‘Her’?) who feel like real humans talking to them… you may even be able to chat to relatives and friends who passed away by uploading key information about them to the cloud.

5] Content will become snappier, lazier and expire quicker

Voice technology will grow as it’s quicker to say something than to type it. We may see on-body devices like ‘air-display’ watches, allowing you to browse your newsfeed as it’s projected in front of you in 3D. VR is likely to advance, allowing you to put on glasses or a headset and form social media interactions that almost feel real. Video-usage will definitely continue to grow and because of the amount of content being produced increasing every month, your social media posts will expire quicker. 

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Overall… it actually scares me! Everything will become faster, lazier, and more automated - so let’s not forget to be human as the age of social media advances.

I'd love to find out what you think the next big social media ‘thing’ will be, comment below and I’ll see you in the next post.

Matt Greg