UnicoMarketing: Five trends that will change how you use social media in 2015

Ryan Holmes founded Hootsuite in 2008, growing the company from a lean startup to a global leader in social media with over 10 million users, including 79 of the Fortune 100 companies. Today, Holmes is an authority in technology and business. He writes regularly for publications like Fast Company, Inc, Fortune, and has a column in the Wall Street Journal. He’s also one of LinkedIn’s top 20 most followed Influencers and presents at the world’s top tech conferences.

Earlier this year on Singles’ Day, China’s largest day of online sales, Alibaba posted record-breaking numbers. More than US$9.3 billion of business was conducted through its marketplaces with sales surpassing US$2 billion in the first hour. Nearly 50 percent of sales volume was via mobile, up from just 15 percent in 2013.

As impressive as these numbers are, mobile commerce is poised to be supercharged even further in 2015, thanks in large part to social media innovations. Alibaba is already discussing potential partnerships with other tech giants, including teaming up with Apple on a mobile payments system and working with social messaging operators Line of Japan and KakaoTalk of Korea.

As the world of mobile payments integrates with social media, the lines between communication and commerce will continue to blur. With that in mind, let’s take a look at five ways social media will (likely) evolve in 2015.

Social media and messaging apps become your wallet

Hacks released in October show a hidden payment feature deep inside Facebook’s popular Messenger app, which – if activated – would allow users to transfer money to one another using just debit card information, free of charge. Meanwhile, Twitter is introducing a new tool that allows coupons from retailers to be loaded directly onto your credit card via Tweet, then applied automatically at checkout.

For Asia-based social media and messaging platforms, mobile payment is already on the rise and becoming one of the biggest battle zones in tech. WeChat, KakaoTalk, and Line have already started offering mobile payment services in selected countries. For instance, WeChat and Line users are now able to order takeout food and shop for clothes through the messaging app. This is part of a broader move by social messaging platforms to turn their communication tools into “lifestyle platforms”: one-stop shops for socializing, shopping, and even transportation.

Smart devices integrate social media

Cheap sensors have led to an explosion of smart devices. Everything from home appliances like smart chopsticks to wearables like fitness bracelets are now collecting data and zapping it off wirelessly to the internet. For instance, Tupelo’s Mymo, a new activity tracker that was launched in India in September, lets users cash in steps for rewards like mobile talk time, groceries, airline miles, and vacations.

The challenge in 2015 becomes how to more intelligently integrate the fast-growing “internet of things” (IoT) with social media. It’s not enough for these devices to simply auto-post updates on users’ social streams – when you get down to it, not many people really care how many steps you took today. Instead, smart devices need to start tapping users’ social graph – their unique network of friends and followers – in better ways. A very simple example: a smart fridge that tracks your Facebook events, sees you’re planning a party and how many people have RSVP’d, and instructs you to make last-minute buys at your nearby supermarket.

By listening to social media in more sophisticated ways – tracking users’ activities and interactions with friends and followers, then responding accordingly – smart devices stand to get even smarter in the year ahead.

E-tailers turning to social media

Social media is fast changing the face of ecommerce, providing traditional online retailers with a new way to reach audiences and make sales. Lazada, one of the most successful ecommerce startups in Southeast Asia, is now actively engaging its customers on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Meanwhile, Qoo10, one of the ecommerce pioneers in Singapore, got its start on Facebook and saw great success leveraging the network as an advertising platform.

In 2015, expect the mobile ecommerce space to expand even further with social media playing an integral role. With the growing penetration of low-cost smartphones and faster internet connectivity in Asia, especially in the Southeast Asia region, we will continue to see more people making purchases on-the-go via their social networks.

New dating apps rise

Inspired by the runaway popularity of Tinder, a number of new dating apps are courting users and will continue to grow in the coming year. Newcomers range from Peekawoo, with a user base of thousands, to Paktor, a Singapore-based app with over 1.5 million registered users, and Momo, the popular dating app turned social network from China boasting over 60.2 million monthly active users.

Momo has just been listed on the US stock market, while Paktor reportedly raised more than US$5 million in the last 12 months and claims to be the largest player in Southeast Asia. Expect to see aggressive scaling in the year ahead, as well as the addition of features that further muddy the distinction between dating and social media platforms.

Social media privacy issues to grow

Early in December KakaoTalk introduced Secret Chat, a special type of chatroom that intends to implement end-to-end encryption for all communications. The feature seeks to address users’ mounting privacy and data protection concerns.

The privacy storm will continue to brew in the year ahead. In fact, there are signs that even the major players are beginning to acknowledge the issue. In late November, Facebook announced it will be launching a new tool called Privacy Basics in 2015. It promises to bring greater transparency to the issue of who actually sees the photos, updates and links you post, and also offers tips on how to remove your name from tagged photos.

Then there are the anonymous and private social networks. While Snapchat, Whisper, Secret, and others all promise users varying degrees of anonymity, high-profile breaches and oversights that compromise user information are commonplace. As Venture Beat points out, real anonymity and privacy on the internet is extremely difficult to achieve. While it’s easy to make promises, it’s nearly impossible to deliver, and demand for anonymous social media will only get bigger next year.

See: China’s social media landscape in 2014 (INFOGRAPHIC)

This post Five trends that will change how you use social media in 2015 appeared first on Tech in Asia.