It's no secret that attitudes towards social media are changing. Where once only academics were concerned by its growth, now everyone from Prince Harry to Kanye West is talking about the potentially detrimental effect it's having on society. Most of the criticism seems to be centred on three well-documented issues – risks around privacy and data, the culture of division it fosters in political debate, and the effect it's having on young people.
The warnings are having an effect, at least on some platforms. Facebook's US user base declined by 15m over the last two years. In 2017, 67% of the total US population over the age of 12 used Facebook. In 2018, 62%, and 2019, 61%.
So where does social media go next, and for our industry, what do these changing attitudes mean for advertising and marketing?
In response to the concerns, some platforms are shifting strategy. Instagram is slowly removing its 'like' feature, country by country, and Twitter recently confirmed it would no longer host political adverts on its platform. But is there a more radical approach? Commentators seem to be suggesting Facebook's strategy going forward will focus a lot more on the growing area of its business - private messaging (notably in messenger and WhatsApp). But given advertising opportunities are sparse across those platforms, I don't imagine Facebook will sacrifice one of its main sources of revenue – the newsfeed – anytime soon.
So as the public's perception of social media is changing, advertisers would do well to have strategies in place for when a tipping point is reached, and social media advertising and influencer marketing no longer reach a receptive and engaged audience.
Image // Prateek Katyal