LONDON – Technavio’s latest report on the global social networking market provides an analysis of the key trends expected to impact the global social networking market through 2016-2020. Technavio defines an emerging trend as a factor that has the potential to significantly impact the market and contribute to its growth or decline.
Technavio announces top four emerging trends impacting the global social networking market through 2020.
Social networking is a platform to build connections with individuals who share common interests, common backgrounds, or are known personally. These platforms are often web-based and offer interactions through messaging and media sharing. Facebook, LinkedIn, Reddit, Twitter, Vine, and Tumblr are the popular social networking sites.
“Advertising on social media has gained popularity over the past decade, mainly due to active participation of social media users. Social media advertising offers a solid platform for advertisers, especially during global events, to increase their ROI. The global social network ad spending market is expected to grow at a CAGR of almost 18% to exceed USD 54 billion by 2020,” says Soumya Mutsuddi, lead research analyst at Technavio for media and entertainment services.
The top four emerging trends influencing the global social networking market according to Technavio’s media & entertainment analysts are:
Advanced targeting options
Social networks gather larger amounts of user information compared to other networks. This helps social media advertising to target audience in a wider variety of ways. Stretching beyond general demographic and geographic barriers, advertising on social media fosters deeper interest, behavioral, and connection-based targeting methods.
“The advanced targeting options based on interest, customization, behavior and connection, etc. offered by social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin and pinterest, increase the relevance of advertisements to users, and thus, provide a higher level of personalization that cannot be achieved on other advertising channels,” says Soumya.
Conversion tracking technology
Along with the options for targeting users, social media platforms also offer tools to track conversions. Tracking the performance of advertisements on social media is an important aspect of justifying a company’s investment on advertisement and requesting for more budget allocation for the program.
The conversions can be measured based on the number of clicks to a particular website or other metrics such as number of units sold and phone calls made for enquiry. A JavaScript called Snippet is added along with advertisements to enable tracking and analysis. This leads to smarter investments on advertisements and allows optimization of these advertisements and other campaigns.
Dominance of mobile communication platforms
Increased adoption of mobile devices and technological advances in these devices have led to the growth of the segment. It has been estimated that 36% of the time spent on digital media is through mobile communication devices such as smartphones. Most advertisements in the coming years will be designed to cater to the users of smartphones and other mobile communication devices.
According to Technavio, half of the mobile users globally, will be using smartphones by 2019. Social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, are made accessible through smartphones and other portable communication devices.
Mobile advertising accounted for 68% of the revenue for Facebook and 84% of the revenue for Twitter in 2015. Technavio predicts that approximately two-thirds of social media advertising spend will be on mobile advertising by 2018. These factors will significantly contribute to the growth of the market during the forecast period.
Improved privacy concerns
Online security has become a prime concern for most individuals and leading organizations, as social media platforms contain personal information that can be misused. The online photo sharing platform Snapchat, which also allows advertisements, is gaining popularity because of more private and secure communications.
Established social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are introducing tools to enhance the privacy of users to sustain the growing demand of the global social networking market.
Some of the top vendors in the global social networking market, as researched by Technavio analysts are:
- Google+
- YouTube
Browse Related Reports:
- Social Network Marketing in the US 2015-2019
- Global Social games market 2015-2019
- Global Outdoor Advertising Market 2015-2019
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About Technavio
Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. The company develops over 2000 pieces of research every year, covering more than 500 technologies across 80 countries. Technavio has about 300 analysts globally who specialize in customized consulting and business research assignments across the latest leading edge technologies.
Technavio analysts employ primary as well as secondary research techniques to ascertain the size and vendor landscape in a range of markets. Analysts obtain information using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches, besides using in-house market modeling tools and proprietary databases. They corroborate this data with the data obtained from various market participants and stakeholders across the value chain, including vendors, service providers, distributors, re-sellers, and end-users.
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