In an evolving digital landscape, social media continues to play a crucial role in our everyday lives. Estimates by the Global Web Index suggest that Indians spend about 2.36 hours per day on social networking sites - creating and consuming content, and even transacting through social commerce. As we stand at the threshold of 2022, let us take a closer look at the key social media trends
Personalization for Every User
Platforms generate colossal amounts of content. Based on user behaviour and traits, this content needs to be segregated to craft unique, personalised experiences for each user. Every user wants to know if there’s something specific in there for him/her. Personalization keeps users engaged and involved - as they get only what they seek, and don’t feel overwhelmed by an overdose of content. With tailor-made content, users are more likely to get hooked onto a platform, and invest more time exploring it. This helps in building a sticky user journey on a platform. By leveraging a suite of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies, platforms can build a core intelligence layer which identifies and categorises posts to enable content segregation into certain broad categories such as sports, politics, entertainment, etc. This segregation enables algorithms to cherry-pick the right ones and showcase them before the right users. Personalization of feed in real-time can increase the time users spend on the platform and also boost engagement.
Live-Streaming
Live-streaming has been around on networking sites for a while now, and will only continue to get more robust in the future. It carries multiple benefits as it allows content creators and brands to connect with their target audience at a personal level, build a strong rapport and engage more closely. Live-streaming transforms the broadcast into a conversation, allowing the creator to receive user feedback in real-time. All of this enhances followerships and builds greater trust between the creator and the consumer of content.
Multi-Language Approach
India has nearly 450 million social media users. As the internet penetration increases to reach 900 million in the next few years, the number of social media users will also witness a parallel increase. But in a country where over 90 percent of people interact in a language other than English, the need to enable online expression across Indian languages holds tremendous importance. The need to express, connect and engage digitally is inherent in each of us. But the English-centric approach of global technology platforms has largely kept non-English speakers away from core internet experiences. Going ahead, language will no longer be a barrier in the digital world. Innovative language processing technologies enable the real-time translation of a message across multiple Indic languages, while retaining the sentiment affixed to the original message. These technologies understand the nuances of each language and enable a creator to put out the message in his/her language, while allowing the content consumer to consume it in their mother tongue. Such technologies really drive user gratification and encourage users to spend more time on the platform.
Going ahead, these disruptive technologies and features will propel social media platforms to greater heights.
