Back in 2015, I wrote a blog that LinkedIn would surpass Facebook by 2020. I even had a US$100 bet with the global head of sales from Facebook!
So was I right? Well, I would argue that LinkedIn has surpassed Facebook in attention from business people. Gary V is onboard and Hubspot states that "LinkedIn beats Facebook when it comes to generating tangible leads" and the best platform to share content.
Sure Facebook the company is going strong, but that isn' t the product of Facebook by itself. Take out Instagram, Messenger and Whats App and Facebook, the stand-alone social media site, is still useful but not as important as it was before. It's a great ad machine but without user attention, it can't last forever.
Of course, it depends on your country, who your target market is and your type of business. However, I would argue that LinkedIn has risen to be one of the top social media channels over the last five years and Facebook has dropped during the same period.
So I was about 80% right on that prediction.
So what is the next prediction? I feel there will be a reaction against social media and towards more authentic communication. It's already started. People are switching off. I think people will start buying retro phones that only text and make calls. Nokia resurgence! (gezz I loved my 6510, bring them back haha)
I haven't seen any new social media that fills the gap between self-promotion social media and an authentic way to communicate with others, but it will come and take over quickly. Just like when iPhone came out and instantly made my Blackberry redundant. (loved that phone too)
I give LinkedIn one year to become annoying because of all the spam messages people are getting. I'm still amazed that no one has come out with a serious competitor to this business platform. If anyone has a lazy $10m let's go build one!
Facebook will start to crank up prices to keep making revenue targets, whilst user experience drops. That's what big public companies do. It's a death cycle and in 5 years it will be a shell of what it used to be.
But Instagram will continue to grow and peak in two years before influencer marketing becomes too annoying and we switch off. It has great marketing currently so for product-oriented businesses, make a cool ad and this is your platform.
Tik Tok is already taking teens attention from the Facebook/Instagram team and growing massively. Influencers there are raking in hundreds of thousands a year. They will find ways to be more mainstream and this Chinese team will create more compelling social media sites. They are on point and could really challenge Instagram for dominance of youth marketing. Adults stay away, like seriously.
The other stand out performer has been YouTube. It's been a solid performer over the last five years, based on its influencer marketing efforts and will just keep growing.
So how does this impact you as a business owner? My advice is to build your own brand independent of any social media site. Get a website and use the social media site that best suits you for now. Then change when the market changes. But keep your core content assets on your own personal website and keep building your contact list alongside your social media following. Build a home base you own, not rent.
Social media is here to stay, but in 2025, there will be a whole suite of sites that we haven't seen yet that will dominate the current ones we have today. Anyone wanna bet? :)
Cheers Andrew