Watch Snapchat and other 2015 Predictions

Happy New Year! Here I am, ready to jump on the social media predictions bandwagon. I just read Carlos Gil’s excellent compilation of predictions from 30 gurus, so here’s what I believe are the most likely predictions:

Watch Snapchat, as its user base is growing on age with 30-somethings getting into it (in addition to parents of high school and college age kids).

This will be the year of Instagram, followed closely (in order) by Twitter and Facebook (especially for video). LinkedIn is still the place to be for business and more users will finally venture beyond compiling connections. Google+ will still be here, but will continue to lag.

Within companies and organizations, social media will spread as a way of conducting business across all departments. Just like we don’t have “email departments,” the need for someone who just does social media will fade.

As a result of this shift to “social business,” the need for policies and training will make its way higher on the list of priorities.

Finally, many crisis communications plans will need to be re-written to integrate social media (passwords, pre-crafted tweets, monitoring, training), and organizations will recognize the need for consistently good content – visuals first, followed by video and good old written copy.

What won’t change? The need for strategy, planning and an experienced team to guide communications.