Social media trends are changing every aspect of communication and media. Every single aspect.

1 in 7 people in the world wake up every day and access Facebook

Instagram has now hit 1 billion monthly active users. According to a Nielson report, the average Australian spends 1.7 hours a day on Facebook.

And 30% of all time on the internet is now spent using social media. The world is not changing it has changed. Understanding social media trends is no longer optional if the future of your brand, company, or product matter to you.

Between the period of 2010 to 2013 foot traffic to malls in the US declined by 50% and is still declining.

In Australia, print and television are facing the same financial pressures as their counterparts all over the world. And the reality is that those who want to believe what used to work in communications and media are in for a very painful, but a short journey.

Progressive brands like Adidas are now only using digital and social media as their medium for advertising, and this is the tip of the iceberg. Adidas is proving through revenue growth that this strategy is not only sound but financially rewarding.

The reality is that most brands are still only just getting their heads around social media trends. Unfortunately, as they do they are being led by their existing media/PR agencies. Knowing which country to visit is important, but having the right guide is critical to the experience.

In 2019 being where your consumer is from a B2C or B2B perspective has never been more important. For many brands, this will make or break their success. And what got you to where you are today (traditional advertising), will certainly not get you to where you need to be tomorrow (social media advertising). For the avoidance of doubt!

Tomorrow is about speed, data, and creative, delivered to the right platform and the right audience at the right time. It offers unparalleled advantages to brands who get this right. And true customer intimacy. It gives you the ability to build your tribe, your audience and your advocates.

Unlike all media forms of the past, we can now tell through data if we are delivering the right ad to the right audience at the right time. On Facebook, it is defined as a relevance score.

If you do not know, Facebook provides a relevance score out of 10 on advertising performance. One being the lowest, and ten being the highest.

As defined by Facebook in the following way. “The relevance score is calculated based on the positive and negative feedback we expect an ad to receive from its target audience. The more positive interactions we expect an ad to receive, the higher the ad’s relevance score will be.”

Imagine knowing your advertising was achieving this feedback from your target market? And imagine knowing this in real-time?

Social media trends are shaping the future of communications, media and advertising.

Your brand's future is intrinsically linked to social media. And this is the opportunity of a lifetime for brands to build real customer intimacy.

They will say it all changed overnight, but it didn't. But it has changed.