• Facebook: 1,790,000,000
• YouTube: 1,000,000,000
• Instagram: 500,000,000
• Twitter: 313,000,000
• Google+: 111,000,000
• LinkedIn: 106,000,000
• Pinterest: 100,000,000

How can you slice off even a teeny tiny piece of this traffic pie for your own advertising and branding purposes? Here’s our take on some social media trends that we think will dominate in 2017, so you can start your strategic planning now.

1. Organic Social Traffic has Become More Difficult

Facebook and Instagram have both changed their algorithms to remove chronological timeline and feed updates. This means that users no longer see updates on their newsfeeds as they are posted; now they are only seeing posts most relevant or interesting to them, which means brand posts may not be seen as often…or even at all.

Business2Community has created this simplified equation of how Facebook determines its newfeed algorithm:

This tells us that your posts on social media may not rank on your followers’ newfeeds if you don’t hit all of the criteria Facebook has deemed necessary, such as specific types of posts (links, photos, etc.) and how your post ranks in the visibility criteria in comparison to other users. There is simply too much content being shared across newfeeds, and not enough time or space to show it all, so social media platforms are being very picky about what is shown, and when.

So how can you strategize for this in 2017? Optimize your posts with the best and trending keywords, and work hard to truly understand your buyer personas, so that you can create social content with them in mind, and know exactly what interests them and what types of posts they want to see.

2. Live Streaming

We posted about live streaming a few months ago with the rollout of some new features available on our favorite social media platforms. Live streaming or broadcasting is super trendy right now, after the widely popular introduction of Periscope and Snapchat. With features like Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, you can use your phone to share a moment instantly with your audience, and you can read and respond to their comments and see their reactions live while streaming.

This new trend changes how we share content: from planned and edited scripts to raw live footage. It’s yet another way to engage and connect with your audience on a much more intimate and real way — which will help to build trust in your brand and in your offerings.

3. Social Influencers

On the other side of those computer screens is an entire world of people called Social Influencers. These are bloggers, vloggers, Instagram personalities, Snapchat icons and Twitter warriors. They are people who have found a niche in the social media market and took advantage of it, creating relevant and authentic content for their loyal followers.

Talk to any teen in highschool or millennial at the office, and they’ll be able to tell you about at least one of these personalities that they follow online. These social influencers are highly trusted and are thus being sought by many brands worldwide to promote or recommend their products in their blog posts, YouTube videos or Instagram photos.

If you have products that are easily demo-able or easy to review, then think about finding a social influencer who suits your brand and see if they would be interested in a product placement or recommendation/review post. You might also want to start building your buyer personas with ideal “influencers” in mind, so that you can hone in on your target market even more accurately.

4. Mobile & Tablet Usage

We’ve all known for a long time that mobile and tablet usage was on the rise. Well, Global internet usage on smartphones and tablets exceeded desktop usage for the first time worldwide in October.

StatCounter Global Stats found that mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3 percent of worldwide internet usage in October, compared to 48.7 percent via desktop.

“This should be a wake-up call especially for small businesses, sole traders, and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly,” said Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter CEO. “Mobile compatibility is increasingly important not just because of growing traffic but because Google favours mobile friendly websites for its mobile search results.”

91% of Facebook usage is on mobile, with 80% of Facebook advertising revenue through the same mobile channel as well. Take-aways from this point? Make sure your social content is well suited for mobile users. For example, if you’re posting links, ensure those links direct to content that is mobile-friendly and can easily be consumed via a smartphone or tablet device.

5. Bots

It’s crazy to me that bots and other artificial intelligence are actually being used already in 2016…growing up watching movies and TV shows about AI, I always thought this “age” would come in a far away year, like 2050. But alas, these times are already upon us!

Chatbots are already being used in applications like Facebook Messenger, where they are used as a type of “agent” and can carry on intelligent conversations with users, without human invention required. For example, if a customer wants a quick answer to a question such as “what is your return policy”, Chatbots are designed to respond to the query without the need for another human present. This gives businesses the ability to offer 24×7 customer support and handle multiple tasks at the same time, greatly increasing efficiency and lowering spend as less overhead costs are required to maintain this level of customer service.

These 5 trends are the main ones we foresee taking over the social media landscape in 2017, but we expect to see dozens more as innovative technology and digital marketing continue to evolve. What other changes, trends and innovations do you see taking over in 2017?