11 ways social media will evolve in the future.

1. Customized platform: With the integration of A.I. into social media, your profile and your social media will get customized according to your habits, behaviours, and personal preferences. You will be able to book cabs, order food and check your feed all in one platform. To be more succinct, social media will be an all-in-one app or platform for your daily needs and tasks.

2. Richness in quality of posts: The quality of social media posts will be rich in content and variety. As of now, you can see high-quality photos on Instagram. This will transcend all platforms. On top of that, the new IGTV feature in Instagram is gaining a ton of traction which will eventually convert to a mini YouTube sort of thing (already happening). These examples suggest a pattern or hint towards what we can expect in the future.

3. Videos: The Internet is more accessible now than ever. Facebook recently announced that it would focus more on delivering videos to your news feed and suggested that videos were the future of social media. If you are a frequent user of Facebook, you may have already noticed this trend. Facebook is going to add more videos to your newsfeed.

4. Customizable: Social media platforms will adhere to your preferences, tastes, and needs. This means that you will be able to select the themes and layout, customize the tabs, and design the layout you want from a selection of combinations.

5. Mobile-friendly: If you head over to the Instagram website on your PC and log in, you will notice that it doesn’t allow for messages and has limited features. Instagram is mobile-based and this is what the social media giants and new social media platforms will come up with in the future. They will focus entirely on mobile.

6. Experimental: Social media will undergo a ton of experiments. These experiments will make the user experience much better. These may include the use of Virtual reality, 3D images or videos, Artificial Intelligence etc.

7. Integration: Since social media already has a lot of data (contacts, numbers, people information etc.), it is effortless to add a payment app or integrate it with a payment gateway or other similar features making social media friendlier and easier to use. However, privacy is a concern which brings us to the next point.

8. Privacy: Social media companies are taking privacy more seriously now than ever. Since they have accumulated a lot of contact details, personal details etc. they bear a public responsibility to protect and secure the data. Data in the wrong hands can be misused and the consequences can be severe.

9. Sharing of data: This point is subtle but powerful. With the help of your social media usage, companies gather small data over time, and these will help other companies like e-commerce or any ad companies to understand your likes, preferences and spending habits. This will allow the companies to advertise the product you want and make sure that you see it. This will result in effective advertising. This is highly beneficial to companies. You may argue that this is already in process, however, it is also worth noting that this feature will enhance and get more accurate.

10. Community building: To an extent, small communities will stop building websites and instead use social media as their main source of communication both internally and externally. With bots, communities will be able to get in touch and answer customers’ queries easily and effortlessly. This will encourage more communities in the long run.

11. More Real: Though we are coming across thousands of photo-shopped Instagram images, we are also learning that expressing authenticity is equally important. This awareness has already been initiated and slowly getting popular.