At the beginning of the year 2016 it is interesting to take a look at media experts’ forecast.
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Social Media Changes Shape
New real time video services like Periscope and Snapchat broke through last year. The development is going to proceed this year. Other service providers like Facebook will follow.
Live streaming provides wonderful opportunities to communicate with clients. It also creates new ways for narration. At the same time communication needs clarity, distinctness and personal tone of voice. The messages have to be surprising and convincing. Also the common values, responsibility and global issues play bigger role than ever.
In the near future companies have to use video narration more fluently in their communication. And it’s good to be quick, but not to forget the quality.
Research and Measuring Pay Off
In the middle of the changes it is vital to understand better the communication and how does it effect on brand in the ever-accelerating media flood.
This means that research and measuring will become more important than ever. There has to be a wide range of tools and methods to produce information to satisfy clients’ increasing needs. The methods have to be understandable, professional and reliable.
The new research objects are cultural varieties, multisensory experience and visual efficiency. There will be need to utilize methods like visual ethnography, participatory design and panels of experts. These research tools can be combined with measuring processes as well as traditional methods, like interviews and marketing research.
In measuring it may be more useful to measure own brand attributes than compare it to rivals.
Emojis – The Sign Language of Our Time
In west writing is moving towards Chinese style sign language. The benefits are clear. The sign language is more economic. It does not need that much space. And because of better visual understanding people are more capable than ever to learn even hundreds of different signs instead of 28 alphabets.
Emerging Professionalism
Digitalisation created the illusion that everyone could be a designer, video maker or photographer. Businesses have noticed that this is not true. Sideline-made-content does not make good for your brand.
To be a professional communication expert you have to know your tools, but also education and commitment counts. Continual self-education is obvious. This concerns everyone from coders to designers and producers. The brands have to bring back in the hands of experts. This helps also unemployment, competitiveness and national economy.
No Stopping for Online Shopping
During the economic downturn online shopping has done well in Finland. In 2015 the growth was circa 25%. Exceptionally, there has also been increasingly more jobs in online shopping branch.
Since Finland is not on top in online shopping the trend is expected to develop well.
Random Notes
Virtual reality is making its slow revolution. New applications providing multisensory experiences appear first in games, but are later utilized e.g. in auto industry or electronic gadgets.
Videoblogs follow the ongoing march of video. New vloggers spring up on new areas of life as well as more elder people start to vlog. Vloggers will also be a bigger part of business and express individual expertise.
Vertical video, a phenomenon that has been irritating many, brakes through. The format will also be considered in Instagram, Twitter and Youtube. Perhaps we can see the first vertical movies during the yare 2016.
We also have to bear in mind black swans – the unpredictable and powerful phenomena. They can mess up the rational prognosis. Black swans include social changes, natural catastrophes, lack of natural sources, new innovations and economic variations.
Clarity into Chaos
Year after year media becomes more and more fragment and complex. That can easily make one’s head messed up. Therefore it is vital to make sure that the brand is there where the people are, and that the brand speaks the language the people speak.
