The 2016 calendar year ended with a flurry of updates from around the social sphere, with the majority of the conversation centered around community care and live video. These moves align with platforms’ consistent efforts to create a positive, authentic, and immersive experience for their users. See what’s new, what’s hot, and what’s been improved across your favorite social platforms during Q4. Our latest Social Media Trend Report covers it all.

1. 2016
The Social Lights®
SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS
Q4

2. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights® 2
Social media moves fast.
Really fast. That’s where
we come in.
Every 3 months, we bring you all the updates
from around the social sphere.
See what happened in Q4 2016 on:
• Snapchat
• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• & more!

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Go live. Be nice. Copy Snapchat.
• Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter all announced
live activations in Q4.
• Quality and community care carried the conversation. As
fake news and hurtful messages spread, platforms took
action to protect users from unwanted content.
• The war between Facebook and Snapchat. Facebook and
it’s family of apps repeatedly introduced look-alike features
to both retain and draw brands and users away from the
Snap, Inc. product. The question is: Can Snapchat innovate
as fast as Facebook can copy?
What’s the big
picture?

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WHAT’S
HAPPENING ON
SNAPCHAT?
WHAT’S
HAPPENING ON
SNAPCHAT?

5. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Snapchat Pushing Ads
as IPO Looms
Anticipation continues to mount on this subject,
as the latest estimates place the public offering at
a cool $25 billion, with a B. Not bad, considering
Facebook’s $3B offer back in 2013.
As the IPO draws closer, Snapchat has been
pushing for more and more ad dollars from
brands, announcing Super Bowl packages and
touting it’s dominance of the 18-34 year-old
demographic.
Learn More....
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Worth the Spend?
Despite the hype and IPO rumors, brands
remain skeptical of the value running ads
on the platform provides. As many 35-
and-unders than use the platform,
Snapchat ads average just 3 seconds per
view.
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Learn More....

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Spectacles Dropped.
Literally.
Snap, Inc.’s latest product built anticipation
enough to drive sales, but the launch itself wrote
the headlines. Spectacles were dropped in a
mobile vending machine that is still traveling the
country.
How Brands Can Benefit
Brands invested in Snapchat can give followers a
first-person view of an event, reach
unprecedented levels of transparency, or even
show a day in the life of a celebrity / influencer.
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Learn More....

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Updates and
New Features
Scissors: cut sections of your snaps out of the
image to store as emojis/stickers.
Paintbrush: Add artistic effects to your snaps (eg.
Starry Night)
Advance / Rewind: Tap the sides of the screen to
tap through or re-watch stories.
Group Chat: Send and receive snaps from a
group of preselected friends
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Learn More....

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AR Debut Near?
Snap, Inc. purchased Cimagine Media, an
augmented-reality startup, for between $30-40
million.
As VR/AR wearables become more commonplace,
it will be important for brands to continually
familiarize themselves with equipment like
Spectacles and Oculus.
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Learn More....

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WHAT’S
HAPPENING ON
FACEBOOK?

11. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Facebook wants you
to go live.
With the general public hesitant to ‘Go Live’
feature, Facebook launched a worldwide IMC
across social, print, and TV to promote the
feature, showing users and brands that ‘Going live
is easy’. To further the push, Facebook adjusted
it’s algorithm to favor live broadcasts.
Cool Tool: Facebook Live Map
Where does Live live? With the Facebook Live
Map, you can see:
• Publicly available live broadcasts
• Where these broadcasts are taking place
• How many people are watching
• Where the viewers are from
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12. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Witnessing the
Live Evolution
A primary focus for Facebook, the feature is
already evolving past a traditional broadcast. The
social giant has announced numerous updates
and additions to Live video.
• Live-360 Video
• Product integration: drones, digital cameras,
etc.
• Broadcast Scheduling (2017)
• Keyword-based comment moderation (2017)
• Video Adjustments (2017): brightness,
orientation, etc.
• Broadcast Trimming (2017)
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Learn More....

13. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Taking a Stand
Against Fake News
Following the election, Facebook announced
that it would be taking strides to combat the
spread of fake news, as well as the outlets
that distribute misinformation. The platform
put the power in the hands of its users,
allowing you to flag news pieces as
(un)trustworthy. Flagged articles are then
submitted to fact-checking team for review.
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Learn More....

14. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
“Give us your web traffic.”
- Facebook
While its war with Snapchat has been
well-documented, Facebook also
announced features that will challenge
other online communities.
• Jobs: Heads up, LinkedIn
• Marketplace: Watch yourself,
Craigslist.
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15. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Numbers are hard.
Facebook was forced to own up on
multiple occasions over the last 3 months
in regards to miscalculations in ad
performance. Features affected include:
• Instant Articles
• Video Views
• Page Views
• Like/Share Measurement
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Learn More....

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WHAT’S
HAPPENING ON
INSTAGRAM?

17. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
We can do that.
The Facebook-Snapchat battle escalated to
new heights in Q4, primarily on Instagram.
The two heavyweights repeatedly announced
features and look-alikes, including Photo
frames (filters), Instagram Direct (Snapchat
Messaging), Stickers (stickers).
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Learn More....

18. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Instagram Keeps
Growing
Latest reports show that Instagram has
surpassed the 600-million user barrier,
adding over 100 million users since Q2.
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19. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Go Live on Instagram
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Learn More....
Instagram joined the live conversation in
December, adding live video to its stories feed.
The feature separates itself from that of Facebook
by giving the audience 24 hours to view the
broadcast. The video then self-deletes.
How Brands Can Benefit
Facebook Creative Hub promises to provide
brands with ideas and inspiration, as well as tools
to create better ads for mobile.

20. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Speaking of Stories
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Learn More....
Instagram added discoverability to its stories feature,
placing recommended stories within a user’s
Discover page. This is attractive to brands, as it
provides potential outreach to draw in new fans.
Instagram also announced several updates to its
Stories:
• Boomerang
• Profile Mentions
• Links (verified accounts only)

21. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Comments, anyone?
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Users can now ‘like’ comments, as well as turn
them off completely within a post. The move
comes as one of Instagram’s continued attempts
to moderate and improve the overall community
sentiment on the platform.

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Improved Business
Features
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Learn More....
In Q3, we shared tips and tricks on how to make
your Instagram page shoppable. In November,
Instagram announced features that allow businesses
to tag shown products within a post, which users
can then click/tap to visit the product page. The
feature removes many barriers between discovery
and purchase.

23. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Save it for later.
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Learn More....
Find a post you like, and want to show someone
later? You can! Instagram now allows users to save
posts.
How brands can benefit:
Is user-generated content part of your Instagram
strategy? Use this to save fan posts about your
brand.
If you’re really creative, you can even build a game
out of it.

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WHAT’S
HAPPENING ON
TWITTER?

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#Beyond140
Twitter announced several updates to the 140
Rule over past months, most recently testing
the removal of handles in replies. This did not
go over well.
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Learn More....

26. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Twitter Live
While Twitter’s streaming of Thursday Night
Football captured headlines, the platform
extended it’s live streaming to talk shows,
News broadcasts, and event coverage.
The platform also announced live-360 video
just weeks after Facebook launched the
feature.
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27. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Just be nice.
Twitter continues to crack down on harmful
and offensive content. Jack Dorsey and
crew put several features into action to
help users avoid seeing negative or
abusive posts.
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Learn More....

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Jack’s Thread
Before the turn of the year, Jack Dorsey
asked Twitter users what they thought were
the biggest issues faced by the platform. The
four largest themes fell into abuse, editing,
topics, conversations.
The transparency has users ready to see what
Twitter does next to remedy these issues.
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Learn More....

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WHAT ELSE IS
SOCIAL MEDIA?
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HAPPENING ON

30. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
Goodbye Like Counts?
Facebook and Pinterest both hinted at the
removal of Like Counts in measuring a page’s
value. This is encouraging for brands, as the
move would eliminate an empty metric, and
likely replace it with an actionable business
metric.
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To-Do, now To-Done
Pinterest also changed user profiles to include a
new metric, checkoffs. The platform will now track
how often a project or task is completed by its
audience.
How Brands Can Benefit
This measurement will likely be used to identify the
most influential accounts, with respect to which
accounts are generating the most checkoffs.
Generate more physical interaction, improve your
Pinterest status.
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Learn More....

32. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
What about
YouTube?
YouTube made a handful of moves that are sure to
be impactful in 2017:
• Live Sports Broadcasts
• Introduction of Native GIF Maker Something for
the Daydreamer
• End screens for everyone
These updates put YouTube in strong position amid
rumors that the platform will jump into the Live TV
game in 2017.
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Learn More....

33. SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS 2016 | Q4 The Social Lights®
An old face, and
A new one.
Foursquare has been working in the shadows,
powering a number of geo-integrated
platforms.
Meanwhile, Meerkat has been quietly building
a social app that has drawn over 1 million
users. Houseparty is centered around video
calling and group chats, allowing up to 8
people to video chat at the same time.
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Learn More....

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