Trends in Social Media Use Over the Past Decade (And Where Things Are Headed)

As part of your social media marketing strategy, it’s important to take a broader view of consumption trends and consider how people use social apps to connect in different ways over time. 

Social media usage trends have changed over the last decade, as shown by the emergence of live-streaming, social commerce, and the growth of TikTok and Snapchat, among other things, according to App Annie’s “Evolution of Social Apps” report. Those who want to stay on top of key shifts and what’s driving platform updates should read this report. 

Undoubtedly, the report’s most notable finding is that consumer spending on social apps has risen by 50 percent in the first half of 2021, reaching $3.2 billion. 

According to App Annie’s projections, in-app spending will reach $6.78 billion this year due to the increased adoption of social media apps in Asian markets, particularly India. App Annie predicts that social app spending will reach a staggering $78 billion by 2025, with an annual growth rate of around 29 percent. 

In-stream commerce is the reason why every app is trying to get into it. Users’ direct spending and shopping behaviors are predicted to increase significantly as a result of the data, creating new revenue opportunities both for platforms and for brands.

Perhaps now is the time to start thinking about plugging your product catalog into Facebook or Instagram Shops, or keeping tabs on TikTok’s eCommerce plans. 

Also included is a breakdown of how much money users are willing to spend on social apps, with live-stream creators dominating in a number of areas. 

The report indicates that there will be more than a half-trillion hours of time spent in the top five social apps outside of China in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 25%, as opposed to 15% for chat and photo and video apps. 

Facebook in particular makes a big push on groups as a way to maximize its in-app engagement. This is an interesting shift from 2014 to 2018, when the focus shifted away from social media platforms and public broadcasting of your thoughts and opinions, and towards messaging and private groups. 

Apparently, the popularity of live-streaming has returned. Of course, the pandemic has amplified this, with live-streaming often providing the best social outlet for those in lockdown. In spite of this, it appears that live-streaming is experiencing a renaissance in popularity. Even after COVID, it seems likely that this trend will continue as we move into the post-COVID era of VR connection and socialising in digital worlds (i.e. Metaverse).

Content creators in Asia, in particular, generate large amounts of revenue from in-stream virtual gifts, which essentially act as donations to the creators and subsidise their output as a result of the growth in virtual “gifting”. 

All three platforms – Facebook, YouTube and TikTok – have their own versions of live-streaming, and while it doesn’t appear to be as popular in the west as it appears to be in Asia, the data indicates that there is still room for growth, with live-streaming providing a sense of immediate connection, building community, and facilitating direct transactions in-stream. 

Facebook is now testing shopping live-streams in its main app, as well as on Instagram, while TikTok has also hosted a number of live-stream shopping collaborations with big brands and platform stars. Even if that trend spreads to western markets, the opportunity is there, and it coincides with broader usage shifts..

Conclusion

Many of the new features and updates you’re seeing are not even targeted at you. All of these additions are aimed at the Asian market, where social apps have a much larger growth potential than in western regions. In western regions, adoption is high and spending is not growing at the same rate.

As such, even if you don’t think these new features are going to be a big hit here in the U.S. and Europe, they may be a hit elsewhere in the world. 

Consequently, if you want to know where social media is headed and what platforms will be focusing on in the future, it may be more useful to look at Asian adoption trends or what’s happening in China’s web bubble.

And what’s gaining traction in China at the moment, if anything? Live-stream commerce and Douyin, the local version of TikTok, are two of the most popular options.

In the future, it’s not hard to imagine that either of these factors will become more important in western markets.