The year is coming to a close, 2017 is just a few weeks away.

2016 was certainly an interesting year in social media. Some things happened that I would have never predicted: namely the loss of some pretty big social networks, like Blab, Meercat and Vine.

Twitter hung in there during 2016, but for how much longer? It’s a tough question I’ve been trying to answer all year with no success. Instagram, while it’s always been strong, has emerged even stronger this year with lots of changes to the platform, and Instagram Stories, which has resulted in me doing less and less Snapchat. Snapchat rebranded itself to Snap, and is coming out with some cool Spectacles, that might be a total game-changer.

But when it comes to 2017, what are the new and exciting trends we can expect to see in social media? I’ve put together a rundown of some of the top posts out there currently talking about this, but here are some highlights.

Live Video. Live video was introduced in 2015, and the early adopters jumped onto it in force in 2016. But it’s going to go mainstream in 2017. It’s huge, and it’s just going to get bigger with platforms like Instagram releasing their own live streaming ability (soon).

VR. Virtual reality is killing it, but one interesting thing about VR is that people want to see more of it in their feeds. And it dosen’t have to be some technical tool that costs bajillions of dollars. 360 degree photos on Facebook and Google Maps are a popular way to do VR on the cheap, I just use the Google Street View app to make mine.

Pay to Play. Sadly, with the introduction of more and more algorithms, in order to reach your intended audience, you’ll need to buy ads in order to stay relevant and in front of your audience. This is the new reality!

Images. You should just make it rule right now: include an image with every single thing you post. Obviously with Instagram, this is a given, but I think you’ll find you’ll get better/higher engagement rates if you use images on Facebook and Twitter as well. It’s just how our brains are wired.

Disappearing content. We’ll see more and more apps and networks that include content that expires, like Instagram Stories and Snapchat.

For more information, read some of these great articles:

• Marketing: Top 8 Social Media Trends to Watch in 2017
• 7 Social Media Marketing Trends That Will Dominate 2017
• 5 Content Marketing Predictions for 2017
• 24 Predictions for Social Media and Social Media Marketing in 2017

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