Kelsey Agnew

In case you haven’t noticed, image-based social platforms have sort of been taking the digital world by storm. First, Tumblr arrived on the scene, turning millions of Internet users into (micro)bloggers with a super-easy interface that makes discovering and sharing content seem hip and fun. Then, in 2010, Instagram and Pinterest both worked their way into our online vocabularies. These image-based tools — the former an app and the latter a website — have helped facilitate a shift in how we use the Internet: from search to discovery.

Instagram was first added to Apple’s App Store in October 2010, and by July 2011, 100 million images had been uploaded to the service. Just one month later, in August 2011, that number was estimated to be at 150 million. At last count — in September 2011 — the app had surpassed ten million registered users. It’s incredible how quickly the free, easy-to-use app has grown, and impressive that it’s done so without a lick of in-app advertising. So how are brands infiltrating this space?

Within my own local market, I’ve seen Atlanta-based businesses Ale Yeah! and Fox Bros. BBQ take on the challenge of Instagram successfully. Both companies have a single physical location — Ale Yeah! is a craft beer market in Decatur, and Fox Bros. is a restaurant just around the corner on Dekalb Avenue. Both carry great products and both use Instagram to give fellow iOS users compelling reasons to hop in our cars and make a beeline for their cash registers. For instance, every time the growler menu changes or a new brew arrives in store, Ale Yeah! snaps a picture and uploads it to Instagram. That account, which has 150+ followers, happens to be linked to the brand’s Twitter account (@aleyeahbeer), so that neat little picture goes out to its 1300+ Twitter followers as well.

Fox Bros.’ Instagram account is also linked to its Twitter handle (@foxbrosbarbq), which means that its 130+ Instagram followers and its 1700+ Twitter followers all see the same behind-the-scenes images of brisket, wings, and the daily specials. We’ll oftentimes get a sneak peek at the preparation process for the award-winning joint’s mouthwatering meals, which helps users feel more deeply connected with the establishment and the food it creates. Plus, Instagram users can like and comment on the photos they see, which makes it a great forum for customer feedback, too.

When you’re considering adding Instagram to your brand’s social strategy, ask yourself what exciting things you love to share about your business. Maybe it’s your company culture. Maybe you’ve got a unique product or service to show off. Regardless, it’s entirely possible that you’re missing out on a great social tool by sticking to the “major” networks and forgetting about “little” guys like Instagram (who really aren’t so little after all).

Look, I get it. Social media can be overwhelming, and if you don’t have the time or budget for it, it’s hard enough to keep up with Facebook and Twitter, let alone think about expanding your presence onto YouTube, Google+, Flickr, or any of the countless others that all claim to be the Next Big Thing(s).

However, believe it or not, Facebook isn’t going to be around forever (at least not in its current form). Like MySpace and Friendster before it, Facebook will, in perhaps as little as a few years, seem primitive and antiquated. Why do you think they’re trying to get you to use the network as a hub for autobiographical information with the Timeline profile? Because if you invest the time in it — if you upload your pictures and fill in your information and use Timeline in the way they really want you to use it — it’s going to be hard as hell for you to leave the network when the Next Big Thing(s) come along, because you’ve made a personal investment in the former. It’ll be like getting the opportunity to move into your dream home but only on the condition that you leave your neatly-organized boxed of mementos, letters, and photographs behind.

That being said, I think that social media is headed in an exciting direction, and that the network(s) that will one day replace Facebook as the most powerful social platform(s) on earth will be great ones. I am using the (s) here intentionally, because I do not believe that one gargantuan network will be able to overcome Facebook on its own. It will be smaller networks — maybe even dozens of them — that appeal to niche groups of users that will be the Next Big Thing(s).

The Next Big Thing(s) will allow users to create, share and explore media that are most appropriate for the subject matter and are preferred by those who are doing the creating, sharing, and exploring. Based on current trends, I think that, for most users, these preferred media will be visually stimulating ones. The amount of content that is uploaded to and viewed on YouTube every single day is astounding: a year ago, over 35 hours worth was added every minute. We can only assume that number has risen over the past twelve months or so, and will, more likely than not, continue to rise.

The Next Big Thing(s) will be quick and spontaneous in their engagement. As a social media manager, I will be the first to admit that spending all day every day “wired in” has screwed with how I think about and interpret, create and digest information. It’s hard for me to pick up a book and read more than a few pages without getting up to do something else. Writing a 500+ word blog post is something I really have to work at, because I rarely put thoughts together that exceed 140 characters. I am great at being concise and at multi-tasking, but only at the expense of my aptitude for dedicated concentration. I am an exaggerated case because of my occupation, but this is the effect that social media will, I think, have on all of its users, in one degree or another, at some time or another. We will not be inclined — or, rather, able — to sit down and focus on an article or a video that is shared with us via a social network as long as we know that other content is popping up around us. We don’t want to miss anything, and for maximum saturation, speed and spontaneity are key.

The Next Big Thing(s) will delve deeply into our personal lives, much like Facebook does, but we will not realize they are doing so. They will collect and use data, make assumptions about us, and feed us content based on those assumptions. We will not need to type a single interest or birthdate or even a gender into their systems; they will analyze what we view, and what we share, and what we create, and do magical things with that information. There’s a good chance they’ll realize things about us before we realize them about ourselves, just based on the colors of our images or the soundtracks for our videos. It will be uncanny and maybe a little terrifying, but must of us won’t even realize these things because it will be a tool for narcissism and we’ll be too busy looking in the mirror to think about what’s behind it.

The Next Big Thing(s) will probably be great for brands, depending on how much of that super-personal data is made available to them. Don’t get left behind by putting all of your eggs in the Facebook basket. If you’ve got great visuals, check out image-based platforms like Instagram and Pinterest. If your pictures are accompanied by stories and links, sign up for Tumblr. And if you want to optimize your social media activity for higher search rankings, you’d better get on the Google+ bandwagon. Post your content and look at how users engage with it — you’ll soon see where your strengths lie, and realize that interacting with a few users on a small platform rather than a ton of users on a behemoth platform can mean more clicks, better ROI, and a more powerful online presence for your brand.

You’ve undoubtedly heard rumblings that your Facebook profile is about to change. Pretty drastically. I think it’s the biggest shift in user experience Facebook has made to date, but I also think it’s one of the smartest moves they’ve ever made. Sure, people will gripe and whine and boycott for a week or two like they always do, but they’ll soon learn to love the new Timeline interface. It gives users what they want — an outlet for self-expression an opportunity to project a carefully-crafted version of themselves to the world — while simultaneously allowing Facebook to access very, very detailed information about each user, which can then be used for very, very targeted advertising campaigns.

Facebook will tell users that they’ve built Timeline to provide individuals with the ability to archive and recall personal data, and it does do that. But the more information users plug in to their timelines (Broke a bone? Had surgery? Lost a loved one?), the more sentimental value they’re going to attach to it, and the more likely it is that they’ll continue logging in to Facebook to view or update the data they’ve entered. If users buy into Timeline — and they will, because it’s pretty and easy, and also a great way to simultaneously indulge in a little bit of narcissism while letting people know who you are (or who you want them to think you are) — they’re likely to become users for life. There is no option to download, print, or otherwise save your timeline. If you want to see what you’ve written or where you’ve been as it’s been tracked by Facebook, you’ll have to log in, and when you do so, you’ll be confronted with ads from companies that have made inferences about your relationships, your livelihood, and your personality based on the details you’ve added to your timeline.

So why is the radical shift to the timeline format a smart choice on Facebook’s part? Because it makes the social network much more than a communication tool without sacrificing simplicity. When paired with Facebook’s recently updated privacy settings, it allows users to project highly-specific, multidimensional images of themselves to their networks while maintaining authenticity by adding dates and tags and check-ins. And of course, it means incredible marketing opportunities for advertisers, since they’ll be able to target users in a much more individualized manner based on all those little details you can now enter into your timeline.

I’d mark my calendar for that IPO if I were you.