2019 was a big year of change for social. Moving away from entrenched metrics such as Likes; platforms finally acting on data and privacy concerns; influencer marketing losing some of its gloss; TikTok taking the world by storm.
Throughout the year, we’ve been using our blog to keep you up to date with the biggest developments, delivering you our perspectives into the ever-changing world of social media.
So, to re-cap on another exciting fast-paced year, here’s our top ten most-read posts from the last 12 months.
1. The state of the internet in 2019
Our most sought after post of the year – in January we launched our Digital in 2019 report, with the biggest stats relating to social, digital, mobile and the internet from around the world. These reports, written by Simon Kemp, have had an amazing 10 million views in the last 12 months and are an essential resource for any marketer. And as we like to keep our readers up to speed, we also released quarterly updates – Q2, Q3 and Q4. Keep an eye on our blog at the end of January for the 2020 edition!
2. Global trends shaping marketing in 2019
Trend predictions are as much a part of the New Year celebrations as counting down to midnight, or having a hangover on January 1st. And this year’s predictions from our global leadership team made their way to number two on our most read list. Covering social commerce, gaming, AI and more – it’s good to know that we came in on the money.
3. How social media is reshaping the beauty industry
A guest post from our friends at GlobalWebIndex, this blog looked at the role social media plays in shaping the beauty industry and what brands need to be aware of. Its author, Strategic Insights Analyst Olivia Valentine, also penned a load more successful posts for us, such as how travel brands can get more from social, and how to get dark social right.
4. Why influencers are losing their influence
Influencer marketing has seen a dramatic fall from grace this year, with a number of high profile scandals hitting the headlines. Before many of these happened, our Head of Research & Insight, Paul Greenwood, wrote a piece looking at Gen Z’s increasing scepticism towards influencers. Citing our ethnographic report, We Are Gen Z, Paul explored how the next generation of consumers are changing the influencer landscape.
5. How brands can get dark social right
Our Senior Research & Insight Director, Andre Van Loon, dispels the myths around dark social in this popular blog post. What is dark social? Should I care? How can brands use it? Andre has all the answers. There’s a reason we call him the Prince of Darkness.
6. Everybody’s talking about TikTok
You couldn’t get away from the lip syncing short video platform in 2019. It’s still growing at an impressive rate and every brand wants to know if they should be on it. Here to set the story straight is Senior Strategist Zanna Wharfe, who lays out what it’s all about, the work that’s been done so far on the platform, and what the opportunities are for marketers.
7. What Facebook’s focus on Groups means for marketers
We all know that Facebook has been big on privacy in 2019. This was highlighted at its F8 conference back in May, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated they would move away from a focus on the News Feed in favour of a “privacy-focused communications platform”. Our Strategy Director Caroline Lucas-Garner delved into what this shift meant for brands following the announcement in this post.
8. Launching Think Forward 2020
An impressive showing in the top 10 for a post that’s only a few weeks old; in November, our Chief Strategy Officer Mobbie Nazir launched this year’s edition of Think Forward, our annual trends report. The 2020 report examines the new rules of the internet and how brands can make the most of them – check it out here.
9. We Are in Japan and Canada!
We Are Growing and this year we launched not just one, but two new offices. First was Tokyo and in this post, our Managing Director Masayuki Tono shares his views on the opportunities the exciting market of Japan has to offer. Later in the year, we opened our Toronto office – here, Managing Director Coby Shuman gives some insight into what brands can expect from the ever-growing We Are Social team.
10. Why the democratisation of data is crucial
Democratisation of data was one of our Think Forward trends from last year and it closes out this year’s top 10. In this post, our Chief Strategy Officer Mobbie Nazir looked at how brands can find access to data on the right terms, as individuals become the gatekeepers to their own information.
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading these as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them. Look forward to keeping you all updated in 2020.
