Hi Matt,
Thanks! Glad to hear you enjoyed the piece :) While there are a thousand different ways the future could go for other blossoming platforms, I think the shift to local remains true for all.
The reason I say this is because now that smartphones are so common for modern day consumers, collecting data on whether or not anyone who saw a social media ad actually visited the store’s location or not (as is done on Snap to Store) will be possible — which is always the goal for advertising and marketing on any platform.
So if a local store is active on Pinterest, perhaps they’d be able to see whether or not foot traffic increased or not with these analytics. If a local car repair shop ran an ad on LinkedIn, perhaps they’d be able to see who visited the location for an inspection.
There’s also another side to this story: and that’s the fact that other social media platforms might end up having to ‘niche down’ by fulfilling a different need than Facebook can give businesses (LinkedIn could be the hub for personal branding, Pinterest could be the hub for recipes, inspiration, etc.) or shrink significantly as a consequence.
Either way, the future looks bright for small or local businesses when it comes to social media marketing. They’ll be able to physically see which content moved the needle for them in terms of sales, which has always been both a hurdle and hindrance to their full adoption of social.
I hope this helped! :)
