Real-time data, personalisation and quick response (QR) codes will be the top three trends in digital and social media next year, says Thoth Zocial, a provider of social data analytics services.
While global growth of social media was 9% in the first half of 2017, social data in Thailand rose by 44%, from 2.5 billion messages in 2016 to 3.6 billion through the first 11 months of 2017.
Social media has proven a very influential communication channel for brands and customers, said Kla Tungsuwan, chief executive of Thoth Zocial.
Social media is dynamic and the landscape changes every year, he said. The industry has been growing both in terms of brands and users who engage with brands.
In addition to the growing amount of data, the patterns of data usage also matter as they lead to social movements. Social media has been widely used in every aspect of business, from customer service to e-commerce as it disrupts advanced functions like "Live", said Mr Kla.
Brands and agencies also use social media data for decision-making, he said.
More services will be offered in real-time, such as customer service responses, and there will be more personalised content, advertisements, news feeds and customer relationship management because data analytics technology allows businesses to better understand customers, Mr Kla said. The implementation of a QR code standard in Thailand will accelerate the use of this technology, he said.
"Next year everything will be possible through QR code because it's easy and everyone can use it," said Mr Kla.
He said use of the short message service (SMS) will decline a great deal and users will interact more with chatbots.
"Everything behind the scenes is big data and data analytics," said Mr Kla.
Pnern Asavavipas, chief executive of Onebit Matter (Obvoc), a social media monitoring and analysis company, said Facebook, YouTube, Line and Pantip are the top four social media platforms that influenced Thai consumers this year.
Thoth Zocial and Obvoc, through collaboration with gurus and experts from several industries, will hold the Thailand Zocial Awards 2018 to praise brands and agencies that performed best on social media. The event's theme is "18+ Data Is Sexy".
Social media is one of the fastest, most dynamic sectors in the world, so the Zocial Metric has been developed to measure social data more efficiently, Mr Pnern said.
The new metric comprises fan base (access to the target market and followers); growth (increase in the target market); interaction (how engrossing is the content); sharing on social media; and sentiment (emotional connection to consumers through brands' social media).
