Like it or not, everything we do online leaves muddy footprints for the world to see – and they’re pretty tough to clean up. Whether that’s “likes” on Instagram, accidental drunk selfies floating around on Facebook, or that idiotic video you uploaded in college, if you’ve ever Googled yourself, you know what I’m talking about.
We love sharing the great moments in our life – a blossoming, new relationship, a big promotion or even just the Instagram-worthy gourmet cheeseburger freshly delivered to your table #FoodPorn. But sometimes we long for a little privacy and that’s truly hard to come across in 2017 – and only becoming scarcer. Facebook let’s us know when a friend is nearby. We see if you’ve read our text (and STILL haven’t replied). Sometimes we’re a little too connected for comfort.
Oh “Snap”, a solution
This anxious feeling is what made Snapchat, the popular messaging app made famous with its very appropriate white ghost logo, so unbelievably successful. The fact that we had the freedom to share a photo that would be gone within 10 seconds made us feel safe and carefree. If it’s gone there can’t be consequences right? Right? The app became wildly popular in a short period of time, and the world noticed. Facebook and Instagram were the first to implement “Snapchat-like” features into their own apps. The messenger app works almost identically, allowing users to add filters and distortions to their faces. Instagram came out with Stories, completely ripping off Snapchat’s same name feature.
It won’t stop there
“One big digital marketing trend that is expected to blow up in the world of social media comes in the form expiring content. Expiring digital content offers brands and businesses a means of cutting through the noise and clutter, and gaining the attention of their target audience without spending massive amounts of capital.” Social media is only the tip of the iceberg. Expiring content could become a major tactic in marketing campaigns in the very near future. It’s true that nothing creates urgency quite like having to catch a message before it’s gone forever. As advertisers are forced to look for innovative ways to position brands and what they’re trying to say, there’s ample potential to put expiring content into various digital campaigns. Imagine pop up ads that act like an Instagram story, forcing you to click through the slides to get back to the content you originally wanted to see. Imagine emails or banners with dissapearing content like offers or prizes. Big changes are on the horizon thanks to Snapchat.
Anything else?
We can fully expect this trend to cover all the bases – desktops at home, mobile devices, and your wearables AND we can fully expect a romance between expiring content and interactive capabilities. Consumers have wanted to get in on the action for a while now. The need for involvement, plus a little FOMO, is a recipe of success for interactive advertising. We already know that about 70% of time, interactive campaigns do pretty darn well, and with our tech capabilities growing literally every day, it’s time to realize that two trends are better than one. A combination of expiring content and interactive technology is something you simply can’t not test out in your next digital campaign. There’s nowhere to go but up.