Laurent Francois, founder and creative strategist at London-based global creative social marketing agency RE-UP, explores the future of social.

Social media marketing as a practice is approaching its 20th birthday. First considered a ‘virus’ in 1996 by Jeffrey Rayport, and a viable alternative to TV channels, social media is now becoming both the channel and the convergent bubble in which consumer culture happens. It is the social interface which is now both the pulse and the heart of consumers.

Where once we surfed the net through a browser, it has become the place where we begin. We fall in love, shop, argue, debate and orchestrate our lives in this digital here-and-now. Causes and social debates now happen first in social media; whether they are worldwide movements to tackle an issue (Kony 2012, #JeSuisCharlie) or more ongoing, niche-community playgrounds (every individual subculture has its own cluster on Tumblr).

Social media is no longer this distant ‘additional’ territory that marketers need to enter, it is the hub where young brands can enter, join and grow. These brands can even replace established organisations: Uber is triumphing against traditional taxi drivers, Airbnb is inducing a reengineering of the hospitality industry, and doctors are challenged by online forums and apps.

Even more dazzling: before new generations are even born they already pre-exist through the social web. Not only do parents share the making of the new baby, but40% of US moms open the first social media accounts for their offspring before the child’s first birthday. We know that the registration of pupils to a specific school can determine their entire future. Belonging to specific social channels could have a growing influence on the social capital of these new consumers and their brand relationships.

In this environment, culture is at stake and not every brand is equal. As cultures cross like ships in the night, it is time for brands to elevate their marketing and revert to a ‘crafted’ approach: why do you make or like the products you sell? And why would consumers spend their time understanding why you matter more than their other routine digital activities?

Thinking beyond the brand as a closed ecosystem, how can it open the gates to a certain collaborative creativity whereby consumers could directly become the shareholders of their reputation?

Short term – 2015-2016: brand psychotherapy and the need for craftsmanship

Brands will need to become social again. Even if it sounds like a tautology, some brands have forgotten their social mechanisms, internally and externally, by communicating about assets that don’t exist or can’t happen.

Consumers don’t expect to have fun with their insurance company – they probably only want good products, reliability, fast service and protection. Therefore, they actually desire social interfaces which matter to them and a coherent social experience, from the sales representative on the phone to transferring money following a claim.

Certain brands have emphasised the power of real-time social media marketing, like Oreo during the Super Bowl, but this seems immature regarding the business side of social. In the short term, organisations are concerned because consumers turn to the ‘dark social’ like messaging apps such as WeChat, where people talk without leaving easily accessible digital footprints. This already accounts for more than 69% of global share online (versus Facebook’s 23%) according to Radium One.

This is good news for brands: there are digital tools which reinvent real word-of-mouth. Brands need to matter again to people in real conversations with their peers. Many “clubs” and social interfaces are experiments by organisations.

For example, insurance company Aviva provides an online service to help consumers change bad daily habits, relying on three pillars: a social scoring interface to demonstrate progress, an educative part, and a recalculation of fees depending on users’ efforts. This is the future of social; no tweet or Facebook status has offered such features previously.

Medium term – 2016-2018: social divide on the rise and brands as re-connectors

A ‘social culture’ divide is emerging, and yet many marketers have assumed the world is flat. It is not only wrong to think this way; it is also dangerous. Infrastructures themselves change the usage and the economy around them. Google Fiber is now celebrated as a messiah in every newly-equipped town in the US, whereas consumers are struggling when they only have access to second-tier broadband speeds.

Beyond cable, social divides grow, as cultures simply don’t match each other. Global platforms like Facebook shared by global audiences are very rare; demographics of social apps like Whatsapp and WeChat are diversified; emoji are used in different ways in China and the US. When you don’t speak a common language interactions are limited beyond ‘liking’.

But more subtle divides happen through what we call a ‘filter bubble’, with a hyper-personalised experience of a Facebook newsfeed whereby consumers are more exposed to, or encapsulated by, what they already know. Brands will have to initiate the relationship by disrupting existing digital rituals.

As our client Nathie Nakarat, Kérastase international digital and e-commerce director, explains: “A brand is not only a set of know-how and products, but an emotional universe; a brand needs to think of its role as a social network. This is the key to providing meanings.

“With Shu Uemura Art of Hair, we try to make our consumers discover the edginess of contemporary Japan; every piece of content is thought of as a social cue, to make sure that a message isn’t ‘just’ a message. We’re in fact shaping a shared culture with consumers.”

Heineken does it well too, featuring cool new bars, pushing them through Facebook ads without linking to its digital properties and by driving new Facebook users to a non-branded website. Ads are therefore not made to get new fans but to reconnect consumers to recommended experiences in real life.

Converse created Domaination a few years ago, to hijack young boys’ Google searches such as “how to kiss a girl”, redirecting them to a gamified ecosystem of websites. Clearly, brands cannot rely on heritage alone, and they will have to force the door to connect with new consumers.

Long term – looking at blue sky to 2020: passive social learnings and exploitation of new needs

By this stage, co-creation is only feasible for the general public when citizens or consumers are active in a certain way. Kickstarter requires a little conscious support from ‘backers’; within the Lego community, consumers just need a good creative edge.

With the Internet of Things, the phenomenon of co-creation will evolve and increase through passive groups and their devices. For example, interconnecting through Nest Learning Thermostats can be a tremendous way for Google to identify new needs or unexpected habits among specific populations, thereafter ‘selling’ this need to other businesses to create new products. Thus energy could become a new social currency, which could then be allocated by a brand community to support projects.

The Google modular smart phone project, Spiral 2, tangibly demonstrates how the attention economy can be translated in a physical world. With this phone, users could add a second battery to reflect their individual requirements. Alternatively, they could sacrifice some space to add branded modules designed to passively change the world – a sensor to track and tackle pollution on the street, or to manage the energy consumption of a building.

Another good example is Milk Nanny, which is currently reinventing the making of baby formula by automating preparation through a smart app referencing all existing products and directly communicating with the device. The device will also provide access to a database in the cloud to better understand baby growth patterns based on all passive learnings of their customers.

In 2020, consumers will not only be the shareholders of brands’ reputations, but potentially the passive co-creators of their products. A real social vivarium.