Social Media Consumer Insights

Trend - Social media creators are blending real fruits into coffee to add both flavor and nutritional value. These blended coffees are easy to create, offer a wide range of flavor options, and offer health benefits over traditional coffee. This trend is gaining popularity with consumers on TikTok.

Insight - Social media has a strong influence on younger gen Z and millennial consumers. These consumers are much more likely to be drawn to, and participate in, trends on media platforms, particularly when the trends are low-effort and high-reward. Two of the largest categories of trends on these platforms are food and wellness. When these two categories overlap and satisfy the consumer desire for low-effort, high-reward practices, they become part of users' daily rituals beyond social media.

Trend - Independent developers are using shared protocols to create decentralized content aggregator platforms. Companies do not own or moderate these platforms, which offers better privacy than large alternatives. Many of these platforms communicate with one another to form the 'Fediverse.'

Insight - Social media users are becoming increasingly dissuaded from the popular websites due to changes in moderation. Undesirable policy changes such as restrictive guidelines, feature monetization, and centralized control have led to users gravitating towards alternatives created by independent developers. Users prioritize privacy, personalization, and freedom on social media platforms, leading to several decentralized platforms that form the federalized metaverse, or the Fediverse.

Trend - Users on various social media pages are sharing simplistic, personalizable pasta recipes with cheese as a base. These recipes are accessible enough for any user to join the trend and versatile enough for each content creator to add their own touch to the viral dishes.

Insight - One of the main attractions to food and home cooking is that it brings people together. One evergreen desire for modern consumers is interpersonal connection. People enjoy cooking with their families, friends, and even strangers. When people find breakthroughs or believe strongly in a dish, they take to the internet to share it with others worldwide. These recipes become viral due to a consumer desire for connection and interaction with content creators and other users.

Trend - Sports brands are entering the metaverse with web3 experiences such as virtual reality (VR) worlds, collectible NFTs, and online events. These services deepen community involvement in sports, providing a convenient and accessible way for fans to connect with athletes and each other.

Insight - Sports fans are a very community-involved group, frequently connecting with fellow fans through fantasy leagues, watch parties, and discussions. This group wants to take its involvement in sports even further and is willing to try new services and experiences to achieve this goal. The popularity of the metaverse provides a means of filling this desire, as it offers convenient community-building, as well as exclusive perks and collectibles that further immerse fans in sports.

Trend - Brands are launching support structure apps and platforms that connect women experiencing perimenopause and menopause with each other and support professionals. This fosters a sense of community while also providing direct, community-backed information on navigating this time of life.

Insight - Women experiencing perimenopause and menopause often feel like they are isolated. These women search the internet for ways to manage symptoms, but find few solutions that suit their exact situation. These women desire testimonials and spaces for discussing symptoms and strategies for managing them, as these conversations are stigmatized with real-life acquaintances. This pressures brands to create community-oriented platforms for women in these situations to interact safely.

Trend - As food from East Asian countries reaches mainstream popularity, early adopters look to the south of the continent for new inspiration. The Philippines is an archipelago in Southeast Asia. Its cuisine is influenced by Indigenous practices, Spanish colonization, American military relations, and more. This makes for flavors that are both adventurous and familiar to North American palates.

Insight - The act of embracing global flavors is a defining trait of the foodie world; however, as social media enables greater connectivity, this is less about North American consumers seeking new flavors as it is about the online foodie community expanding its reach. The Philippines is among the top 10 countries in the world with the most social media users; this correlates to the idea that new global flavor trends are no longer dictated by mainstream desire, but by their exposure to more global creators.

Trend - Game developers are addressing the issue of inadequate LGBTQ+ representation in gaming. These communities often feel unrepresented by games that center around straight, cisgender characters. Development studios are addressing this blindspot by promoting LGBTQ+ characters and stories in video games.

Insight - Representation is key in the media as all consumers, from teens to adults, look for themselves in content that they consume. In gaming, members of the LGBQT+ community often feel unrepresented, turning to small-budget independent games that tell their stories. This has placed pressure on more prominent, mainstream game creators to incorporate more diverse stories, characters, and identities into video games. These titles also strive to educate gamers on LGBTQ+ issues.

Trend - Companies that develop metaverse experiences have begun adopting machine-learning artificial intelligence systems in order to increase the quality of virtual worlds. Non-player characters are being augmented with AI to increase interactivity, immersion, and entertainment for players.

Insight - Non-player characters are necessary aspects of virtual worlds in the metaverse. These characters interact with the player in different ways, acting as virtual storefronts, tour guides, help networks, or parts of a video game. However, these characters often function in one-dimensional ways, leading to repetitive outcomes. Virtual world attendees have begun seeking more interactive, dynamic experiences that do not take away from the immersive experience that virtual worlds provide.

Trend - The influencers' creative shorts on TikTok have global influence, and the brand is expanding its reach by collaborating with other business in the creative industry. TikTok's creative collaborations and programs now extend to everything from film to radio.

Insight - Social media's influence on consumers is far-reaching, with users now able to view and create any type of content they're interested in. The creative elements that come with new social media platforms has resulted in more consumers experimenting with the content they view and create--allowing them to engage with their hobbies in a way that also aligns with their digital habits.

Trend - Negative headlines generate clicks and views for news and content organizations, but some brands are moving away from the increasingly intense focus on negative content output with platforms that do the opposite. News aggregators and social media platforms are included in this shift.

Insight - The ubiquity of social media platforms has made negativity in the news and in content-based sites more impactful. With news and content cycles being 24 hours and also difficult to avoid because of smartphones, people are more likely to experience stress that's linked to social and political issues occurring globally (and their constant access to it). Now, more are turning to alternatives or "digital detoxing" in order to mitigate the impact of negative news cycles on their wellbeing.