Social media trends in 2018: Ephemeral content

The digital sphere is flooded with information and entertainment, and users are battling to choose which content to engage with. Ephemeral content has an expiry date, so users can’t bookmark or view later. It creates an urgency about the content. And because the content has an expiry date, it’s that much more special.  

One of the reasons that ephemeral content is becoming so popular amongst social media users, according to the Digital Marketing Institute, is that it taps into one of the key attractions of all social media – content creation. As much as users can passively enjoy others’ content – they can actively create their own.

When it comes to brand adoption of ephemeral content, brands are seeing an increased engagement rate when using content which isn’t permanent. They’re considered more authentic than traditional content with a longer shelf life, and appear less spammy (according to AdWeek). It also taps into audience FOMO – so they feel a greater desire to engage with it or risk loosing out.

Based on these, we believe that 2018 will see ephemeral content having more engagement than other content types.