As new trends and strategies evolve every year, a digital marketer needs to understand and learn about new social media trends for rapid business improvements. Social media can promote audience engagement as well as enhance customer experiences. When done efficiently, social media marketing can drive more customers, increase traffic, and enhance customer engagement. Every business wants to be on the top of the industry, hence it is essential to know the top trending strategies in social media and inculcate them for consumer satisfaction.
At the beginning of 2018, Facebook announced updates and modifications in its algorithms that drastically affected the rankings of business websites. IGTV was launched by Instagram for Android and iOS smartphones. 2018 was a rise and fall for the marketers but they managed to connect and engage with the customers in multiple ways.
It is vital to watch out for trends that affect social media performance using social media reporting tools. The industry changes with new trends every day, so the better you think and strategize, the best results and benefits can be obtained.
Yeah, these trends and strategies should align with your products and brand.
Here are the top 10 social media trends that businesses should have an eye on. It is recommended to be prepared always to change and develop your social media trends according to the latest updates and strategies.
Influencer marketing has become one of the common trends in social media marketing today. A social media influencer can reach your target audience more quickly through their blogs and articles. They get paid by the brands to promote their business to the customers.
A study conducted in 2016 says that “94% of marketers found influencer marketing to be useful and effective”.Influencers can produce engaging content that the audience is interested in that increases and improves the brand awareness. Marketers can connect with their unreached audience as well with an average investment. Influencer marketing can build trust and drive engagement with increased click-through and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) establishment. As big influencers are expensive depending on brands, some nano-influencers and micro-influencers charge less than the popular influencers for sponsored content.
Live Streaming is the broadcasting of live video content to the audience over the internet in real-time. This is another popular trend in social media marketing. Live video streaming was launched on YouTube in 2008 first and on Facebook in 2016, Instagram added it later. More than 95% of marketers are planning to add live videos to their social media strategies. A brand can use live videos to launch their new products and services which will improve customer interaction and engagement in real-time. You can also provide a Q&A session through live videos to make better understand your products to customers and resolve their queries spontaneously. The importance of video marketing will be an increasing demand in the future of digital marketing.
Chatbots may reform social media marketing as it becomes one of the most advanced trends in today’s era. Facebook alone has 33,000 chatbots approximately on their messenger application.
Chatbots, powered by artificial intelligence (AI), communicate with a human being in real-time to understand the complex requests and customize the responses. Chatbots are used in Facebook Messenger by multiple brands to promote their products and services as well as resolve customer issues more quickly. Chatbots can enhance customer engagement and provide the audience with a personalized experience. With improved developments in AI, businesses started changing their customer service to this trend to achieve high customer satisfaction.
The traffic on messaging platforms exceeded the traffic on social platforms drastically in the year 2015. Messaging apps help businesses connect with their customers personally that significantly generates effective leads. Conversational marketing remains to be on the top of trends as it is the future of social media marketing.
LinkedIn can be used to connect with various professionals in a business-to-business (B2B) model. Purchasing decisions are made using LinkedIn by 50% of B2B buyers.
LinkedIn marketing starts with:
i) Setting up the personal profile.
ii) Optimizing the company page.
iii) Posting updates regularly on the business page.
93% of B2B marketers choose LinkedIn for an effective site and lead generation. More than 80% of social leads for the business-to-business model are generated on LinkedIn.
Hence, to increase conversions and drive in more traffic, LinkedIn marketing is essential.
Today, Instagram has dominated the world of social media. With more than 500 million active users, it is a great marketing platform to promote your products and services as well as reach new people within your market. By using interactive hashtags and building creativity, Instagram marketing becomes beneficial for businesses. Businesses can be promoted on Instagram by working with influencers and customer relationship is maintained with efficient strategic communication. Instagram stories can be viewed by people in different verticals and creating engaging content makes them better understand your products and services.
Every brand has a social media presence to build loyalty and trust of its customers. More consumers trust you if there are greater transparency of your products in social media. Building strong relationships is key to a strong business. Provide your customers with valuable information and help them by resolving queries and doubts. Sharing insights and opinions based on the latest happenings in your industry helps customers build trust in your business.
Augmented Reality (AR), being one of the latest technologies, will affect the future social media trends. Social media content will completely move from 2D to 3D, powered by AR, in the upcoming digital era. Augmented Reality can provide interactive and out-of-the-box experience to customers. Many brands have started incorporating AR technologies to their websites and applications. Businesses should be ready to adapt the AR strategies and technologies to achieve their sales goals. Therefore, AR is a growing futuristic trend that can affect social media marketing.
The rise of ‘Social TV’ has significantly improved in recent days. Online interactions with television programming can increase audience engagement and viewers of a TV program involve in social media sharing and chat about the specific program as they watch it. Participating in social TV can improve and enhance the effectiveness of advertisements.
Social TV can drive online traffic and is beneficial for advertisers in numerous ways. Proper media planning and ad design strategies can help in increasing the usage of social media for TV advertising. Social TV can extend television ad campaigns reach to the online space, offer real-time feedback to advertisers on how their ads are being received, as well as attract more viewers thereby increasing sales.
Audience segmentation is done by dividing your audience and customers into multiple groups based on different criteria, such as media usage, interests, demographics, and so on. Digital marketers use audience segmentation as a key component of targeted marketing strategy. Through Facebook filters, LinkedIn groups, and Twitter lists, people can be segregated into groups to improve customer engagement. These kinds of segmentation needs can grow as a trend and shape social media marketing in the future.
Employee advocacy is termed as promoting the organization by its workforce. This can improve brand awareness more efficiently through digital media or offline channels. When influencer marketing is difficult, employee advocacy will rise as the employees of the same organization become influencers for the brand to promote it among their groups.
Brands can benefit more with an employee advocacy program as consumers trust a regular employee than an influencer. Employee advocates can generate positive exposure, store promotional content based on latest industry strategies, as well as track audience engagement with the organization.
Social Media Marketing is an effective form of marketing to increase customers and boost sales. Every marketer should know about these emerging trends and strategies to achieve their marketing and branding goals.
