As marketers, it is commonly known that what works today, may not work tomorrow. The field is constantly evolving and sometimes it is hard to stay on top of current trends. Now, in the social media era, this ever-changing environment is even more relevant.
Social media has taken over and is now an integral part of everyday life for many people. Of course, it only makes sense that social media is now used for marketing, selling products, etc.. However, utilizing these platforms can be tricky for many reasons. Among some of them are that new apps emerge, some become obsolete, and how they are used change as users or the apps evolve. This can make social media marketing hard to always use to its highest potential.
Although there are many ways to better utilize social media marketing. Here are some of the top trends for 2020.
Influencer marketing is key for a new age business. Across all platforms, Facebook to Youtube to even Linkedin, there are influencers for different niche groups. Influencers are useful across so many diverse industries. These individuals have varied reach depending on followers, but they can offer amazing benefits to companies.
Of course, influencer marketing is not a new way to market and has ultimately changed recently. The most important part of influencer marketing is finding someone who is trustworthy. Traffic is much more important than likes for a page. According to a HYPR study, in 2018, 64% of influencers admitted to buying likes. More importantly, an August 2019 study by GlobalWebIndex indicates that social media users are more interested in the type of content that influencers share rather than how many likes they get.
That being said, trustworthiness for celebrities and other high paid influencers has gone down since they are making so much money. Their posts and recommendations do not seem genuine anymore. Companies should begin utilizing smaller, maybe local, influencers that have better relationships with their followers. These individuals do not cost as much money and are likely to help sell your products, service, and brand.
There is more detail about Influencer Marketing on our other blog.
Similar to influencer marketing, social media groups and communities are not a new feature. However, they are more popular than ever–especially Facebook groups. These social communities are made by brands, local communities, music fans, political parties and everything in between. Individuals can express their beliefs, ideas, or opinions and share it with like-minded individuals. These communities have really become more niche and unique as time has gone on–it seems as though there is a group for anything.
Brands can utilize these groups by creating a new one specifically for their company or joining existing groups that align with the products or services that they offer. This can increase exposure to the precise target audience any brand is looking for. Then, once the traffic is there, brands can release new products and get real time customer feedback.
This brings the next point. In this age, immediate responses are expected by consumers. Not to mention, friends and family.
Customers look to social media to write reviews, good or bad, to ask questions, among many other things. According to Conversocial’s 2018 report, 37% of people expect a response within 30 minutes, 31% want one in two hours, 26% in four hours and only 6% do not expect a response. Great customer service is clearly judged on a fast response time. Facebook even lets consumers know what the expected wait time is based on the average response time of the company.
This form of customer service is sometimes the first interaction an individual has with a company. And, of course, you want to make a good first impression. In 2020, it is important to utilize this feature of social media to better present your brand and offer the same kind of service that someone would get if they picked up the phone or came into the store/office.
For typical B2C companies, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have long been the most popular platforms for advertising. LinkedIn has shown to be great for B2B tactics. However, as time moves on, more apps are created and can have their own advantages in social media marketing. Not to mention, Facebook has lost 15 million users in the past two years, especially those in younger generations.
This year, it will be important to explore all platform options to find the best representation. Target audience will depict which alternative services are best for each brand. For example, TikTok, which was launched in 2016, has a huge following of people ages 16-24. Also, Pinterest has become a great place for e-commerce as 75% of users say they are interested in buying new products compared to other digital platforms.
One other trend that is dominating is ephemeral content. Attention spans are not what they used to be. The everyday individual, for personal or commercial use, wants quality, fast content. Instagram stories, snap chat stories, tiktok videos, etc. are all great examples of this type of content. These features and apps have also gained so much popularity due to the engaging, short content. Social media users can spend hours clicking through 10 second videos.
According to a Cisco Study, by 2022 82% of online content will be video. This can be compared to Cisco’s 2016 study that predicted that videos would make up 75% of all online content in 2020. Clearly, video content is beginning to have control of media and it should be included in a content schedule and strategy.
Short stories on Snapchat or Instagram is a great way to get started utilizing ephemeral, video content.
There are many ways to utilize social media to gain brand recognition or sell products and services. This year, these are the trends that will help your company the most.
Sources:
https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2020/01/helpful-social-media-tips/
The importance of blogs is to have an effective content marketing and SEO strategy. I would even say that it’s required. Blogs provide a medium for you to distribute thoughts, statistics, promotions, content, and collect leads. All of which is at the core of marketing today.
Your blog needs to provide relevant information and links to further information. What information should it provide you ask? Well, it is a matter of identifying who you want to target and at what stage in the buyer journey the audience is. If they are just conducting research on a topic, you want to provide valuable information on topics they may be searching for. If they are closer to buying, you may want to provide a solution to a problem article. Just make sure that blogs don’t just stand alone. Offer ways for them to get more information via a download or connect them with another article providing them with more answers.
Blogging is one of the largest components to a successful SEO strategy. As stated in the stats above, websites with blogs have 434% more pages indexed. That increases your ability to rank dramatically. Additionally, blogs can be picked up and linked to by other relevant blogs and sites. This type of back linking is some of the most powerful you can receive.
You have blogs and social media is a wide open audience. Blogging gives you valuable content and attracts more followers of you and your brand. It pushes people to your website where they may find additional resources that will help them in their quest for relevant information. Without a blog your social media will often just include other company or news blogs. Great as that is, wouldn’t you rather they were going to your website?!
Last and certainly not least, generating leads is the most alluring part of blogs. Combining all the other reasons brings us to producing leads. It is one of the focal points on attracting people to your brand and thus finding ways for them to engage with you. Depending on how your website and blog is set up, you can offer almost unlimited ways of interaction. Signing up to a newsletter, listening to a Podcast, joining a webinar, announcing an upcoming event, and downloading a white paper are just a few.
Welcome to my first post in an ongoing effort to help you cast positive influence to your audience! Each month, I’ll share Justin’s Musts clueing you into the latest digital technologies and marketing tools I’m obsessing over.
In a 100% uptime world, you need tools that automate, track, report, and communicate your brand message while streamlining operational process. And don’t worry, cost friendly options are right at the top of the list. These are useful for all organizations from SMBs to large enterprises.
Keep in mind some of these tools may still be in beta, but are worth exploring to help them gain adoption.
Without further delay, here are a few tools I think are worth taking a look at.
Pablo allows you to use free high resolution stock images and quickly edit and size them for your social media posts. I use this religiously when I need to create an attractive image quickly.
TeamGantt is a paid service but it’s worth it to create easy to use Gantt charts. It has the ability to prioritize tasks in real time as they change in urgency and allows you to step out of list prioritization, giving you the ability to give your project teams relevant status and transparency to your clients. In the example, you will see how we use it for our website projects. This is a project manager dream.
In a time of heightened security around passwords, take advantage of Dashlane. Dashlane securely remembers all of your passwords and auto fills forms for you. IT’S FREE for one device and super easy to use. You couldn’t ask for more.
There are many calendar tools on the market, my favorite is Calend.ly. This handy tool allows you to sync your calendar to automatically let others see when you’re free. No more back and forth trying to herd cats! Calend.ly also lets you create team events for scheduling and specify the time durations for scheduling. We have even incorporated the embed code into our own website.
Make sure you subscribe to our blog. We will be giving you a monthly list of the new technologies that you can utilize to help propel your success.