As a Digital Marketer, I am always looking to adopt trends early-on that can translate to social media success. This not only allows one to strategize but also helps to figure out what will be the efforts required to execute on these.
2017 was the year that saw
- Video becoming an essential part of a good Content Marketing Strategy.
- The rise of Instagram Stories (launched in 2016)
- Influencer marketing – most rewarding tactics.
- Increase in Chatbot integration and automated humane replies.
- Platforms like Youtube | Facebook taking serious steps towards creators spreading negative content over social media.
Many of the above trends are still to be followed. However, with the ever-changing algorithms and the platforms – let’s look at what awaits in the year of 2018.
Live Video content is here to stay
Based on the recent policy upgrade by Facebook; wherein the algorithm is going to rank posts / content that generates pure organic engagement (comments | likes | shares ) higher on the quality scale and make them visible in more user feeds.
Live video is one such piece of content that generally receives 6 times the engagement as compared to normal video uploads. Live feed usually results in live engagement in the form of comments and likes.
Building Content that is Native to the platform
Gone are the days when random Social Media Posts managed to get you decent traction. FB loves to promote content that is uploaded natively on its platform. With the rise of so many platforms, it’s become more crucial than ever to build content that’s native to the platform.
Each and every platform has a specific persona that it caters to, who consume content in the way the platform displays it. For example – Instagram is a young platform catering more to the world of Millenials and Gen-Z. The feature that is used most nowadays by this age-group is Stories.
Stories is a pure mobile video play – in other words – It is built around the fact that most of the times while using Instagram people are going to be using their mobiles in the portrait / vertical mode. Therefore, if you want to communicate on Stories you better start putting content that fits the aspect ratio of 9:16 (1080 wide x 1920 tall). This is the reverse of a widescreen video that we are generally used to looking at i.e. 16:9 (1920 wide x 1080 tall).
Tip: Automatically sharing of an Instagram post on to Facebook is a big no-no.
To simplify – build content around the quirks of each and every platform and you will surely succeed in 2018.
It’s all about the Community
Mark Zuckerberg really underlines the idea of community building when he mentions – “We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us.“ Come to think of it – isn’t that what social media was all about?
One can see this is a renaissance of sorts – we are coming back to our roots of what being social really meant. Humane, emotion-driven content that packs a message and brings all the people who consumed it together rallying towards a cause, mission or movement – will be the true winner.
Messaging Apps are an essential to Customer Service
If you have read the article till now – you will understand that the general focus is on being more and more personal and organic in communication. The key takeaway here is, “People connect with People”.
The recent release of Whatsapp business is a testimony to this. More than 4 billion users worldwide are using messaging apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger …. Messaging makes the brands communicate with their audience in a more humane and personalised way. Customer service online will never be the same again.
Messaging provides faster and an easier way to connect, communicate and get assistance from your favourite brand. Brands will have a whole new way to promote new products, give offers and solve customer queries in a flash. This will surely lead to higher customer retention. Thereby, making it a win-win for the brand as well as the customer.
Conclusion
It’s never too late to start taking small steps towards your big digital and social media success in 2018. Following the above trends, you can be sure to be on top of the social media chain.
Social Media is an ever-evolving world in itself. And there’s no one strategy that covers it all. In case you need assistance with building your social media strategy or just want us to review it – drop in a line at [email protected]
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