Most brands these days are using all types of social media to get in touch with potential customers. Competition is tough and new ways to animate audience are being invented on a daily basis. Having a great website, even with all the SEO plugins, just isn’t enough anymore, if you’re not up to date with the social media. It has become much harder for brands to get noticed. People’s attention span has recently decreased to only 8 seconds, which leaves so little space for companies to get their voice to be heard. The coming year 2018 will bring a couple of new trends into social media marketing, and here are the ones that are going to make the biggest impact.
The Cost of Social Advertising Will Rise
In the past, social media marketing costs were almost non-existent, but nowadays things have changed. Competition is tough and all the companies are investing more resources into this kind of promotion. They have realized that social media marketing is a more affordable way to reach their target market. Because of this, you can expect to see more ads in the future, increased competition is seeing the cost of digital advertising increase year on year by 12%. As more and more brands realize the importance of social media and their effect on business promotion, the number of ads, as well as their cost, rises steadily.
Influencer Marketing Will Continue to Rise
Influencer marketing has been huge during 2017, and you can expect this trend to continue into 2018. Influencer marketing has proven that deals with the right influencers can bring exposure to new audiences as well as drive awareness and sales. It’s not something that should be disregarded. Research has shown that three-quarters of people look for advice on their social media networks, and that 40% of people have bought something based on content published by a social media influencer.
Drastic Grow of Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is very close to becoming a mainstream thing. Many companies will incorporate it into their products, like Apple did with its iPhone8 and iPhoneX. More promotions will be done through AR, in order to impress customers and provide them with a great experience, so they would want to come back for more. AR is something more and more users want, which means it needs to be seriously taken into consideration in the future social media marketing plans.
Expansion of Live Streaming
Live streaming will also have a boom in 2018. Thanks to a rising interest of both users and brands, it has become one of the biggest parts of the social media, and its part will be even bigger with time. This option is great because it can help create a more “human” relationship between you and your followers. All of a sudden, a company can go from being a known by their name, to putting a face on it. It also gives the fans the opportunity to interact with the content, or each other, immediately. One of its biggest advantages is the fact that it can reach a market that you didn’t market in the first place, through the word-of-month on social medial. It is very clear why we can expect live streaming to bloom in the next year.
Video is the King
The importance of video content on social media has grown in the past years and it will continue to do so in 2018. Its huge impact will get even bigger. Statistics show that people are more influenced by video. In fact, they say that social media video generates 12 times more shares than the text and image combined. Video is a definite number one, and will obviously keep that position for some time.
Stories Have High Engagement
Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram Stories all have platforms allowing a brand to publish ephemeral content (the type that is visible for up to 24 hours, before it disappears). This type of content allows for more personalization and authenticity, and many brands have used this to their advantage in 2017. They are using their Instagram profiles to promote their high-quality content and, since it is available only for limited time, fans are compelled to take action, which drives awareness, grows your base of followers and increases conversions. Put all of this together, and it makes sense to expect the best engagement rates from ephemeral content.
Guest article written by: Carl is Founder of Plankton, a Wellington based Digital Agency specializing in social media, marketing, video and websites. Follow Carl on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/planktonadvertising/
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