4 Trends You’ll See in the New Year
December 3, 2018
Social media might be the latest and greatest way to advertise, but its unpredictability makes it difficult to follow at times. With the new year perched just around the corner, it’s important to know what’s coming in 2019 in terms of social media trends, and how to begin catering your campaign to fit these popular methods.
Of course, some of the trends to come aren’t exactly new, just growing in popularity. Here are 4 of the best ways to stay relevant with your social media campaigns in 2019.
1. Social Media Monitoring: Also known as social media listening, this method of monitoring various feeds for mentions of a brand or keyword is pegged to be a front runner in social media marketing strategies in the new year. Fortunately, there are multiple apps and tools which can be used to make this task faster and easier.
What’s the point? Social media monitoring not only lets you see what’s being said about your product or service, it also gives insight into the public’s opinion on various other brands, keywords and hashtags spanning the internet. Staying one step ahead of the competition in the new year means doing a little bit of undercover work to scope out what’s going viral and which brands are being mentioned in popular threads.
Once you know what’s grabbing the attention of potential consumers, you can cash in on the popularity of a keyword by using it in your own content. Of course, you need to be careful how and where you use it, so it still sounds relevant and natural in your text, but at least you’ll be part of the results in a web search which utilize said keywords.
2. Small Scale Social Media Influencers: During the great age of television, the commercial was the best way to reach the masses on a daily basis. Now, with social media being king of everybody’s daily screen time, YouTube celebrities, Twitter stars, and Professional Instagrammers are the best way to reach your target audiences.
Using social media influencers to spread your brand name, product or service isn’t new, but it has become more expensive over the years. With these marketers having such lucrative accounts and large numbers of followers, companies are paying major money to be part of the magic and have their products advertised online. 2019 Is going to see a lot more work with influencers but on a much smaller scale. Micro-influencers are small scale social media influencers with smaller, but still relevant, groups of followers. For example, one of these micro celebs might have 15,000 followers instead of 1-million followers. So, you still have your content viewed by thousands, but you pay far less. In fact, some of these small-time influencers will review and share your brand simply in exchange for some free merchandise to show their viewers. Those in the beauty industry have had it particularly lucky with this style of advertising as YouTube channels catering to beauty and health use these samples to share experiences with their audience as their own content. You help them, and they help you in return, it’s the perfect marketing relationship.
3. More Videos: Videos are in no way new territory for social media or the internet at large, but they are becoming more popular. In fact, research suggests that very soon as much as 80% of the content we see online will be streamed in video form, rather than read or viewed as a photograph. Instagram changed the social media game forever by turning what used to be a place to share content and stories into a way to convey emotions and actions through photographs.
The latest polls are showing that the future of social media content is heading toward video messages. This is an incredible change considering how long videos have been around and the impact sites like YouTube have had on the internet at large. How will social media really begin evolving the video landscape in 2019? That’s yet to be seen, although some platforms, such as Facebook, have begun rolling out unique twists on video feeds, such as their watch together option for video streaming with friends.
24/7 Contact and Sharing: Yes, social media is already a 24/7 activity, which individuals from around the globe can share and enjoy all day and all year long. However, businesses aren’t always open 24/7, and customer support and community interaction are, therefore, limited by this online availability. 2019 is scheduled to see far more automated services in terms of chatbots and even content updates.
Making yourself available to your consumers isn’t the only thing to consider in 2019, being in touch with consumers yourself is also key. More and more businesses are taking an active role in tagging customers, responding to comments, and sharing content from other brands which they believe their clientele will respond to. Social media isn’t like old methods of marketing where you need to get your name across and nobody else’s. It’s about creating more buzz, more likes, shares, comments, and converted traffic to your ecommerce site.
Whatever trends you decide to follow in 2019, stay true to your brand, use complimentary and relevant content whenever possible, and make yourself available to your customers. The new face of business is all about being approachable, and a brand can’t seem approachable if consumers are unable to approach it. Social media is all about reaching out and being present in the marketing moment, so make it your own and be open to the possibility of change and growth.