2017 brought a lot of change in the world of social media. Although we can’t predict exactly what 2018 will bring, we can prepare your marketing plan and allow it to adapt to change.
BIGGEST CHANGES FROM 2017
The launch of the ‘Live Video’ has been an exciting way to interact with users in real time through Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Twitter’s “Go Live” feature. We also saw new technology, like virtual and augmented reality, propelling us into the future of social media marketing.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN 2018?
More live video.
Build a stronger brand personality and engage with their customers in real time! Live Video has now been built into all of the common social media networks. A study from Livestream found some very compelling reasons why brands should find ways to engage with their audiences through live video. Here’s what they found.
- 80% of people would rather watch a live stream video from a brand they follow than read that brand’s blog.
- 82% of people would rather watch a live stream video from a brand they follow than read a social media post.
- People spend an average of 2.8 minutes watching standard videos, yet they spend 5 minutes on live streams.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality has the potential become an exciting marketing tool and reinvent the way marketers share information, demo products, and engage audiences.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality now enables marketers to alter their customer’s real-life experiences. Snapchat was one of the first networks to adopt augmented reality into their platform. It started off organically with users seeing dancing hotdogs and their bitmojis dancing around. The most recent update allows brands to use the AR experience for paid lenses! Really the possibilities are endless but we see this being huge for events or in store use.
Disappearing Content
Vanishing content has a certain appeal to customers who fear missing out on special deals or exclusive content. Brands are now leveraging this type of content to drive urgency and action from their audience. Where do you see this now? Instagram stories! We love using stories for many of our clients when they have an event, sale, special or sneak peaks. This also adds more of that ‘real’ aspect which is the underlying message in all of the trends we are seeing for 2018.
Social Messaging Change
Your social message MUST provide value. There must be a point and some type of importance in EACH post you share. Keep it relevant & straight forward. Get to the point. You have less than 8 seconds to grab the attention of your viewer, make it count
PLAN FOR 2018
Before you plan your marketing you need to know the essentials:
Social Media Goals
Why does your business need a social presence? What are you hoping to achieve?
Here are some examples of common social media goals:
• Increase exposure and brand awareness
• Increase exposure and brand awareness
– How social can help: Impressions, Reach & Followers
• Increase brand engagement
– How social can help: Engage your audience with likes, comments & shares
• Generate new leads
• Drive web traffic
• Grow revenue
Organic Tactics
Using free tools provided by the social networks to share posts, respond to customers, and interact with your social community.
• Share events or sales to other local community pages, events or groups.
• Build your following by following influencers and accounts on Instagram & Twitter.
• Research and use key hashtags that your audience uses!
• Share blog posts.
• Reward your customers, run contests, sales or giveaways.
• Customer reviews.
Paid Tactics
• Reflect and audit your 2017 social content, try to identify your most effective content pieces.
• Think of ways you can retarget or update your content to ensure that what you share on social is reaching your target market through the right channels.
• Boost posts with minimal text that are performing well.
• Know your audience. If you want to reach a larger audience base you need to know and understand how your audience talks, what they like, where they live, where they play and times they are active so you can target the right audience in your paid ads.
• Target your existing customer base.
• Target people who have completed a specific CTA.
• Target recent customers or your most engaged audience.
