5 Social Media Trends You Can’t Miss in 2019
2017 has been a big year for the social media and, despite some ups and downs as well, the positive trend continued in 2018. What social media trends will be worth the time and investment in 2019? Save your spot to explore 10 social media trends that will position your business for success in 2018 and beyond.
In this blog, we will share this year’s trends and offer practical ways for you to put them into action.
1. Live Videos
Live video content has made big waves in 2017 and live videos continuous to thrive. Today, videos are everywhere, every time. From a few years now video-marketing has become one of the favorite strategies for social media advertiser.
It should come as no surprise that video-marketing continues to be a popular trend in 2019 as well.
In fact, live video content has become so popular today that roughly 95% of businesses say it will be a crucial part of their 2019 marketing strategies as well, according to a recent study.
Why live videos?
Consumers love it. Research shows that 80% of audiences prefer watching live video from brands as opposed to reading a blog or read social media posts. As a result, the most popular social media platforms have implemented the live streaming options in their channels.
In 2019, a solid video-marketing strategy won’t be able to avoid the use of videos for its campaigns. But you have to be careful: because not only it’s important to create and share appealing videos for your business, but it is also essential to monitor the performances after the release, to help you improve your strategy.
Social media marketers aren’t the only ones taking an advantage of live streams. Anyone can share live videos to interact with their family and friends on social media.
The increasing popularity of live video streaming means your organization needs to get on board with this trend right now. Businesses need to recognize the strategies, how this social media trend can help increase engagement with social media followers.
Start going live on all your social media channels and respond to the user’s comments in real time. This will help you maximize your brand reach and generate the leads for your business.
2. Chatbots
Like everything else, chatbots are also evolving. Now the chatbots are being integrated with social media platforms.Almost every business on the internet is using chatbot to communicate with its customers on social media. This trend is growing at a rapid rate today.
The possibilities here are seemingly endless. Take a look at how Pizza Hut uses the chatbots to make it easy for its customers to order food through social media:
As you can see from this Pizza Hut chatbot example, these bots can be used directly to drive more sales and increase your revenue streams.These bots recognize the word phrases sent by the customers. Their automatic responses are based on how these chatbots are programmed.
A recent survey suggests that roughly 80% of businesses have used or plan to use chatbots by 2020. We agree that nothing can replace the personal touch of a human response, well, at least not yet. But these chatbots out there are certainly on the right track.
3. Social Listening Tools
Whether you want to believe this or not, it’s the truth that social media platforms are listening to your conversations.
We are sure, you’ve seen it before. You’re talking about something with your friends and then you suddenly see an advertisement for it on social media channels.
It’s creepy? We know. But that’s the reality of this modern world we live in right now.
Marketing solutions like Sprout Social offer social listening tools to help you analyze the various audiences for your brand.
It gives you the opportunity to know what consumers are saying about your brand. But you can also use this social listening tool to monitor relevant keywords or hash tags used on social channels.
Through social listening, you can track your consumer’s conversations that revolve around specific phrases, words or brands. And then you leverage those words/phrases to find new opportunities to create the content specifically for the targeted audiences.
You can use this data to adjust your online marketing strategy accordingly and make sure you are targeting the right audience to increase your sales and revenue.
4. User-generated Content
User-generated content is content created by unpaid fans of the organizations that businesses can use to promote their services/products. It can come in the form of videos, photos, or memes. User-generated content is an extremely useful way of getting the customers involved with the business strategy, which leads to a better, overall customer experience.
Word-of-mouth referrals play a significant role in this technology-driven market even today. People are very smart today but no longer respond to simple marketing tactics anymore. It’s not enough to tell your audience that they need a service/product. They want a story behind the service/product. User-generated content personalizes services/products in ways businesses simply can’t.
5. Influencer marketing is evolving
Influencer marketing isn’t a new concept but the way that it’s being used on social media channels is definitely changing today.
More specifically, organizations are starting to partner with the micro influencers to increase their credibility.
Micro influencers are people on social media channels who have a strong following but of course,don’t have a celebrity status.
While there’s no exact threshold, micro influencers typically have anywhere between 1,000 and 100,000 followers. Once a person crosses the 500,000 of followers, one can enter macro influencer territory. And anything that is higher than a macro influencer is considered to be a celebrity.
The reason why brands are so drawn to influencer marketing today is that they are cost-effective compared to other advertising expenses.
This is still a relatively new marketing trend, so influencers and brands alike are unsure of how to come up with the standardized pay scale. As of now, it’s anything goes.
Some businesses don’t even pay their influencers but they just send them free stuff for posting on social media channels.
But as we continue moving forward in the modern time, we are expecting micro influencers to be more business savvy and demand pay for the influencer’s efforts.
Marketers know that influencer’s followers trust their opinions. And won’t hesitant to spend money on influencer marketing as the New Year continues.
Social media marketing trends in today are all catered to personalizing the client’s experience by putting the client in charge. Today, businesses understand that they are now playing the role of a navigator; guiding your audiences to their services/products and letting them decide whether it’s right for them or not. Through social media, businesses can connect with their customers easily and quickly. And can help generate more revenue while rebuilding the trust by becoming more transparent, public figures.
Conclusion
Developments in social media are constantly changing in the modern world.
As a social media marketer, you’ve got to stay up to date with the latest social media trends to keep your finger on the pulse and effectively reach your target audiences.
Use this trend list as a reference and guide for positioning your social media marketing strategy.
