Social media is always evolving, like every other digital platform. New trends, ideas and unspoken rules are always popping up.
For the most part, these changes are slowly introduced and quite predictable. I think no one was surprised to see Google + shut down for example.
In this post we will share a few of the trends set to dominate social media marketing in 2019.
Social monitoring
Social monitoring (listening) is when a brand actively looks around the web and social media platforms to find all mentions of that brand or any keywords they want to keep an eye on.
It includes untagged brand mentions on social media, the monitored keywords that signal the interest to buy a product, mention on blogs, in the news and on forums. The primary goal of social listening is to provide customer service and maintain reputation. Of course there are many others but these are the big two.
The real development comes from the trend in 2019 to use social media listening for lead generation and social selling. Only a very few number of brands do this but the number is rising as more and more realise the potential of offering products/services to those who precisely need it at that moment on social media.
Given that people are actively sharing their frustrations, ideas, and recommendations on social media, social listening usage will continue to grow, and expand to include new possibilities.
Live Video Content
Video content has become the most consumed form of content on the internet and some experts say that nearly 80% of content we consume online will soon be video.
This is especially true for live videos. Having always been popular on YouTube, the trend has now taken over Facebook and Instagram, to the point when we get notified when someone is going live.
The authenticity of live videos make then more attractive. People pay less and less notice to posts that are obviously sales. People pay more attention to posts that look real, like they have been posted by a real person, meaning live videos tend to appeal to that side of social media users. Live videos raise the perceived trustworthiness and relevance of a brand. It is definitely a trend you don’t want to ignore.
It goes without that you should deliver exciting and engaging content, just as you would on a blog or anywhere else, but we’ll mention this anyway, just in case.
The main reason why video is getting more and more popular is the ease of filming, and even on a rather good production level. Whilst some audience can be forgiving, the risks of spontaneous live video is that things can go wrong on the technical side. Live streams that cut out due to technical issues are a big no-no, it only serves to embarrass the brand.
Micro-influencers
Social media influencers have become a major trend over the last few years. With the birth of Instagram stars, Twitter influencers and YouTube millionaires. Their every post, vlog or tweet is seen instantly by millions of people, TV makers can only dream of similar exposure. The power of social media influencers cannot be ignored. You can read more on what we think about Influencers over here.
As the number of social media influencers has grown over time, so has the prices for their services. This has lead business to look for alternatives in the form of micro-influencers.
Micro-influencers exist in every single marketing niche. They typically have following sof fewer than 10,000 people but their followers are engaged and genuinely interested in what they have to talk about. Micro-influencers have a much lower reach, but are generally considered to be the experts in their niche.
They typically won’t have existing contracts or deals as they aren’t massively targeted by advertisers at the moment. On the whole they’ll be trustworthy and down to earth individuals. The marketing possibilities when utilising micro-influencers in your niche could be well worth the investment in 2019.
Personalisation
With the vast amount of information being uploaded every single day it’s becoming easier and easier to get insights into information about your audience sitting behind the screen. This has opened the doors to all sorts of personalisation, which has, in turn, increased consumer expectation for the same.
Content, products, emails – all of it is currently based on the consumer’s purchase history, clicked links, social media posts, and alternative behaviour. Booking.com, as an example, notifies you regarding deals within the locations you’ve been to, Netflix offers shows to watch based on your tastes, Amazon and eBay show products similar to those you’ve bought before. And this is often before you even think about Google and Facebook – they know a lot about us and use this info to form a personalised experience.
While there are some who shudder at the thought of big brother watching everything you do, there are benefits of personalised marketing for the consumer which isn’t something they’re about to give up any time soon.
It’s been said around 96% of marketers believe personalisation advances the relationship with customers. Whilst they might be concerned about privacy, they still appreciate being offered product suggestions they’ve been searching for as well as deals for their local shops.
Timeliness
The almost immediate future of marketing is real-time communication. The social media trends in marketing are the 24/7 customer support, real-time social selling, chatbots, and constant monitoring for a potential social media crisis.
Real time communication is so important for companies on social media. This is because customers continue to use products, talk about brands and buy new items at every given moment. This has been happening for a while, but the technology curve and business change rate hasn’t caught up – until now. We have tools to search for keywords relating to your customers, tools to schedule content at all hours of the day and chat bots that can offer immediate help based on your customers most common questions.
2019 will see customers expecting their complaints and messages to be replied to instantaneously, and most likely won’t get surprised when you comment straight away on their post about a fault with a competitors product offering yours as the alternative.
This is now the world we live in where connectivity and convenience is driving marketing technology. People want their problems solved and their needs met, now.
Conclusion
GetBranded cannot wait for these trends to become more significant in 2019, and start to utilise them more and more for our clients.