The Most Significant Social Media Marketing Trends

The internet has 4.2 billion users out of which 3.397 billion people actively use social media daily. Additionally, the marketers’ interest in this part of the internet has also given the social media market a much-needed boost. This has further shaped the social media world into various strategies and trends that can work in anyone’s favor if used correctly.

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Keeping this in mind, we will take a closer look at the major social media trends that will significantly influence the market throughout the year. So, let us examine each trend to ensure whether it will be a success or not!

1. Social Media Television and Vertical Videos

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The introduction of IGTV by Instagram took the social platforms by storm because nobody has seen anything like this. This combined with the vertical video format has significantly impacted the way marketers create and market their content.

Till now, social television is only limited to Instagram; however, as Instagram continues to rise in popularity, other social platforms will soon have their own take on this trend. Now, coming back to why social TV and vertical videos is a growing trend is because it is going to affect how marketers create content and how consumers consume it.

Since social TV’s content stays at the top of one’s feed, it will also be at the top of their minds every time they log back. Not only will your content stay above everything else, but it will also get the desired attention from the users. Additionally, this will create the biggest engagement opportunities for businesses struggling for online traffic.

2. Automation and Personalization of Customer Services

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Thanks to the fast data services, many customers form quick opinions based on how seriously the brands take their queries. A small delay in response and brands have done a great job in losing their customers.

Based on the certain response-time expectations of consumers, many major brands have started to rely on AI and chatbots are a prime example of this. Although, the acceptance of this AI-driven program is still low; however, the adoption rate is slowly improving. All of this can be attributed to the fact that programmers are now designing chatbots with machine learning capabilities. This means that they will retain consumers’ responses and learn from them to provide valuable assistance.

Till now, these advanced chatbots are only limited to Facebook’s Messenger app. However, because of its accelerating growth, such AI-driven channels will find its way into other social media platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn.

Moving on, it is a known (and unpleasant) fact that AI stores users’ information to perfect its machine learning abilities. Because of this, it curates, perfects, and predicts customer responses before consumers have initiated conversation. This trend driven by AI capabilities will help brands offer their consumers with a personalized experience. So before any contact with the brand, AI with its ML abilities will gather information, predict consumers’ activities through their search history or other preference and offer products/services based on the gathered data.

3. The Rise of Micro-Influencers

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What started out as a passion for many people, has now turned into a million dollar industry. A few years ago, we just had a few people sharing their skills on the social media platform. Fast forward few years and now we have major influencers in the form of Instagram, Facebook or YouTube stars with millions of followers. Their every move is noticed by their dedicated fans and their tweets are an instant hit among their followers.

This created an opportunity for many brands to use these stars to market their products. But as their influence grew stronger, so did their rates! This compelled many businesses to look for alternatives to reach the masses which gave rise to the trend of micro-influencers.

Although, micro-influencers have a small following; however, their followers are loyal and genuinely interested in their daily activities. Also, since these micro-influencers do not get major deals, they are extremely humble, engaged with their followers, and provide honest opinions. Because of this, their demand will gradually increase in this year with many major and minor brands recognizing their potential.

4. A New Age of Storytelling

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Snapchat introduced the world to stories’ mode in 2014 and since then, many platforms have had their own spin on the said feature. From Facebook to Instagram, everybody wants to cash in on this feature because it offers interactive and visually intriguing content that fits the short attention span of their consumers.

Although 24-hour stories have been quite popular, it will still dominate the current year because it offers a level of engagement and in-app reach opportunities like never before. This is something that the industries cannot afford to ignore especially since it provides opportunities to target people of all ages.

5. Social Listening will be all Rage

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Almost all of the consumer brands have a social media presence which makes it easy for their consumers to mention them in their posts. Some of these mentions are tagged while others are untagged which makes it impossible for businesses to track such mentions. However, all of this can be resolved with the general acceptance of social listening which will be a major trend in the years to come.

Social listening requires monitoring of digital conversations about a certain brand to understand what customers want. In simple terms, social listening happens when industries use tools to crawl the web to find all the ways their brands have been mentioned by people. This provides businesses with various opportunities to enhance their services and further cement their reputation. Specifically, in the current year, industries will rely on social listening to generate lead and sell their image online in a subtle manner.

So far, only a minority is benefitting from this trend. However, the trend will gradually increase in popularity as many industries want to target people that show even the slightest interest in their products/services.

Conclusion

The previous year has been extremely popular with the social media platforms and this year is no different. With 2019, the same, old trends are still in play; however, these trends are now more refined and enhanced to better suit the interest and taste of their consumers.

Moving on, it all depends on the digital marketing UK company that you hire and how they use the channels available for marketing your services as not every social media platform is going to work in your favor. So, listen to your needs, heed you consumers’ wishes and utilize a platform that makes it all easy for you!

Author’s Bio: Anne Taylor is a serial blogger with technical and business background. She loves writing about digital marketing, IT industry and workplace productivity. She is currently the content writer for Hire PHP Developers.

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