Winning Social Media Marketing Trends That Work

When speaking about social media, it’s essential to touch on the subject of trends and innovations in this sphere. We all know that the fast tempo of modern life dictates its rules — requiring us to keep up with changes, while adjusting to marketing strategies, and learning new terms.

But what are the main social media marketing trends in 2019? Here are five trends, which you should pay attention to and include in your promotion strategy.

1. Engaging and User-Oriented Content

Content has become the most important component of a successful promotional campaign and SEO strategy. The value and relevance of the content that you post must be your #1 priority, as its format determines your target audience.

What Has Experience Taught Us?

In previous years we saw content that wasn’t really user-oriented as it:

• Begged for engagement: “Hit the like button if you love your mother.”
• Included misleading headlines and clickbait: “Click to Know 99 Reasons Why You Use Your Pencil the Wrong Way.”
• Sounded too intrusive or sold something: “Buying product X is the best option for you. X is a new experience that you’ll regret not having tried before.”
• Got stuffed with keywords and links.

As a result, we had content that couldn’t be labeled as, “credible.” Nevertheless, building trust with one’s audience is one key component of a successful brand promotion campaign on social media.

What Should We Aim for?

Nowadays, every brand should focus on creating trustworthy content that connects with users and provides natural engagement — sparking interest and emotion.

“The content shouldn’t be underestimated. This is just the rule that every marketer should remember. But while the content itself should be stable in its value and relevance to the audience, the way you deliver your content and the format it must have should always be dictated by the trends of modern marketing,” says Emilia Pines, a content marketer at Take My Class.

So content for social media platforms in 2019 should:

• Be valuable and relevant to the target audience
• Be supported by credible information, illustrative material, and user experience
• Be structured and readable for the convenience of the users
• Be performed in different forms: infographics, videos, and images
• Be accurate and up to date

This means that the role of powerful and targeted content is now more important than ever before.

2. Social Listening

Social listening is a real innovation that invades social media on a final note. This tool allows us to monitor social media platforms for particular keywords or possible mentions of your brand’s name, industry, or topic. The opportunities offered by SL, which can’t be overestimated, include:

1. Being able to respond to all brand user questions and concerns. According to research by Sprout Social, 83% of consumers want brands to respond to them. Whenever your brand is somehow mentioned by a social media user, show how you want to communicate directly with them.
2. Being able to react promptly to the negative experiences or problems faced by your consumers. You want to know if certain brand problems require your attention.
3. Being able to increase customer engagement. You can discover the type of content that your target audience prefers and the topics that they are interested in. This way you will know how to adjust your content in the future.

Image Credit: SproutSocial

The number of brands that use social listening for nurturing their leads will grow in 2019, so you should pay attention to this trend too.

3. Micro-influencers

Micro-influencers are a new component of brand promotion strategies used by different companies. As the trust of big influencers starts to fade — the majority of social media users now understand the terms of cooperation between brands and successful bloggers — the importance of collaboration with micro-influencers grows as they have a more trustworthy relationship with their followers.

Though micro-influencers don’t have opportunities or the number of followers that big influencers have, they might stimulate more sales, as they are seen as a credible source of information, who aren’t as dependent on the cooperation with brands as the big bloggers.

So, you might have even more effective cooperation with the micro-influencers than with big ones, due to the fact that they might gain you more followers and buyers.

4. Stories

Speaking about trends, it’s impossible to mention stories and not discuss the one that came into our lives a few years ago and is now invading social media. Stories are a brilliant example of features that didn’t seem suitable for brand promotion but proved to be otherwise.

Image Credit: MadeWell

Many brands use stories on Instagram and Facebook to spread brand awareness at least once a month, while other brands post stories every day and, as a result, receive direct messages from interested followers. Social media users love stories because they are short, informative, convenient, and enjoyable. That’s why not using stories as part of your promotion campaign in 2019 might as well be a crime.

5. Chats and Messengers

Messengers and chatbots gain popularity each year. Is it because people seek out more communication, or is it because chatting is more convenient than calling? Who knows? But using this for your brand nowadays can be almost vital.

A few years ago, with the rise of messenger popularity, marketers learned that they had to change their strategies, and adjust to private chat trends. That’s why we now have access to the features that help us reach out to our customers, and promote our brand not only through social media platforms but through chat and messenger platforms as well.

Chatbots for customer service, follow-up messages, and e-commerce helpers as a part of marketing strategy will gain even more popularity in the future because:

• They provide access to a wider audience.
• They provide private interaction and in-depth customer experience.
• They are convenient to use on different devices.
• They promote the facility of speech through private channels.

Messengers and social media are tightly connected. As such, you should not ignore this trend, while planning your promotion campaigns.

Final Thoughts

Social media marketing is an inalienable part of the modern promotion strategy for every brand. It’s hard to imagine a marketing plan that doesn’t include the usage of promotion through different channels, including social media platforms.

Keeping up with the trends is essential, as they provide opportunities for brand promotion that you might be missing right now. So, pay attention to your social media marketing strategy, and make sure it applies the usage of modern trends for your benefit.

 

Author’s Bio: Regine Ward is a content creator for Take My Class, as well as a freelance blogger. She is fond of useful and educational materials, which help people to improve their marketing strategies, and spread brand awareness. Her experience in this niche allows her to create a lot of such material herself. This is why she spends most of her time creating useful articles.