Over the years, social media marketing has taken a bigger role and it’s no surprise that in 2017, social media continues to play a huge role in marketing. As part of marketing practices, social media is one that keeps changing every year. This year, there are certain trends that are going to play a huge role in highlighting the use of social media marketing.
New Areas of Communication
While it is understood that social media was crafted to help people communicate with each other, it underwent a major change when businesses started using them to advertise and interact with their target audience. Now, social media platforms are undergoing changes that don’t just make it easier for businesses to interact with their target audience, they also make the buying process easier.
Pickiness in Using Social Media Platforms
While old social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, SnapChat, Twitter and YouTube have a well-established reputation with guaranteed results behind them, there is a definite among different industries and businesses. While linking and sharing content across these platforms is common, most businesses have a favorite one that they tend to use more than others.
For example: For many in the food and retail industry, Instagram and YouTube are great platforms since they allow one to show off their products with ease. For service related businesses, Twitter and Facebook are bigger favorites to help address problems instantly. SnapChat is great for increasing exposure, reaching out to your target audience and sharing new materials.
Authenticity in Content
Live streaming content is becoming more popular, that allows businesses to interact with their target audience in an organic manner. With Twitter’s Periscope, Facebook Live and SnapChat and Instagram’s story feeds, many users enjoy viewing live feeds and streams of events that they might be unable to view otherwise. Even the data for this factor backs it up and millennials have been the most active viewers of live video content in 2016. With the New Year, these statistics are only getting stronger.
Bigger Use of Social Media Messaging
More people prefer to communicate over social media messaging apps such as Messenger, Whatsapp, WeChat and the total number of users they acquire rivals those of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. With more people paying attention to businesses that incorporate a personal touch and allow for one-on-one interaction in their business practices, social media messaging apps are going to play a larger role as they help businesses to do just that.
Chatbots and Customer Service
Communication with consumers is tricky at best, particularly since consumers nowadays want round the clock help with zero waiting time. For this reasons, chatbots are becoming more popular as they can improve the quality of customer support by providing responses for minor problems. Chatbots are becoming more advanced and with can now even address different problems. Facebook has already added a chatbot to Messenger and results have been so favorable that many other social media platforms are looking to introduce one into their business practices as well.
