Social Media Marketing Trends Of 2018
Social media marketing trends are pivotal to know, especially for digital marketing experts. These experts have to create marketing strategies that require the knowledge of latest trends prevailing in the digital world. The top social media trends are enumerated as follows:
Chatbots are expected to make customer service better and faster. The newer versions of chatbots are smarter and human-like. Therefore, its presence as a cardinal part of future digital marketing strategy is inevitable.
This observation is based on two facts. First off, according to Gartner, 20 percent of business content is machine generated. Secondly, Facebook has reported to have observed more than 100,000 active bots on Facebook Messenger, thus making use of chatbots central for marketing purposes.
Ephemeral content would drive more engagement as it appears more authentic and calls for immediate action. It is due to this realization that various social media startups were conceived such as Snapchat, Facebook stories, Instagram stories, and so on.
The marketers are also benefiting from this trend as the ephemeral message instill a sense of urgency in the minds of potential consumers, otherwise their discount or any other promotions will end. Thus, more customers are buying now than later. Such tactics benefits the company and its marketers.
The rise of augmented reality is providing a new way to the marketer and their interaction with their customers. Further, the declaration of Apple to include augmented reality into its devices has compelled social media marketers and users to figure out a way to integrate augmented reality with social media apps. Snapchat, through the introduction of a new AR feature has let its user to have a taste of a new technology with its endless variety of face-filters.
Another trend that has gathered a traction, is the rising trend of interaction between the marketers and the followers of the firm. Moreover, the effect of such interaction and engagement with the follower has increased the efficacy of the marketing message. This assertion is confirmed by the Sprout Social index in which it is observed that one out of every three customers will mention the name of a brand in their accomplishments.
More and more brands are not banking on social listening. Social listening is the practice of tracking the user’s conversations that are centered on particular phrases and marketers use those phrases or words to create new opportunities by creating solutions or content for that specific audience. In this way, the company can serve its targeted segment well by responding to their unique needs within the segment.
With the advent of social media, a unique culture of call-out has emerged and such culture has, to a large extent, increased the accountability of their bands. When consumer’s find that there is something in the brand, they use social media to make their voice heard within their network. In this way, social media is also a watch guard on the various governmental institutions.