Modern marketing has proven to be dynamic but also volatile. It constantly goes through a barrage of both behavioral and technological shifts, and these are the major challenges of digital marketing as we have today. However, one factor that has remained constant in the face of all these changes on social media.
Social media marketing has grown to become an important marketing channel that most brands can hardly do without. In fact, it is sometimes viewed as a crucial leveler that both small and big brands can use for marketing their products and services. Given this, it becomes necessary to focus on social media marketing and consider its future top trends that you should know.
Below, we will discuss the top trends of the future of social media marketing.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is a trend that has been around for some time and it seems like this strategy will hang around for the foreseeable future. This is not a mere conjecture but a factual statement backed by statistical data. It has been established that more than 60% of marketers have resolved to increase their influencer marketing budget for the year 2021. This is because the ROI is $5.20 for each $1 spent (a favorable ROI). Influencers are usually individuals with large followings on social media. Therefore, a person with a lot of Instagram followers or Twitter followers is an influencer.
Influencers are very effective because of consumers' skepticism towards ads. They find it hard to trust faceless corporate brands. As a result of this, they are predisposed to trusting people that know, even though their relationship with such people is only online. There are various ways that social proof manifests. From family, friends, acquaintances, or even an e-commerce store's customer reviews section. The crux of this matter is that consumers attach more weight to such reviews than they do to brands.
Chatbots in Customer Service
In the past, the overwhelming majority of customers disliked the idea of communicating with a robot. People preferred talking to a real person instead of chatbots. However, this has begun to change. More and more consumers are starting to embrace the idea of interacting with chatbots? The reason for this is very simple and that's technological advancement. The chatbots that we have today are significantly smarter, faster, more effective, and more readily available than the old ones. With more advanced systems of the new ones, over 90% of businesses now report quicker resolution of complaints with chatbots. In addition, more than half of people are inclined to messaging companies instead of calling customer service and chatbots save close to 30% of costs for customer support.
Video content
Video content is not new to any one of us. It has dominated social media in recent years and its impact is non-negotiable. More than 90% of users in 2019 that watched a video on mobile shared it with others. The combined shares generated by image and text content are 1200% less than that of social video. This is a testament to the effect of video content in social media marketing. One significant variation of video content is live videos. This has become incredibly popular on social media these days. Although it was first launched on YouTube in 2008, this has now become a feature of other social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
According to a study carried out by Brandlive, more than 90% of marketers have either made or been thinking of deciding to add live videos to their social media marketing ideas. In fact, there are so many things that can be achieved through live videos. From launching new products to familiarizing the audience more with already existing products and demonstrating how to use products, the list is a bit long.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is already part of our daily social media use although many people do not realize that. When you use filters on Snapchat, Instagram or Facebook, what is at play is augmented reality. With AR, you get to give your face many different looks in photos. Heck, it can even be used during video calls.
It is important to state that AR has not yet been incorporated into product marketing. However, based on the look of things, it is only a matter of time before it starts to happen. Instagram is already on this and it won't take long before a lot of brands start towing that line.
Social Commerce
Social commerce is a merger of social media and e-commerce. It is also a major trend in the world of the social media marketing that promises to be around for some time. It has just started gaining mainstream attention but this had been building for a long time. Gen Z uses at least three times more time shopping on social media than the regular consumer and interestingly, that is done on Snapchat and Instagram. These are two places where influencers have a huge impact.
Furthermore, more than 40% of adults between the ages of 18 and 34 made use of social commerce frequently in 2019. Social commerce allows you to buy products without the need to leave the social platform. It will only continue to grow bigger and this will help marketers make shorter sales channels. In addition to that, it will increase consumer satisfaction by making purchases a lot smoother and quicker.
Employee Advocacy
Employee marketing is an indirect consequence of influencer marketing. The rise in influencer marketing also means a surge in the number of fake influencers. Due to this, brands have to invest heavily in analyzing influencers to determine their authenticity. It is now becoming hard to rely on influencers and the only solution to that is employee advocacy. This means your employees become your brand's influencers by talking about your brand on social media, thereby promoting it amidst their groups.
So, which of these tops trends do you think will have the most influence on the future of social media marketing?
