By Chris Christoff, Business.com Writer | May 15, 2019
If you aren’t spending time researching current and future social media trends as a way to enhance your marketing strategy, you are likely losing out a huge opportunity to create conversions, build your email list and improve your lead generation. That’s because social media is one of the best ways to leverage your business, with about 3.5 billion social media users worldwide.
You already know your target audience is scouring these platforms and staying active sharing content and interacting with brands. What’s important is how you leverage this information so you end up with the best results possible for your business.
Here are five social media trends you should pay attention to if you are looking to boost your marketing strategy and put your brand on top:
Personalized content
Since each individual has different needs, it can be difficult to create social media content that’s personalized to your audience. While it may be a tough task, it’s not impossible. Taking time to analyze your analytics will tell you exactly what your audience wants, what interests them, and how you can cater to their needs. Personalizing your content to your target market will get you much further than spewing out generic posts that don’t appeal much to anyone.
It’s best to start with content that offers value for free. Beyond analytics, ask your audience what they want to see more of. Most social platforms allow you to set up polls and surveys so that your followers can answer questions or vote on a topic. This will give you insight into what they want more of so you can grow your following effectively while keeping your current followers happy and intrigued.
Live streaming
Over the last couple of years, live streaming video has taken off and worked wonders for brands. More and more social platforms are seeing spikes in user engagement and interaction by adopting live streaming as a way to connect with users.
Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all have live stream functionality. It’s become the newest way to connect with your audience and increase traffic to your content. Viewers love getting a look behind-the-scenes of their favorite brands and getting to know more about businesses they could potentially invest in.
High-quality content
This one seems like a no-brainer when it comes to general content marketing, but too few social media marketers put the same effort into their social media content. How you represent your brand on your social channels determines your following, engagement rate and revenue. Your social media matters because it’s the gateway to leading users back to your website and checking out more of your content.
If any content posted to your social media isn’t high-quality and doesn’t offer value or insight of any sort, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Go through previous posts and gauge the value you’re offering your audience. If they’re boring, generic, and don’t include actionable calls to action that drive activity, you’re missing out on potential conversions and ROI.
Influencer marketing
It’s time all businesses are incorporating influencer marketing into their social media marketing strategy. Research from Twitter found that 49 percent of its users rely on influencers for product recommendations. This shows the type of impact influences have on people’s buying decisions.
Using influencers to promote your brand and its products and services is a great way to connect with your audience on a deeper level and show them that their favorite people endorse your business. It boosts your credibility and shows your audience you’re worth their coin.
Monitoring analytics
While it might seem obvious that those running a business should be monitoring their analytics, too few actually are. Those that aren’t don’t have a clear understanding of how they can better market to their audience. Different metrics can mean different things between platforms, but for the most part, you can easily differentiate between them.
It’s important to track the following metrics:
- Engagement: How your followers interact with your content
- Reach: The number of unique visitors to your account
- Likes: The number of unique likes on a post or account
- Impressions: How many times your post has been seen
Only by monitoring your social media activity will you be able to optimize your marketing strategy so you see a boost in conversions.
These days, having an optimized social media marketing strategy can make or break your business efforts. It’s the key to connecting with your audience, growing a following, and leading them back to your website. Staying tuned to the trends can help you come up with ways to keep your audience interested, while still growing your business.
This article was repurposed from Business.com on 16 May 2019.