It's clear that social media is here to stay, but many businesses are still slow to adopt
a strategy on how to best utilize it for marketing.
New social networking platforms continue to appear and the existing ones, like Facebook
and Twitter, continue to evolve to keep up with the changing market.
We have analyzed the current trends in social media and have made some predictions for next
year so that you can be ahead of the curve.
Investment in Social Media is a Necessity It's already been clear that your business
should have a presence on social media, but in the coming year it's absolutely necessary.
Integrating social media into your marketing plan is key for generating leads, referrals
and brand recognition which in turn leads to higher revenue.
Brand awareness, word-of-mouth advertising, improved search rankings, and direct customer
interaction are just a few of the key benefits from having engaging social media pages.
Google+ is on the Rise Google+ already has the second highest number
of monthly users behind Facebook, and that user base continues to rise.
It's proving itself to be more than just another social network, with the integration of higher
SEO rankings for Google+ pages, improved social signals and a more personalized search experience
for users.
Also, with the new Google Authorship, You can link content you publish on a specific
domain to your Google+ profile.
Businesses that are having trouble keeping up with multiple social networks at once could
turn to Google+ as their main outlet because of all the benefits associated with content
search optimization.
Image is Everything We cannot emphasize this enough, but image
centric content is key in generating engagement on social media platforms.
Many studies show that users are much more likely to click on posts with images or videos
than just text-based content.
Coupling important information with eye-catching images or graphics is a great way to stand
out in the news feed, so do it.
The Rise of Micro-Video Vine and Instagram have revolutionized real-time
video sharing in social media.
With a max of 15 seconds for Instagram and 6 seconds for Vine, users can create short
pieces on their smartphones to share instantly with their fans.
We've already talked about the many benefits of using these services for small business
marketing, so it's only fair that more and more companies will be jumping on the video
bandwagon.
LinkedIn Will Become a Major Player LinkedIn has always been the #1 social networking
site for business professionals, boasting nearly 240 million users, but now with the
launch of its Influencers program, it will become a source for content creation and curation.
This program allows for selected "thought leaders" to share original content directly
with LinkedIn users.
Where LinkedIn was already a great source of information, now it will provide insight
from some of the best minds in business.
Looking ahead to the future is not easy, but if you keep these trends in mind going forward
with your social media plan, you should be ahead of the curve.