Social media isn’t niche anymore.
People don’t occasionally go to their Friendster accounts to say something witty, and they don’t spend more time on their LiveJournal accounts than they do their MySpace.
Not only are all those sites essentially obsolete now, but social media itself has become an integral part of most people’s everyday life. People use social media to stay in touch, to research businesses, to network, to shop, to find a new house, and much more.
If you want to take full advantage of all that social media has to offer for marketing your business, you will need to stay on top of the latest trends. Here are some of the hottest social media marketing trends for 2016:
Increased Automation
Keeping up with all the posts you need to make on even one social media site can take up a lot of your time and resources.
Keeping up with multiple social media sites can be a full-time job.
You can meet your goals with social media while also reducing the time you spend on the job by automating some of the work with social media management software. Tools like HootSuite and Sprout Social allow you to schedule posts for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more, so you can spend an hour or so taking care of all your posts for the week.
You’ll still need to check in to respond to comments and do other outreach, but you’ll clear up a lot of time spent on publishing posts.
Paid Posts
Facebook and Twitter are now offering options for brands to promote their posts and get more exposure.
And doing so has proven to be necessary.
If you post on Facebook, you’ll only reach a small portion of your followers. The only way to reach more people is to pay for promotion.
More brands are accepting that paid promotion is just a part of social media now. Not only are they paying for ads for their brand profiles, but they are also paying to promote individual posts.
Twitter also offers these options, and it likely won’t be long before you start seeing the option on other social media sites.
More Video
Video is the star of marketing right now, and that continues to be true even on social media.
Some people just prefer to watch video rather than read posts or long articles. More people are expecting to see video on social media sites outside of YouTube.
You should either be creating videos to post on your social channels, or you should be sharing them. Choose videos that are entertaining, inspiring or informative, and make sure they are relatively short. Under a minute is best, but don’t go over five minutes.
Shopping Capabilities
In the past, brands have promoted their products on social media to try to lure visitors to their sites to buy.
Now, brands are able to offer customers the ability to purchase right from their social media.
Sites like Pinterest and Twitter are including “buy” buttons right on posts that advertise a product. Users are able to purchase immediately instead of clicking through on the link.
Even on sites that don’t offer these options, referrals are leading to increased sales. Businesses are taking notice and are promoting more of their products for sale on social media.
Social Search
Many people spend so much time on social media that they use it to get their news, find new products and more.
Instead of going to Google or other search engines to look for information, more people are staying right on their social media site and performing a search. Some actually prefer the results they get since they include video, images, and customer comments.
Brands are taking notice of this trend and are providing more content and advertising to ensure that they appear in the results when customers search.
More Mobile Marketing
Mobile is the way of the future, and anyone who’s not on board will be left behind.
Not only is Google prioritizing sites that are optimized for mobile, but it is actively penalizing sites that are not.
Marketers need to think about how the content they share on social media is showing up on mobile devices. That might mean sharing different images or video, or creating shorter and easier-to-scan content.
The more you can do to ensure that all of your content is optimized for mobile, the better your online marketing efforts will perform.
Using the Right Tools
CodeFuel has designed multiple tools that can help you reach more of your target audience on social media and other channels.
Whether you want to maximize your advertising revenue or increase engagement, our tools can help by placing your content on the right channels and in the right format to reach the right audience.
Use our tools in conjunction with your social media marketing strategy and maximize your results.
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