Predicting what will happen in 2015 with social media may require your very own crystal ball. That’s because social media is constantly changing, and trends are moving out just as new trends are moving in.
So what does that mean for digital marketing? Well it’s tough to say, because we simply don’t know what will happen. But we can predict based on what we see trending and picking up steam. Here is our top 4 list of new things in 2015 with social media.
Buy Button
In April of 2014, Facebook announced it will be rolling out an “autofill” feature that will allow users to check out with 450,000 e-commerce merchants across the web. While this was only a test, Facebook announced in September that it was partnering with PayPal and other pay sites to integrate its autofill feature. Apparently the test went well.
This is something that will take social media marketing to the next level. Handing consumers the ability to select products and check out through Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks is going to open an entirely new door for online marketing. Keep any eye out for this new trend in the new year.
Connecting Site To Social
Any time you can connect your website to your social pages is a bonus. This will ultimately increase traffic to your website, which can be a tough task. It will also attract the RIGHT traffic, resulting in greater user engagement.
How can you make the connection? Try social sharing buttons or enable social logins. Social sharing buttons on your blogs can really get your content out there for others to see. If a viewer likes what they read, they will most likely share it, and making it sharable with the click of a button is convenient to your audience.
Build Trust With Videos
More and more, we are seeing promotional posts take a major hit, and now Facebook is saying its going to ban overly promotional posts starting in January. With promotional posts taking a hit and competition increasing at a rapid rate, companies are going to rely more on influencers to spread the word about their business.
That’s where video is going to come into play. Consumers are already turning to videos to learn and build trust with particular businesses. Whether it’s an educational, customer service or a just a fun video, this is going to become a go-to source for consumers to learn about your business and who you are. Figure out a good video scheme and you will be growing your social members quickly.
A Participation Culture
If there’s one thing we’ve learned about social media in the last year, it’s that people want to become involved. They want to participate in a company’s contest, or even donate to a great cause.
Perhaps you’ve heard of this little trend that hit the social airways called ‘ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.’ During the summer months, you couldn’t hop on your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter feeds without seeing someone dumping ice water on their heads. The ALS Challenge finished with 4.4 million tweets, topped nearly 3 million unique Facebook videos and, most importantly, helped raise over $ 100 million for ALS research.
This should show you how much people want to become involved, and you will most likely see more of these strategies hitting the social networks in the next year. Should be interesting, or perhaps frightening, to see what people come up with.
What To Expect
As we mentioned before, unless you’re staring into your magical crystal ball, it’s going to be difficult to predict what will come of social media in 2015. The best thing to do is keep your eyes and ears open and pay attention to what’s hitting and what’s missing in the social world. More and more consumers are flooding social channels every day, so it’s important to make social media a part of your online strategies. Devise a social media strategy that best fits your company and consumers are sure to notice.
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