Around 4.59 billion people will be using social media worldwide as of 2023. It’s an increase from the mere 2.5 billion users in 2017. In a short period of time, social media has managed to become an essential part of our life. Through carefully thought-out social media marketing techniques, what first served as a way to remain in touch with friends and family quickly evolved into a conduit for brands and enterprises to engage with their target audience.
Marketers and companies swarm to social platforms in the hopes of interacting with their target clients because social media is so important to consumers’ lives. On the other hand, social media are overrun with content, and there is the fierce rivalry. Keeping up with the most recent social media marketing trends can support your plan and help you stand out from the competition.
Top 8 Social Media Trends
1. Interactive Content
Everyone aspires to be the marketing lead. It makes sense that you would want to outperform the competition, get more attention, and close more sales. You can attain those objectives by using interactive content. Although interactive content has been available for a while, marketers have only just started to take it seriously. Interactive features appear a little scary in a world where static copy is used to rule.
Utilizing material to engage your audience based on their participation is known as interactive content marketing. It resembles a conversation in some ways, but one in which you are not required to take part. Insurance firms that provide free, quick quotes are a straightforward illustration of interactive marketing. You go to the website, provide some information, and go to the following step in the procedure. Your quote can be texted or emailed to you at the conclusion.
Because it is more engaging, interactive material performs better than conventional content. Consumers are encouraged to compete, compare, test themselves, absorb information more quickly, and get outcomes more quickly. Additionally, it may be very immersive. For instance, interactive video bridges the gap between conventional video and artificial intelligence to produce a distinctive user experience.
Interactive marketing is the future of content, according to a number of marketers and strategists.
2. Shoppable Posts
A customer can click through an advertisement, video, image, or social media post to make an immediate purchase if the content is shoppable. It aids a brand’s efforts to raise conversions, improve customer satisfaction, and increase sales.
Customers have a variety of options while shopping with brands. They can do it in-person, online, through apps, and other places. People can shop without leaving a platform by just clicking a photo, video, or post thanks to the increase in social media usage. 4.62 billion people use social media globally, and 55.5% of US social media users between the ages of 18 and 24 have made purchases using these platforms. Companies offer shoppable content since clients are more prevalent on social media and prefer to order goods online.
Customers visit the websites of the brands after clicking a shoppable advertisement, video, image, or social media post to finish the checkout process or complete the transaction. It facilitates quick, easy, and straightforward purchasing. With shoppable content, consumers can quickly and easily purchase whatever they want.
3. Social Media Messaging Apps
For the majority of us, social media messaging is an essential aspect of daily life.
Today, 70% of people concur that they expect brands to engage in discussion with them on social media as well. But it can be intimidating to figure out how to communicate with your customers directly. So how might conversational marketing be incorporated into your plan? Social networking messaging applications, here we go.
Marketing professionals have the potential to establish personal, meaningful connections with customers by using social messaging apps. Customers, social media managers, and customer service professionals can all access these platforms.
Think about why and how consumers want to interact with your brand when selecting the ideal apps to communicate with them.
4. Social Media Stories
Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat are just a few of the major social networking sites that feature full-screen mobile photographs and videos in a dedicated section. These posts are only visible for a maximum of 24 hours before totally disappearing from the platforms. Some of these platforms, nevertheless, give users the ability to keep them as collections. This function is available on Instagram, and it supports saving stories using the “Highlights” option.
Businesses can get exposure and provide rich, engaging experiences for their customers across a variety of channels by using stories. Additionally, they support firms’ authenticity and transparency with consumers, fostering greater brand loyalty. In particular, younger audiences will find this to be true. Therefore, stories are the ideal medium to help you accomplish this goal if you’re wondering how to connect and promote your items to a younger audience.
However, individuals of all ages are fascinated by stories. According to the platform, 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day. It is impossible to undervalue the impact of this feature when your tale is at the tip of its fingers.
5. Social Media Contests
A marketing tactic known as “content marketing” makes use of competitions, gifts, raffles, and lotteries to increase brand recognition and connect with new potential clients.
Marketing through contests makes use of consumer desire for free goods. Many people enter contests despite the slim chances of ever winning because they like the adrenaline and pleasure of winning, which is a reward in and of itself. The power of content marketing in experiential marketing is undeniable, and it has grown dramatically over time, especially in relation to social media and online contesting.
The amount of ingenuity you can incorporate into your contest promotion is limitless. Both online and offline, content marketing can take many different forms.
Increased online interaction on your website and social media, higher consumer purchases, and easier access to your customers via email lists, SMS contact lists, or other direct-to-consumer marketing channels are all advantages of a successful marketing approach.
6. Employee Engagement
Your goals, audience, content channels, and the sorts of content you will create were probably all carefully considered when creating a content marketing plan for your company. But a lot of companies fail to use one of the best tactics: involving their staff and making them become brand ambassadors.
For companies of any size, increasing employee engagement should be a top priority. Higher productivity is a side effect of better engagement, which also makes workers happier and healthier, reduces sick days, and lowers staff turnover.
Some of your most powerful marketing content may come from motivated staff. You can make every member of your team, at any level, a good seller by empowering and encouraging them to create content.
7. Influencer Marketing
Brands working with online influencers to advertise goods or services are known as influencer marketing. Some influencer marketing alliances between brands and influencers are less formal than that; they only seek to increase brand recognition. It’s important that online collaborators have a real influence in this situation. They must have an effect on the consumer demographics that a company intends to reach. Only a minor portion of influencer marketing involves finding someone with an audience and paying them to promote you in exchange for visibility or cash.
These influencers are well-known for possessing substantial knowledge or social standing in their specialized industries. People frequently get this wrong and mix up influencer marketing with celebrity marketing. There may be some overlap, but a person’s alleged fame alone is insufficient to create successful influencer marketing. Numerous influencers have created sizable networks among which they spread the word about a given good or activity.
8. Conversational Marketing
A customer-focused and dialogue-driven marketing strategy is called conversational marketing. It is now the go-to tactic for boosting consumer engagement, enhancing customer service, and increasing sales.
Interacting and customizing online, it enables you to strengthen client relationships and enhance your online customer experience.
These personalized encounters are made possible via live chat, chatbots, and messaging applications.
A conversational marketing plan can incorporate any kind of two-way contact, including phone and email. Although the most often used method of communication and client outreach nowadays is messaging.
Dialogue with chatbots and live chat is typically pretty informal and mimics a casual conversation, therefore the key to conversational marketing is measuring and understanding what your customers’ favorite channels are and adapting your tone of voice accordingly.
Conclusion
The pace of social media is that of a sprinter. It is constantly changing and in flux, pulled between the needs and expectations of its users and the whims of the minds searching for fresh approaches to stand out in a market that is becoming more and more crowded (and, if we’re being honest, to find more money sources while they’re at it).
When a result, while TikTok and social commerce dominated 2022’s social media trends, there will be a change in the considerations brands should make as they develop their 2023 social media marketing strategy.
