Social media marketing has become one of the major weapons in any company’s efforts to drive traffic, boost their ROI, and make consistent conversions. Keeping your social media marketing efforts strong will take consistent effort and hard earned intelligence gathering. There are some trends, however, that will become even more stronger next year than they have been already. Knowing what may be coming will always give you an edge over your rivals.
One major trend you will do well to try and adapt to will be the advent of live streaming video content. It made serious inroads at social media platforms this year and its use is only going to become more profound. You can see it everywhere and it may end up being the most important type of social media content before 2017 is over and done with. Get a handle on it, and begin to map out a plan for integrating live streaming into your social media marketing mix for next year.
Lead generation and ecommerce possibilities will continue to expand for social media marketing platforms. Ecommerce, of course, is here to stay as seemingly every generation has become more than comfortable with buying products and services online. This year, many small and large companies everywhere began to seriously incorporate ecommerce into their social media marketing plans. All of the major platforms, from Facebook to Instagram, have begun to make it so much easier for businesses to market and sell their products out there. Make a plan to accelerate your efforts with regard to this emerging trend.
In case you haven’t noticed, customer service capabilities have taken on a major importance for the first time after many decades of neglect. It is never more important than out at the social media platforms. For well over 40% of the online audience, they expect an answer to a customer service inquiry within thirty minutes and the other 60% expect one within the hour. Now is the time to fine tune this. Make sure your people have the proper people skills. If you can’t teach them and train them, find someone who can. Your future sales will depend on it.
Finally, lead generation will be even more important out at social media than it has been previously. Getting to tap in to your customers, and potential customers, social networks can mean huge boosts in your brand awareness and your bottom line.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
