Social Media Marketing in 2018 and Where We are Headed
Social media and networking has completely changed the way we not only connect with other people in the world today, but also how brands connect with their audiences and customers as well. Just around a decade ago, most content on the internet was simply a one-way conversation and sites were created with basic HTML. At the same time, email was one of the most effective ways to get in touch with an audience and start a conversation. Now everything is completely different.
Thanks to the power of social media and platforms like Twitter and Facebook, now anyone can instantly connect with millions of users around the world and also build a powerful brand or following in the process.
However, just because social media is such a large and massive platform, it doesn’t mean everyone is going to have success with it. There is a lot of planning, time, and effort that goes into a successful social media campaign and building a trustworthy and loyal following in the process.
No matter what platform you are currently using to connect with your social audience, the landscape is changing all the time. Let’s take a look at the current world of social media marketing and where we are potentially headed in the coming months and years.
The future of social media and where we are headed
One area that social networks have really made a huge difference in, is the world of video content. While YouTube has been king of online video for a long time now, Facebook has quickly built up quite the video platform and user base of their own. At the same time, some social platforms like Snapchat have built their entire existence based off of online video, while also finding some massive success and growth.
It’s doesn’t matter what type of video you are creating, as long as you are creating video for your audience to consume. This is especially true for businesses and brands who want to connect with their audience, but don’t want to create traditional text content. This was recently recommended by Karsten Böhrs of mysimpleshow, who had the following to say.
“There are currently over three billion users spread across major social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and others. While most people are posting quick updates and linking back to their websites to try and grab free clicks, the big area of focus that many content creators and brands are missing out on is online video. With more people accessing the internet through their mobile device than ever before, online video is simply the best way to engage with an audience while giving them instant gratification. With attention spans at a shorter rate than ever before, engagement and quick videos are now more important than ever. Start focusing your efforts on online video and not only will you see better engagement with your audience, you might just also see better social sharing and conversions with your call to actions placed inside each video.”
Just like how social networking platforms have made it easier for businesses and brands to connect with audiences around the world, video creation platforms have made it easier for anyone to create original and unique video content as well. With this in mind, there is simply no excuse for businesses and brands to neglect what video has to offer.
How mobile usage is going to impact social media
Looking back at the past decade of social media and its growth and continual transformation, we can clearly see several updates and transitions made as mobile usage continues to rise. This is especially true with Facebook and they’re advertising platform, as they quickly found they were getting massive mobile traffic but weren’t sure how to monetize it effectively. Once they mastered this art, their revenue continued to soar like never before.
With all of this in mind, it’s important to take a look at your mobile content creation and marketing plan and make sure you aren’t missing out on the next revolution in place.
Srish Agrawal, of Animated Video, recently came out with an infographic on the topic of mobile marketing and it’s importance in the world of business today. Through this infographic the following statistics were documented.
- The overall number of mobile phone users reaches 4.43 billion in 2015.
- This number is expected to grow to 4.61 billion in 2016 and 4.77 billion in 2017.
- The number of people with a “smartphone subscription” reached 2.6 billion in 2015. This is expected to grow to 6.1 billion by 2020.
- According to StatCounter, 37% of website visits in 2015 were generated by mobile web browsers.
- At the end of 2015, the most popular browser was Chrome Mobile with 36.93% market share.
- UC Browser came second with 18.6% market share, while Safari fell into third with only 17.9% market share.
With more businesses and brands focusing their efforts on mobile usage and content that is easily consumed and shared, these same methods should also be at the forefront of all business content marketing and branding efforts. The next time you are creating content for your site, don’t just think about how it will rank in the search results, also think about how it will be shared and viewed through social media and mobile devices.
How social media and blogging work hand in hand
If you were to look at the internet as a whole over the past decade, there are a few areas that have seen massive growth, and you would also have to throw blogging into the same discussion. Thanks to the power of WordPress, there are now more than 300 million blogs on the internet today with more than a billion active sites in total.
WordPress powered sites are not only easy to create, they are also social and mobile friendly right out of the box. This makes it easy for anyone to go live with a site of their own.
Zac Johnson, the founder of Blogging.org, had the following to say in reference to blogging and how it relates with social media and the massive growth in mobile usage.
“In recent years, it would be quite hard for someone to create a website or blog of their own. Now there are no technical skills required and anyone can go live with a site of their own in a matter of minutes while also having to spend only a few dollars in the process. The great thing about this and how social media and mobile usage have exploded over the past few years, is that anyone can now build a brand or following online without a massive budget. Now it’s all about creating content and putting yourself out there and being original. Just like YouTube has created many online celebrities and million-dollar personal brands, we have seen the same thing in the world of blogging. However, if you were to remove social media and mobile usage from the mix, there would be fewer success stories and a much harder process to achieve such results.”
Not only has WordPress made it easier for anyone to create a website or blog of their own, it’s also generated billions of dollars for hundreds of thousands of new businesses based on providing services to WordPress users. This includes WordPress hosting, theme and plugin development, content creation and everything in between.
The Future of Social Media and Where We are Headed
With social media and platforms like Facebook and Snapchat growing in size every day, it’s safe to say the business of online engagement isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
However, don’t get too comfy with where the current world of social media is. The landscape is changing all of the time and if you aren’t changing with it, your audience will likely move on to more engaging businesses and brands that grab their interest.
To stay ahead of the social media curve, you need to pay attention to your audience, what they are looking for, and where they are looking.
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