The new year always calls for a shift in marketing strategies. What worked for your company the previous years may not be as successful as this year. It’s time to stir things up and brew something new to gather more audience and, at the same time, retain your loyal patrons.
Creating a marketing plan for your social media campaigns can be tricky – we bet you’ve proven that as a fact after your past experiences. It’s always a make-or-break kind of deal. You try to mix things up especially on which platforms to invest on, and it might work for others but not for you.
This year, we give you a few tips on how to work on your social media marketing with what could possibly be a trend to your target audience. Some of these may be familiar already, while some might be new.
So, go ahead and get some ideas from us! Weigh in your options and see which among these social media marketing trends of 2019 would work best for your brand and your target audience.
“Storification” is a Big Thing in 2019
Social media platforms have adapted to using ‘stories’. This feature first came up in Snapchat but was became popular with Instagram. Stories are social media contents – either photo or video – that can be viewed and runs for a few seconds and only lasts for 24 hours.
The feature seems too fleeting and temporary; something that social media marketers does not want their content to be. However, stories have proved to be more engaging than timeline posts.
Gone are the days that brands rely on formulaic posts on people’s timelines. Hats off to those who really think of a full production, however, users nowadays prefer something more realistic.
What draws people to Stories (in whichever platform) is that it invites something more raw. Since stories are more mobile, whatever is posted on stories are what can be produced on hand. Of course, you can still go for carefully produced videos, but audiences love something more organic.
And despite being fleeting in nature, the short-but-sweet posts is what makes it more interesting and enticing. Conveying your message in just a few seconds makes social media marketing a great challenge now. Sure, you can have multiple Stories in a day to somehow extend those few seconds, but exerting too much effort and giving too much away for something that would appear for just 24 hours may not be worth the shot. Keep it short. Keep it simple. And most importantly, keep it real.
(Re)building Audience’s Trust
2018 was filled with a lot of trust issues for social media marketing. The data breach was one huge setback last year. Plus, there’s fake news and other fake accounts online. People can now easily distrust social media and the internet as a whole.
Facebook and Twitter are two platforms most affected by trust issues with Facebook’s information breach, and Twitter’s purging of fake and bot accounts. People have also expressed their distrust on celebrity endorsers and now relies more to referral from families and friends.
Rebuilding the audience’s trust is a long shot but you can take little strides along the way. Since they are more likely to listen to people they can relate to, getting influencers could be one way to handle trust issues. If they see someone they can relate to and rely on endorsing your brand, you’ll most likely get a thumbs up from your audience.
Another way to go about it is to show your authenticity to people. You can have Twitter conversations, Facebook Live demos and Q&A’s,
The next few social media marketing trends we’ll mention in this post are also an inch towards gaining back the people’s trust.
Social Listening
The best way to improve and please your customers is to listen. And what better way to do that than to scavenge some information online?
People would surely talk about your product, service, or brand. Whether they tag you, use your hashtags, or none at all, you can always find out how people regard your brand by social listening.
Social listening has been done by many brands even ten years back. However, brands are beginning to be more active on it recently – and more this year. But why?
One main purpose of social listening is to know what the market is saying about your product. This is good for either customer service and reputation building. By looking for social media posts about a certain product or your brand as a whole, you will know what people see as your best and worst points.
A lot of users are using social media to vent and complain – whether it’s the food they ate, the product they use, or the service they experienced from the store. Social media has become a huge marketplace of insights and ideas that your brand should be scouting. And since everything spreads like wildfire on social media, it’s also a good way to monitor your online reputation and respond to people’s concerns as soon as possible.
You can also get suggestions for improvements in the future from your target market themselves. Maybe there are features they would like to see that would be useful for their experience, or a flavor they’ve been craving for! It’s best to lurk and search in social media for this purpose since it gives you an assurance that what you’ll add or improve in your product or service already has a target market.
Personalization of Marketing Content
This never goes out of trend.
Creating personalized content for social media always attracts customers. You don’t really have to do a ‘Bandersnatch’-type of customization, personalization, and what-not. All you have to do is (with the help of social listening) know what the market wants and play with the idea of giving it to them.
Technology has vastly improved – which includes the ability to know or trace the users latest purchases, location, etc. While getting all these data is a bit creepy (admit it, it does), but this helps you as a brand to tailor-fit what products or services you send out in your next newsletter or on the banner ads on their social media accounts.
User-Generated Content
Getting your audience involved in your social media marketing content is always exciting. Plus, you’ll always get an assurance that it would be shared and viewed by their network of friends in social media.
But aside from instant audience, creating a social marketing content that involves your audiences gives a sense of care – like they are important and being heard. Inviting your audience to be part of a marketing campaign also elicit trust; that you trust that they can come up with good content and could represent your brand well.
To create an effective marketing through user-generated content, you must be clear with your goals (the message you want to purvey) and your criteria (both the tangible and intangible ones). Also, be responsive for inquiries from them or something they want to clarify. Of course, they want to make sure they’re also giving you their best so they can be picked and be part of your campaign.
So why is this still a thing in 2019 when this has been done many years before?
Because now, more than ever, people wants to be engaged and involved. Be it in discussing social issues, or as simple as a photo or clip on your advertisement. Plus, the bragging rights, too.
Communicate Real Time
Ever notice that users love to tag brands in their posts?
People like to catch a brand’s attention nowadays, especially with social media’s tagging features. Whether it’s a complaint, a praise, or simply just to mention your brand because they are using your product or availing your services.
As you go through your social listening efforts, you can see these mentions. So, don’t just read them and note them down for your next campaign; interact with them!
If they have a complaint, make sure your customer support team is ready to respond in a snap. If they praise you, thank them. And if they just tagged you just because, then think of a witty or funny comeback. The key here is to respond in ‘real time’ – a.k.a. as fast as possible.
We have seen brands interacting through creative and funny banters with Twitter or Facebook users and you know what they get? Thousands of likes and retweets – that converts to impressions and a wider reach.
And don’t forget: Videos are Still ‘In’
Videos was, still is, and (we think) would be effective for quite a while.
Why do we think so? Because it’s just more enticing than – let’s say – reading a whole bunch of information in your post. And even if producing a video is more tedious that just writing a few lines, but it allows you to be more creative about it. And if you create a really compelling one (even if it’s not selling your brand straight up), it would surely be shared more than just a photo with an accompanying caption.
The bottomline is ENGAGEMENT. People wants to be more engaged and involved with you. The good ol’ days of hard-sell tactics in marketing is done. The audience just can’t be fooled that way anymore. Thus, they want to be part of the process – part of YOU.
