6 Social Media Trends to be Geared for in 2018

With 2018 just around the corner, companies and their brands must be sure they are prepared for the social media trends that are gaining traction if they are not to be left behind in the dust of their competitors.

For a company to connect with its audience, there are many ways to do this with social media in terms of platforms and format that will catch the eyes of the consumer and clients. The best place to do this is on platforms where the consumers and clients are already engaging and absorbing content. Most platforms already have built-in analytics that makes it possible for the company that is advertising to be able to understand and improve the advertising strategies and techniques that are used over time.

There are many social media tools that are free, which should be used to make sure you make the most out of marketing your product or service.

1. Better social analytics spells more possibilities of content personalization.

Everybody simply hates irrelevant content and just scrolls down to find something that catches their eye. The evolution of analytics tools is a strong trend for next year as companies strive to close the gap between content and relevance to the audiences companies are targeting. The focus for content should be on a more personal level, which should be guided by social media.

2. Understanding Social Media Platform feature overlap requires focusing on the audience that will provide the best results.

In comparing social media platforms that seem to do the same thing such as timed videos such as Instagram and Snapchat, it can be noted that Instagram observes an average of 10% of its users open Instagram Stories every single day. In contrast, Snapchat is the most popular timed video platform among younger people. In taking a close look at analytics, it is possible to decide which audience will be the best target for a specific product or service.

3. Social listening will be able to tell Companies what audiences like to talk about.

Now it is possible to monitor social media users’ comments instead of only the content they share. This metric can be used to measure performance. User comments and searches such as ‘Can anyone recommend?’, ‘Where can I buy?’ were valuable business opportunities that until present reached a low 40% response from companies that posted content. Improving response rate and listening to what audiences really need to know, will improve business moving forward.

4. Video will take the lead in content strategy.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that video is becoming the biggest thing on social media when we look back at how simple texts that lost mainstream attention to posts with beautiful pictures that could catch an audience’s attention. Facebook notes that they receive more comments and engagement on videos than any other kind of post.

Companies that have the ability to create interesting video content that links to its written content will get the best results from publications in 2018. A good way to further enhance a video is to use video captioning companies to make viewers focus on key words and ideas in your videos.

5. Facebook is on track to becoming predominantly mobile.

Facebook currently makes 80% its income from mobile ads. This also points to the likelihood of nearly 60% of its USA users being totally mobile by 2020. Other social media platforms were projected for mobile users from the very start, while Facebook as an older platform has adapted to distributing mobile content. No matter if you are a content producer or a platform, you have you be ready to talk to a mobile audience.

6. Chatbots will help optimize customer service.

The increased speed that internet and connections have reached has made consumers expect things to be faster and faster. The quicker a company accurately replies to their audience and individual consumers, the better its chance of securing that business opportunity. Humans are costly and can even make mistakes in processing online requests coming from people in audiences. Chatbots are more precise in identifying keywords and can do it much faster than people can at a much lower cost and on a practically unlimited scale.

Depending on the size of the audience, you intend to target, chatbots might be a good strategy for 2018. Make sure you are ready for the fast-paced changes and trends that will be big in the near future.