The pace at which Social Media has been evolving and
changing will give complex to a roller coaster. In no time, social media from
an entertainment platform has changed to a must-have marketing tool. The
penetration and reach of every popular social media are tremendous. Facebook,
the pioneer of all social media platforms, has become a parallel world in
itself. All other social media platforms have also gained huge traction and
immense utility over the years. The year 2017 was a complete revolution, the advent
of stories took it storm! It is anticipated that 2018 will also be a
game-changing year on Social Media. Although Social Media platforms are very
volatile, here are 6 trends which are predicted to rule 2018.
1. Customizable Chatbots:
Just like the introduction of stories, the introduction of chatbots has been
overwhelmingly welcomed by the users in 2017. This year, chatbots are predicted
to be ruling. Various institutions have been investing heavily in designing
more and more personalized and relevant replies on the chat options. They are
striving to generate replies on the chats as if another human is sitting at the
other end. Many organizations are implementing very personalized chatbots on
their websites as well as in the organization to give the user replies which
ultimately lead to information about their products. Not all chatbots are
created for the same purpose. Chatbots are being highly customized.
2. Overlapping features on different social media:
Chatbox, Video, image and text posting are common to Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, WhatsApp. The Instagram and Snapchat stories have been subject to
comparison ever since the feature was added to Instagram last year. Since many
features overlap, one needs to be very careful in selecting the medium on wants
to use. For example, Instagram stories have a higher reach then Snapchat, but
the average user age of Snapchat is much lower than that of Instagram. This
implies that on if you need to address the young crowd, Snapchat will be an option
for you and if you need a greater reach, Instagram will be a platform for you.
3. Video Content-
A stronger
content strategy: Written content, in form of blogs, sell, yes! But Vlogs and
short videos are gaining more popularity. Instead of reading an article for 3
minutes, people love to see a video for 2 mins. Videos by nature are very
appealing, the audio and video feed is always more catchy. Realizing this, the
Social Media have started leveraging video content for more engagement. From
Pinterest to Facebook, and Instagram to Twitter, all the SM platforms have
started providing more facilities for video streaming.
4. More in mobile Space:
All the Social Media and the whole digital world are slowly but very evidently
shifting towards mobile space. With smartphones in every person’s hand, there
is a huge
shift of internet users from the web to mobile space. Digital
marketing solution providers are more and more looking into gaining
benefits from the mobile users by generating deep links, expanding into mobile
compatible websites, and gaining through mobile ads. The intelligence going
into mobile space is more than ever and 2018 will see some transformations
with respect to optimizing mobile space.
5. Shoppable posts:
With the introduction of Marketplace by Facebook, it is being said very
loudly and clearly, that social media for small businesses is a boon. Slowly, a
button which directly takes you to the shoppable pages is being added to
Instagram. Other features which facilitate shopping through social media
may also surface in the current which would make a complete in the social media marketing approach.
It will be a complete churning of concepts for a digital marketing solutions
provider, the planning, the execution and the results for shoppable posts will
be very different.
6. Clear messaging by brands
based on what people say:
Gone are the days when
online strategies were made by analyzing only what your competitors are doing
with their online profile. The reach of social media is vast and thus, the
metric of analysis will also change. Social Media marketing will now revolve
around the way people are reacting to each social media post. Listening what
the audience is saying about your competitor will help you overcome the
mistakes that they are doing and develop a more user-friendly social media
strategy.Social Media by nature is very exciting, and 2018 is bound to give us
unexpected twists and turns!!
