In the modern era of digital communication and advanced technologies, the social media has step up in the market as a revolutionary platform that allows the individuals around the globe to connect with each other. The days of letters, posts and telegrams has passed by, long time ago, filling the void in the communication process, telephones and mobile phones came into existence. Although, the telephones and mobiles are still relevant and play an important role in helping the people to get in touch with each other, the social media platforms have developed its own unique position which is gradually becoming irreplaceable in everybody’s life.
The evolution, growth and popularity of social media played immensely special and valuable place in its use in the marketing industry. Today, the term ‘Social Media Marketing’ is widely popular in the market and has also developed into a unique profession. Social Media Marketing or SMM is described as a
Form of digital marketing that makes brilliant use of various social media platforms in order to achieve the highest level of marketing communication, branding goals and market reach for the business.
This form of marketing involves the activities like social sharing of information in the form of content, video and images for the purpose of marketing and advertising. Being an interactive and easy-to-reach communication and marketing process, it is immensely popular in the current situation in order to tap the interests of the potential customers which would ultimately lead to enhanced business prospects.
The use of the various platforms of social media for marketing enables the businesses to reach out to the large number of prospective customers. Using these platforms for marketing and having a strong presence on the internet is considered to be the key to tap the interest of the prospective customers.
The exponential growth of the social media in the last few years has brought to it, significant attention from the entrepreneurs who have discovered a unique marketing tool through this platform. As people are becoming tech-savvy and are spending quality time on internet, surfing different websites or connecting with each other through the social media platforms, it has becomes obligatory for every entrepreneur to make the best use of the remarkable opportunity that lies in front of them.
Social media gives the entrepreneurs the voice, the platform and the social identity that they had always carved for. Emerging as a great way to reach the potential customers and analyze the marketing moves of the competitors, it gives your business the momentum to experience sky-rocketing growth. The marketers today leave no stone unturned to get the attention from the prospective clients and to make a mark in the market. SMM gives them the right kind of opportunity to increase their popularity and to promote the feeling of engagement and interaction among their target audiences.
One of the key components of social media marketing that is hugely used by the marketers is the SMO or Social Media Optimization. It is a strategy that draws the attention of the unique visitors to the particular business. It is also a major way of marketing the products or services that you sell or offer.
With the correct use of the social media marketing, you can be assured of experiencing remarkable success and exclusive growth opportunities for your business.
The different social media platforms which are widely used for marketing purpose for the excellent features that it is equipped with, by the large and small entrepreneurs alike are as following:
Each of these platforms has unique characteristics which helps the businesses to strengthen their hold in the industry and the global market as well. Let’s explore the features of these social media sites to know more about them:
It is the largest social media network available on internet, both in terms of the number of users and name recognition. Founded on 4th of February, 2004, facebook today has over 1.59 billion users all around the world. It is an extremely popular platform among people of all age group and thus is the first choice of marketing for entrepreneurs. It is estimated to be used by more than 1 million business owners as a platform for advertising and managing their business.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
Facebook helps the businesses to build a strong reputation in the online world and develop a trustworthy image in the market. It also helps the businesses to establish an authority by posting informational and interesting content.
Unique Characteristics Of Facebook:
How Marketers Use Facebook For Promoting Their Businesses?
Founded on 21st March, 2006, Twitter has emerged as a significant platform for social interactions, bonding, sharing of views and most importantly marketing a product or service. In this short span of 10 years, twitter has more than 320 million active users who make the best use of the 140 characters limit to pass on information or to promote a product or service.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
The businesses can use the platform to interact with prospective clients, answer their queries, and release latest business information and news and to target their specific audiences in the most customized way. It is also a great platform to collect instant feedback from your audience.
Unique Characteristics Of Twitter:
How Marketers Use Twitter For Promoting Their Businesses?
Instagram is a visual social media platform that was launched on 6th of October, 2010. Although it has been in the market for just 6 years, but Instagram has more than 400 active million users around the world. Owned by Facebook, this platform is making significant mark in the marketing field. The unique video and photo editing features boosts its usage and engagement rate to a wonderful level.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
Instagram helps the businesses to experience increased audience engagement for the brand and is considered to be a really great platform for building trust and personality in the market. It also plays a great role in increasing the traffic for the website and giving it an edge in the market over others.
Unique Characteristics Of Instagram:
How Marketers Use Instagram For Promoting Their Businesses?
Pinterest is the newcomer in the social media arena, having been introduced to the market in March, 2010. Till September, 2015, it had managed to get around 100 million users. Gradually it is making a renowned and exclusive name in the industry thanks to its diversified pins and unique boarding features. It displays the essence of the brand through the boards.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
Pinterest allows the users to gain access to the various digital bulletin boards where they can pin their business information or news. Most of the active users of pinterest are women and thus, the businesses whose target audience is the womenfolk should readily use this platform for their promotion. It is a great podium to develop a strong bond and connection with the target audience.
Unique Characteristics Of Pinterest:
How Marketers Use Pinterest For Promoting Their Businesses?
Google+ being the product of Google, is a great social media platform for marketing a business significant mostly for its reach and popularity. Launched on 15th of December, 2011, Google+ has registered 418 million users till December, 2015. The SEO value of the platform itself makes it a must-have tool for every business who long for necessary reach.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
Google+ is a great platform to get excellent visibility in the market. It also plays a major role in establishing a great position for the business in the search engine result. It helps to increase the authority and influence of the company and boost the search ranking excellently.
Unique Characteristics Of Google+:
How Marketers Use Google+ For Promoting Their Businesses?
LinkedIn is undoubtedly the most popular social media site for establishing professional networks with people around the world. Founded in December, 2002 and launched in May, 2003, it is available in 24 languages and has over 400 million users. It promises to offer great and brilliant range of networking opportunities with professionals and companies located in different parts of the world.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
The businesses get a great platform through LinkedIn to make professional contact and connections with people all around the world. It encourages the audiences to make contact with the company and helps in establishing the business as a trusted resource.
Unique Characteristics Of LinkedIn:
How Marketers Use LinkedIn For Promoting Their Businesses?
YouTube is the most popular and the largest video-based social media platform that opens new gateways for promotion and marketing for the entrepreneurs. Founded on 14th February, 2005, it is the second most admired search engine after Google with over 1 billion visitors per month.
How Businesses Are Benefited?
Marketing through YouTube ensures that the businesses get the opportunity to tap the extraordinary traffic of the platform. Marketing on YouTube also helps the businesses to get easily found on the search engines which definitely enhance the visibility of the business.
Unique Characteristics Of YouTube:
How Marketers Use YouTube For Promoting Their Businesses?
Social media marketing though seems to be very easy to deal with but it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Every company and every business have different needs and different marketing requirements, thus the strategies for all are not the same. The experts of the industry understand these points and they cater to meet the demands of their clients excellently. However, if you wish to run your own social media marketing campaign, you need to know every single aspect associated with it.
Knowing what social media is and it’s various platforms and its use for marketing, it is time for you to know the various factors that determine the success of your social media marketing strategies. These factors include:
Marketing your business in and around the world through the social media platforms require you to follow some exclusive laws which guarantees to ensure remarkable success for your business. These laws are mentioned below:
The first and foremost thing which plays a crucial role in developing the position of your business is the law of listening. It is the key to the success of the social media marketing. It requires the marketers to develop within them more of the art of listening than talking. Listen to what your customers and target audience has to say about you. Create spark content so that the people can have open conversations about your business or the products or services that you sell.
Law of focus requires the marketers to concentrate and specialize in one particular area rather than being jack-of-all-traders. Focused social media strategies help you to build a strong brand and ensure a better chance of success for your marketing techniques. It also gives a clear and positive thought about your business to your advertisers.
Always have this card ready with you. This is the card that would lead to your triumph in the market. It is wise to value quality over quantity every time. It is always to better to have 1000 connections in your social media platforms who are active and use, read, or connect with you regularly rather than having irregular or inactive 10000 connections. The number doesn’t guarantee your success; it is the quality which ensures you the same.
This point needs no definition, but yet it is important to get acquainted with it. Patience is the key which opens new doors of development and growth for your business. Applying it for your social media marketing is considered to be a wise decision. You need to understand that success doesn’t come to you overnight even through the social media. You need to gradually build up an image and reputation which will help you to reap excellent results over time. Thus, you need to continue with your efforts while being patient in your approach and not losing hope throughout the campaign.
If you are publishing compelling, excellent and extraordinary contents for your online audience and have developed an excellent range of followers. Then, it is obvious that they will like your content and will be readily sharing it with their own group of friends, peers or audiences on different social media platforms. This sharing and discussion revolving around your business opens new gateways and entry points for the search engines to find you and to display your content according to specific keyword searches. It gradually builds an excellent and potential way for you to reach out to large number of people.
Spend quality time to find the strong online influencers in the market. These influencers have quality audiences and being associated with your area of work they are likely to get has audiences who are interested in your products or services. It is very important for you to connect with the influencers and have relationships with them. If you are able to establish a good rapport with them and if they like your content then there are probable chances that they will share your content with their spectators, enhancing the exposure prospects of your business.
Adding value to the conversation when you are in direct touch with your customers about the products and services brings necessary focus and attention for your business. You need to focus on the content that you are presenting to your audience. It helps you to get the word-of-mouth promotion which serves as a catalyst for marketing your business.
It is always necessary for you to acknowledge the people who are associated with you. Don’t ignore your online customers or the people who have reached out to you but yet have made no purchase from you. There is an obligation that you need to maintain a good rapport with them which can only be done if you acknowledge their presence online.
Publishing a content or post and then vanishing from the scene is no way a good option for you. It is always necessary for you to be available to your audience. Your audience would want to have a conversation with you and your unavailability might take you away from your business. If you disappear then your strong social media presence cannot be built. Always ensure to take part in the conversation with your target audience.
The entire social media is nothing but a simple cycle of give, take and exchange. You can’t expect others to share your content and posts, if you don’t do the same for them. It is a two-way process so always ensure to give what you wish to take. A quality portion of your time should be focused in sharing and talking about the content which are published by others.
Building relationship is always considered as building the base for your business. When you get in touch with a person, you are actually getting in touch with many people, as the one person, if impressed with your business strategies; they would support your business and would promote it through word-of-mouth advertising. This ultimately would help you to experience tremendous growth in your business. Thus, it becomes mandatory for you to build strong and efficient relationship around you.
Digital marketing is an umbrella term that is used to describe the various processes of marketing and promoting the products and services in the virtual world. It uses multiple channels and various platforms to promote the product or service virtually and helps the advertisers to engage and interact with their customers. It is used for utilizing the various technologies and platforms of the digital world to develop and carve unique and excellent platform for your business.
Social Media Marketing is the utilization of the social media platforms for promotion of a product or service. It is a part of Digital Marketing and incorporates only the social media arenas for marketing. It aims to improve your online reputation and helps your audiences to get in touch with you easily. It has changed the way people socialize, interact and market their businesses and plays a unique role in enhancing the popularity and customer base for the business.
The Difference:
There was a time when social media was considered to be a mere platform for connecting with people and for spending quality time in checking out the latest updates that people share about their life. It was something that the kids, adults and youngsters were using. Gradually it opened its wings and earned more number of users spreading out to the elders as well. In its, initial phase, it wasn’t considered to be the right platform for the businesses and was avoided by the major businesses. However since the last few years it has changed its scope and has enhanced its prospect to be the ideal market for the industry.
It has been found that there are around 3 billion internet users around the world and among them more than 2 billion of the users has active social media accounts.
Today, the scenario has changed entirely. The popular social media platforms have today become the leading marketing giants. These platforms offer excellent business value to the businesses and help them to easily reach their customers and ultimately it has become an obligatory platform for the businesses to have a presence.
Marketing your business on the social media ensures that your businesses get flooded with excellent business prospective and great chance to enhance stand apart from the common businesses. The following are the key benefits which you ought to help you touch the height of success excellently:
One of the major benefits of social media marketing is that it plays an efficient role in increasing the traffic of the website and in helping your business to stand among the top results of the search ranking. It helps you to direct the people to your website and also enhances your impression in the market.
An increased traffic for the website and an enhanced position in the search engine plays an efficient role in boosting the position of your business excellently in the market. Through social media you can capture the relevant traffic and can use them for your success. Every social media profile that you add in the website contributes in enhancing the social media and search engine presence for your website. The complete your social media profile is and the quality content that you put on there is what helps in generating excellent traffic for your business.
Social ads promise to bring some of the finest and most unique attention for your business. Comparatively inactive, these ads help you to promote your business and to get the right kind of audience. The social media also comes up with powerful targeting options which help the marketers to reach the right kind of audience according to the location, age, job, title, gender and other factors.
Whether you are running an ad campaign on LinkedIn or Facebook, you are equipped with the power to filter the options through which you can reach your target audience through their location, company, job, gender and other factors. The results on the social media come instantly and thus you can easily gauge the performance and the real-time results.
In today’s age it is extremely important for you to have a social media presence as it helps you to get in direct contact with your customers. It has been found that over 67 percent of the total consumers log in to their social media account in search of relevant and excellent customer support service. They always expect to get fast and wonderful response within scheduled times.
Social media is a wonderful communication channel and would require everyone to interact with each other easily. This gives the customers the liberty and the opportunity to meet their customer representatives and enrich their relationship with them. It would be like, that your customers can always reach you on social media and can in return you can resolve their queries or thank them for their compliments. This not only gives your customers a good experience but it also plays a major role establishing strong bond between both of you.
Social media guarantees huge amount of customers for you within the shortest possible time. With large number of people using various social media platforms as a part of their day-to-day life, marketing through these sites give you a great benefit of reaching out to a large number of people. Every social media platform, n today’s era is also equipped with necessary analytics and tools which gives you an insight about the performance of your ads.
These insights help you to get in-depth information about which ad is performing well, which area is the hot zone for your business, which group of people are getting attracted to the business and all such relevant details and information are offered through the insights delivered by the social media.
Have you ever thought how your social media profile can weave a wonderful brand image for you? If not, then this is the time for you. Think about it. Yes, your social media profile plays an important role enhancing your business image. The complete the profile is and the well-maintained the profile is, helps you to increase the brand awareness of the website.
It helps your business to turn into a brand through the contents and the images that you posts and the number of followers and customers that you have. The social media also helps you to develop the brand loyalty for your business. Your social media presence itself ensures most of your customers about your genuineness, adding to that the number of reviews that you get and the large number of following that your page has develops a loyalty towards your brand.
Keeping a check on your competitors helps you to take strategic decisions and build a strong and ideal position in the market. With the social media monitoring system being available for the businesses, it has become extremely easily for you to keep a check on every single move of your clients. The keywords of the industry, the performance of your competitor’s website, the reason behind their success, why customers prefer them, everything should be analyzed thoroughly and has to be properly understood.
It is through the brilliant range of information that can be easily obtained by you, that you get the best of the services to enhance your business prospect and to learn and unwind new strategies and ideas of the market that will lead you to the height of success.
The overall cost of reaching out to new and prospective customers through the social media platforms is almost zero. However you have to pay when you opt for the paid advertising services offered the platforms. But the amount charged to you is comparatively low as compared to the other kind of advertising methods and techniques.
Thus, it reduces the overall marketing cost for your business and also increases the website traffic. You can get hold of some wonderful and brilliant range of marketing techniques that helps you to increase your business prospect without affecting your budget and being pocket-friendly for you.
Geo-targeting content is an effective way to send your message to a specific group of audience based on their location. Different social networks and platforms offer some of the best and finest range of tools and solutions which allows them to target their audience according to their geographical location.
The demographic reach can be accessed through the various kinds of tools and insight that are offered by the social media. In accordance with these demographic parameters you can choose the locations where your reach is low and can target the audience of the particular area to have a wonderful and relevant reach.
Social media enhances your business reach and brings efficient traffic to your business. Apart from this, the social media also helps you to experienced increased sales and conversion rate. Regular interaction and timely customer service provide you with brilliant kind of opportunities and services that sets your business apart from others.
The social media is the most effective way to identify the key decision makers and new business opportunities. It plays an efficient role in generating high conversion leads which will ultimately play a significant role in expanding the business prospects.
People have no patience today. They won’t wait for a long time to see what you have posted or shared. It is thus extremely essential to be able to have quick loading time for your website. In case of the social media the marketers often faces the challenge of reaching out to their customers in the shortest possible time. When it comes to reach out to large number of people through your content, you have to be active enough to share your content on the social network as soon as possible.
Content curation is extremely important for every business with strong social media presence. It helps them to sort the large amount of content on the web and present only the best post in most meaningful way to the virtual world. With this process an easy way to sorting the content is possible which fastens the time taken for sharing it online.
Social media provides the marketers with the right kind of platform to voice and to communicate with peers, existing customers and the potential clients. It plays a significant role in personalizing the brand and helping the marketers to spread their message among large number of audiences in a relaxed and conversational way.
Utilizing these platforms for enhancing your business prospects requires some specific strategies and techniques which you must make yourself comfortable with. Although, there is no rocket science here, but the ways to use the social media for marketing your business is also not everyone’s cup of tea. So, get informed about it before diving into its pool:
Above everything the first and foremost information that your clients look for in your social profile is full details and information about your business. You should always aim to give them comprehensive information that would help them to build trust on your business.
Measuring, analyzing and exploring the competitor’s strategies and techniques are a good habit. But don’t start to copy them. You ought to make your own mark in the industry for which you need to use some unique strategies and techniques. Represent your company as it is, don’t go overboard and brag about yourself. Don’t promote your business in the promotional way. Keep it simple.
You also need to consistent in posting and interacting with your clients. If you are available today and then you are not there for them for consecutive five to six days, this does’t leave a good impact over them. Always be consistent, whether it is about your presence or your posts.
Okay, so here you are. You wanted to use the social media platforms for selling your products or services, isn’t it? Go Ahead. Sell them. But be clear in your approach. Don’t confuse your customers or prospective customers about what you are selling. It is always helpful to keep your approach simple, efficient and clear in nature.
Your customers always look forward to have some quality and excellent service and support from their service-provider. Thus, it is always advisable that you should be in contact with them and should spend quality time in interacting with them and gaining their feedback. This ensures that the customers will keep on coming back to you which of course will help your business to grow rapidly. Giving a good experience to your customers helps you to become popular excellently in the industry.
Never ignore a conversation initiated by your customer. You should always make it a point to check out the comment section of your post or social media page. If your customers have left to you any kind of positive or negative feedback always value them and answer them. If it’s a negative feedback, help them out with their query and assure them that you will improve on the point that they wanted you to. And if it’s a positive feedback, then thank them for sharing it and acknowledge their relationship. This strengthens your relationship with them and makes them feel fantastic about being in association with you.
The social media platforms are utilizing and exploring various ways and techniques that can promise to help the marketers to reach out to the large number of audiences and prospective clients. Over the years the social media have evolved to a very distinguishable position and have experienced several latest trends that are used by the marketers in order to get the highest rate of exposure among the wide customer base. It is through these social media trends that the modern marketers are able to get the right kind of traffic and prospects for their businesses.
The recent years have seen the great popularity of images and videos. People today spend a lot of their time in checking out the videos that appears on their news feed on various social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and You Tube seems to be flooded with videos that are considered to be the new hip of the social landscape.
The live video streaming has been the latest trends of the society which actually helps the individuals to connect with each other or with the brand which is socializing through them. It brings on great engagement opportunity for the brands and is known for its high production quality with which it attracts the large number of interested individuals who turn out to be the prospective customers of the business.
The trend of the live video streaming which has been adopted by almost every single important social media platforms of the modern days opens a whole new gateway for marketers to give their existing and prospective customers a tour to their factory or workplace that builds trust among their customers base.
Social media platforms have in the modern era emerged as the latest way to buy or sell a product or a service. Being widely used by millions of people around the world, the social media platforms are ideal destinations for everyone to buy or sell a product and reach out to the large number of audiences within the shortest possible time.
The Buyable Pins by Pinterest were among the first true sign of social commerce feature which ever appeared on the surface. It was with this feature, that the social media traversed the boundary of being a simple platform of connecting with each other or advertising a product to creating a new kind of online and shopping experience which stands second to none in the industry.
Following the footsteps of Pinterest, other social media platforms also began to add the Buy button which sky-rocketed the popularity of social commerce and is considered among one of the prominent advertising campaigns adopted by most of the businesses. The technology today is all ready to give a wonderful experience to the customers without any hindrance. It literally attracts money for your business and offers you a great deal to enjoy your service excellently.
Content is something that always attract and lures people and turns a product into a brand. Consumers get interested to your product on the social media through the content that is offered to them. The user-generated content phenomenon is prevailing extraordinarily in the market and this also allows an active participation from the consumers through video, image and texts.
There is of course no dearth of content on the social media platforms, but in the modern days a new kind of social content has developed. The readers can now get to experience full-fledged articles which are available without them even having to go out of the social apps that they are using. This has developed a new demand for the brands to provide content of their company first on the social media channels.
A concise description, a summary of the post or a detailed article on the social media encourages the users to get engaged with post and it is interactive enough to get their interest in the sector. This is a significant and extraordinary change in content marketing that makes it easier for readers to get the information that they need.
The app experience has been a tremendously popular experience which is extremely famous among the consumers. Adding to the complexity of these apps, the social media and the search engine platforms are coming up with new features that have gained deep-roots in the market. App streaming which detects the usage of apps for the mobile users prove to be extremely beneficial a strategy which helps the marketers to gain a wonderful experience.
With this trend developing in the market, the apps are establishing an important role in giving a unique online user experience. It has been observed that about 52% of the time that the people spent online was through the mobile apps.
The businesses are optimizing the apps in the most crucial way through which they plan a crucial move to enhance the visibility. As a result of which tons of apps are created every day. The marketers keep a track on the analytics, measure conversions, click through rates and the app open rates which helps them to take the business decisions excellently.
Okay so this is a trend that needs no explanation. It is clear to everybody that the role played by a mobile in enhancing the traffic and prospects for a business is a major one. It has been found that the number of traffic generated for a website by the mobile is far higher than the traffic generated from desktop and laptop searches. A large chunk of the world’s population is addicted to their smart phones or tablets and makes its use to find information or a product virtually.
It is this recent development that the business owners are catering to meet the needs of their mobile audiences and to be able to generate significant leads and increased rate of conversions. Optimizing the website for the mobile and tablet screen opens new gateway to stand out from the competitors and to develop a strong hold over the market.
Several social marketers make it necessary and compulsory to have their client’s website responsive according to various device sizes. It not only provides the best and quality user experience to the visitors but also helps the businesses to reach to the large number of people who are making the most of the technological advancements in the recent years.
Social advertising is expanding rapidly recording the rate of growth and development to a level which has left the traditional media far behind from the range. With the new range of social trends that is flowing in and around the world, the latest trend which is excellently popular in the market is paying for being social.
These paid social ads ensure putting more focus on individuals over brands and helps the marketers to reach large number of people in and around the region. This big change that has been introduced in the recent years yields fruitful results by maximizing the value of the users and enhancing the overall growth and development of the brand.
The social media advertising through the paid way ensures to bring upon the best of the traffic and reach for the market. The majority of your customers choose your brand over your competitors for it being easy to reach and find you. The amount that you append on your social advertising promises to help you get a high Return on Investment which serves as an effective and essential point for any business to decide upon their marketing strategy.
This is the new change of the market. The social slideshow ad is the new and exciting way for creating a wonderful and interactive visual content for the consumers. This has popped up as a exciting and essential form of ads in the recent days. These slideshows are ideal for utilizing some eye-catchy images, videos or both for attracting the customers. The marketers ensure to spend their money in these types of ads as it guarantees to bring more exposure and ways of interaction among the public.
These ads are also stemming out of every social media platform for the wonderful reach that it guarantees and the excellent exposure that it guarantees for your brand. Most of the companies have tried this ad and have reaped its fruitful outcome which has proved to bring great attention and excellent investment to their business.
Companies long for uncovering smarter and cheaper ways to reach out to their customers and to bring upon wide range of professional opportunities to their way. They are trying out various ways that can prove to be ideal and excellent for them. It is here that people get to explore and experience which way is working excellently for them.
The recent trend to reach out to the people is to help them spread the word of mouth. Through the social media the word of mouth has become so relevant and essential a strategy that no business can plan to expand without it. Nailing down the right person at the right time might not be feasible for the business owners, it is through the word of mouth promotions of the social media that you get to experience and reaches out to the large number of people who are interested in your products and are actually ready to invest with you.
Although the word of mouth promotion is the most traditional form of promotion, yet it is an essential element for reaching out to the wide range of interested individuals.
Every individual is active on the social media in 2016. For a company whether or not its employees are active on social media. Advocacy is the new norm for marketing. The number of friends and followers that your employees have counts upon as 10 times more than your company and the engagement in their posts are found to be 8 times higher than that of yours. In this situation, if your employees started to advocate you on the social media then your reach and the good will of the company will reach to new heights undoubtedly.
You must make the company’s guidelines and policies clear to your employees before asking them to advocate for the brand. What can be said and where to draw the line must be clear to your employees. This helps to build a strong reputation for your brand in the market and also ensures to amplify the mission, vision and message of the company.
The best way to grab the attention of your audience is to use the visuals. The use of visuals, which include the images and videos, has exploded over the last couple of years and today it is standing tall as being a part of the best and excellent way to market a product, service or a brand.
The era of telling a story about your company to your audience, has passed by long ago. It is only in the recent years that the marketers are cutting down on the number of words being used in advertising and utilizing the visuals to tell the story in the most attractive way possible. Although many companies have been slow to adjust with this pace, but it has been found that large number of entrepreneurs is shifting their company’s marketing agenda with this paradigm.
The trend of visual marketing are in and the posts with graphics and images are getting more attention from the clients than the only-text ones.
You are now well-equipped with the current trends of the social media which can be used for marketing purposes. It’s now time, to be a little futuristic. Every decision that you take today have an effect on your business which can be seen in future. Thus, today whatever strategy you build for your business or for promoting your brand through the various podiums of social media, you will have an after effect, which can be positive or negative, based on your decision and the way the strategies have been used.
For the marketers in the modern era, the great point of concern is the significant pace with which the technologies are advancing and new trends are booming out for the market. Being extremely cautious about the strategies that they take, they are always worried about the new trends that develop on the social media verge.
Keeping the concern in mind, we are putting together the predictions that have been made by eminent social media marketers of the industry regarding the future of the social media trends. The trends which are all set to touch the market by 2020 are summed in the following points:
The customer support and service which are now being delivered on a regular and round-the-clock basis on the website of the service providers, is all set to be the same on the social media platforms as well. Although there are few companies that promises the 24/7 customer support services to all, but it has not yet been turned into a full-fledged scope for all.
The customers will gain the benefit of getting full time support from the customer support department of their respective service producers. Customer service on social media has always been a fascinating idea for many people. The simple reason behind this is that the customers are much more active on this engaging platform. However, one thing that needs to be kept in mind is to maintain the secrecy and privacy of the individuals, because not every customer is willing to take their problems to the open forum.
The change is on the horizon and the social media podiums are all set for upgrading their customer service functionality. They are planning to bring up the paradigms in a way so that they can tackle each and every problem of the customers with one-to-one basis. The real-time and the personal conversations with your customers ensure that your customers are experiencing wonderful service. The biggest change in social media is to find out the various ways through which the customers become happy and satisfied.
With this feature, the social media platforms are ready to evolve as networks that can be termed as an “everything platformâ€. The customer need and should not be redirected to the website for getting the relevant customer support or service which they require. With this feature, it will also be convenient for the customers to get the support when they need it, rather than waiting for the working hours of another day.
The social media is becoming more personalized with every passing day. The videos which are rolling around the social media have helped us to connect the virtual world with the social ones. It has excellently performed the role of giving the users a unique experience from different angles on the web and mobile devices. The virtual reality is the platform of tomorrow that is predicted to change the way we work, play and communicate in our day-to-day life.
It is bringing a new face of the Social-Media-Alternate-Universe and it how it will look a-like. This big change is complimented with the 360 degree videos which help the people to share their video through all angles. The built-in buttons and features within several devices and technologies of the modern days ensure that every individual will be able to stay connected with their social friends through the technology and can share with them the live videos or updates about their whereabouts.
It can be said undoubtedly that the social media is being used by people from all age group and is turning out to be everyone’s favorite. The older generation grew up at a time when technology was not so advanced and there was no sign of social media, thus they might be using this but they are not entirely addicted with the same. However, the older generation of 2020, will be more prominent social media users than in the recent years. They will not remember a time without social media. And the oldest generation will till then be addicted to the technology for several years.
Social media is popular today among all generation but in the future it is going to be an integral part of everybody’s life. For the marketers, this future prediction brings to them the wide range of opportunity of reaching out to the large number of people and wide demographics to play with.
There is a great need for the marketers to start working on the demographic target which will help them to meet the demands of the customers. This will for sure help them out to establish their name in the future market and will guarantee wide reach among people with different age group. The bottom line is that the number of social media users will grow and expand excellently in terms of varied demographics.
The customer-related information seems to be very special and unique for your business and it presents to you a clear data about your audience and their preferences. The big data is essentially referred to the conglomeration of the customer-oriented information which proves to be extremely handy for every business. The concept behind this big data and its importance is that it helps the entrepreneurs to know more about their audience or customers and plan out the various ways through which they can develop a strong and long-term relationship with them.
The meaningful results which the data reveals and helps you to explore is somewhat unique and entirely different. The social media is currently revealing the basic and essential data which resolves the complications and helps the entrepreneurs to plan out new strategies and ideas through which they can enhance their business prospects.
In the near future, the data is going to rule the industry. Social media will present to you the wide and in-depth information about the market. This data will be easily available on the social media platforms in the future. It will become significant and sophisticated equipment for analyzing the market and the preferences of the customers in the coming years. Social media will bring to you the widest possible range of services that will equip you with the relevant information about the market.
Content is a new range of advertising and it is gaining attention from all corners of the world. The content used in the social media is not lagging behind in this scene. Social media requires you to get the best kind of the customized content for each individual as it gives them the right kind of opportunities to reach out to the large number of people around the world. It gravitate the users toward their own preferences and helps them to unveil a new bond with their service providers.
The future social media trend will make it feasible for everyone to start paying more attention to the individuals needs through the facility of customized content. The best to market yourself is to segregate the content used on the social media based on the demographics as well as on the geographical locations and distribute it accordingly.
The future beholds these features which will help the marketers to focus on contents and change or upload the content in different regions or for different demographics.
Consumers expect that their service-provider will maintain transparency in delivering the quality services to them. They expect more and in-depth information about the brands that they use and this helps them to gain trust over the brands. There is always a curiosity among the people to know who they are dealing with and what the brand stand for.
For being genuine and authentic among your users, it is vehemently essential for every brand to be more transparent with their consumers. Social media is the best place to reach out to the large number of people and it is also just perfect for talking to your competitors which ensure that they are well-versed about your company and its objectives.
With the new way of disseminating valuable information through social media platforms, the future of the social media marketing requires every brand to maintain transparency and to meet the best of the industry related services while acquiring the trust of their customers.
Till a few years ago, social media was monopolized by one or two major platforms, however this monopolization has come to an end in the recent years and it has opened gateways for different other platforms to come up in the sector and help the marketers to reach out to their local as well as global customers without any hindrance.
In contrast to the period of social media monopolization, the future might see a great degree of niche segmentation in the industry. The niche social media platforms help the entrepreneurs to reach out to their interested group of consumers by giving them a novel and customizable experience.
This niche segmentation ensures even greater diversity of platforms in the future market which allows the marketers to get connected with the more focused base of customers and enhance their reach in the market.
Search Engine Optimization, Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing “ all these can be planned and executed separately as each one is an individual endeavor which has the power to bring to you the repute and image that you had always wished for. However, when these three strategies are used in conjunction with one another, it complements the marketing efforts and enhances the reach of the business to a great level. The content amplifies the SEO campaigns by attracting links and optimizing certain key phrases and the social media helps your content and SEO strategies to reach out to the large number of people within the shortest possible time.
Social media marketing plays a significant and vital role in improving the organic search ranking of a business. It is considered to be an essential element while planning out the SEO strategy for the business. Its ultimate benefits through which it complements the SEO strategies include the following:
One of the basic requirements of the social media profiles is to complete the profile information. It helps you to claim and file in-depth information about your company, its address, the type of business it is involved in and the contact number. This is an indexable content and indirectly helps the business to get local rankings. There are several third-party sites which makes the use of the information available on the social media profile of the business and then compile them into the entries used in their site.
Google then uses these entries to form its own local business lists. This means that filling up the profile information on your social media platforms could improve the visibility and accuracy of your business online.
The social media helps the business to get the high-authority links which ensure that you get a good and high rank for your business in the SERPs. For the social media’s operation as a syndication platform it brings great and relevant high- authority links for the business which is considered as a relevant factor for giving the ranking to a business.
The links that your business earns from the Facebook or other social media platform posts bring to you does not have direct impact on the search engine rankings directly. But the amplified reach that your posts offers you can attract inbound links from various sources creates a strong impact on the search engine results.
The greatest advantage of the social media is its ability to distribute content and links to a wide range of audience and increase the number of visitors for the website. While you opt for syndicating an article on social media you instantly get the opportunity to open it to hundreds or thousands of new eyes and those readers can further share it, increasing its possibility to reach out to significant number of people.
The social media augments the breadth and potential of your inbound link profile and thus it opens new door to enhanced visibility for your business. Google and other search engine networks now indexes content which are posted on the social media platforms and this would ultimately bring your post to the top result of the search engine, only if it is relevant.
Social media today stands as the synonym for building and making new connections. It also plays a very effective role in helping the people to establish relationship with the influencers of their field, who have sizeable following and extreme reputation in the market. The influencers, if well-handled and maintained might agree to work with you and might publish your content as a guest post.
Social media is an essential tool that you can use to earn diversified and exclusive SEO opportunities which greatly increases the range of influence of your business. Marketing your business with this platform helps to get the best of the opportunities at your disposal.
Strong and essential needs to boost online brand presence are also possible through the social media platforms. The high-quality content and increased engagement that the brand gets through this medium increases the brand presence and thus enhances your overall online reputation as well. It introduces your brand to the consumers and boosts your visibility excellently in the market.
Great social media presence and exposure surely guarantees excellent and brilliant search visibility. It is a complex issue but the result that it offers is exceptional and it increases the frequency of brand searches.
In the recent years the social media is playing a vital role in the field of marketing and promotions and is expected to develop even more excellently in the future. The platforms ruling today will get a tough competition from some of the recently launched platforms. With more advanced technologies and gradual expansion, the new platforms will turn into a wonderful podium for the people to connect with each other and to buy or sell a product. These booming social media platforms which are expected to do wonders in the market include the following:
Snapchat is a 4-year old mobile application which is quickly securing its position in the market as a significant social network platform. Extremely famous in USA, it is gaining immense popularity throughout the world for its simplicity, easy-to-use features and the ability that it provides to the users for creating stories, attracts a large number of people around the world. It has reported more than 100 million daily active users and 200 million monthly active users.
The number of users of Snapchat is increasing with every passing day. By 2020, it is also expected to gain the attention of the marketers for promoting their businesses and for attracting large number of people to their business. Snapchat is gradually taking over the market and is all set to give a tough competition to today’s leading social media platforms. It is surely one of the best and most popular social media which is taking its toll in the industry and gradually expanding its reach.
Established in February, 2009, WhatsApp has traveled a long way and has experienced many milestones in its journey so far. Being used my more than 1 billion people in about 180 countries around the world, it is a free, easy-to-use and engaging messaging and calling application. Replacing the traditional method of messaging or SMS, WhatsApp is continuously introducing new features which are friendly and secured for the end-users.
In 2016, WhatsApp has emerged as a significant player in the social media market. Its large number of users and latest features has grabbed the attention of the marketers and marketing through this medium has already established its foot-hold in the market. The fast and reliable service that it offers guarantees the marketers to explore new range of opportunities and build powerful business prospects. It is expected to play marvelous role in enhancing and promoting a business, its products or services or a brand. It is an essential platform which is ready to leave a mark in the industry.
WeChat is a significant social media platform which is gradually making its presence felt by the entire world with its popularity. It has around 697 million monthly active users who are happy to get socially connected with others through this platform. It has created a new way for the people to connect and interact with the world and experience a new lifestyle.
Its irresistible features, make it a must have for the youngsters and standing today it is extremely popular among this age group while it is all set to be a favorite of the office-goers and people from different spheres with its new features and continuous updated characteristics. WeChat payments, Moments, Go Dutch and other features are attracting people to use this platform.
In the coming future, WeChat is expected to turn into a significant platform which would be apt and should be compulsory for the marketers to expand their customer base explicitly.
Stepping in the arena in 2011, Line has established new and excellent network for itself, determining and presenting excellent opportunities for its users to stay in contact with each other. From voice calls, to messages and video sharing, everything is available on Line which makes it a good multimedia social platform. Unlike the other platforms, the marketers have already gauged the reach and the future of this particular platform and have started using it for the promotion of their brand.
It allows the businesses to share their latest news or to offer coupons to the users, thus gaining good visibility. You can also have a good hold on the market by inviting the users to participate in the questionnaires, polls and surveys about your product based on the gender, age and other factors. Line also gives you great statistics which tells you about the number of users and the response of your timeline among other details. It has reported to have 220 million monthly active users, enjoying the wonderful traits of the application. In the future, Line is predicted to become a significant social media marketing platform.
Google Allo was launched on 21st September, 2016. This is a significant messaging and chatting application of Google which allows various distinguished features like virtual assistance and smart reply function for the users. Being a very new app in the market, Allo has not yet considered being a competitor by the highly-recognized and extremely popular social media platforms of the current times. But considering the fact, that it is Google’s own product, there is no doubt that Google will leave no stone unturned in ensuring its success in the market.
Within 5 days of its launch, Allo rockets more than 5 million download, although the active users have not yet been declared by Google. This newly launched platform possesses some brilliant features which are sure to attract large number of people over the time and Google is all set to make new advancements and features in the app in order to make it a comprehensive social media platform that will surely be a hit among people of different age group and among the marketers.
With 227 million registered accounts, Tumblr, launched in 2007 has experienced a twenty fold increase in its number of users in four years. Performing mostly blog-like functions, it allows the users to create diaries for their daily lives and also helps them to manage a liveblog about events or happenings that goes around them. It possesses all functions and features of social media platforms and is predicted to make it big in the social media world.
It was also named as one of the most valuable startup companies, which generates excellent revenue with the help of paid advertisements on the website. It is considered as one of the most significant and interesting platforms to be used for business or marketing purpose. Adapting the fast-pace communication style and the heavy use of multiple media, Tumblr, is unsurprisingly the most popular social media platform which will grow even bigger in the coming future.
Making money is the ultimate need and requirement of everyone. People look out for various ways through which they can bring some extra money in their home and live a wonderful lifestyle. The way through which you can utilize the social media platforms for earning handsome amount includes:
Leave Your Customers With Something To Talk About
Always share something interesting and engaging with your customers and something that is worth sharing. Social media is a platform which helps you to stay connected with your customers. It is always advisable to every business to give their customers or audiences a topic or an interesting point to talk about. This creates a good opportunity for the people to get engaged with your business and to get involved into your products and services.
Monetize Your YouTube Channel
People who are actively involved in handling and managing YouTube channels are known as vloggers. With the help of the YouTube Partner Program it is possible for you to earn handsome amount for your business. With this program you allow Google to place ads at the beginning of your videos and earn the share in the ad revenue. If you are actively sharing your engaging personality, sense of humor or ther unique perspective through YouTube, you can try out the YouTube partner Program which is worth exploring for you and for your business as well.
Sell Stock Photos
Using the service of the platforms like Flickr allows you to get acquainted with the people who are interested in the photos that you offer, which they can use under Creative Commons license. Once a strong and reliable network is built, you can jump on to make a profile at platforms like Shutterstock and iStockphoto where people are ready to shed dollars from their pockets to use your pictures in their blog or for other purpose. It depends on the quality of your photograph and is also a great platform to earn money.
Sell Items On Instagram Or Facebook
Making money is essential and important for all, and thus people indulge in various sorts of ways like cooking, making handicrafts etc. But it is not wise of you to sit idle and wait for the customers. Promoting the business or the product is the main requisites. Promoting and selling items on Instagram or Facebook is what enhances your chance f reaching to large number of people. As these platforms are mainly associated with imageries, you will have several opened gateways to explore the world and to put your artistic skill on the forefront.
Tantalize Users With Your Product On Pinterest
Pinterest started the trend of social commerce and is a perfect platform for selling products or services. The social media service is commonly used by the potential customers to pin the items they liked, which they might buy later. Pinterest gives you the necessary ways to shine and highlight your product in the market. With the right experience and the right product at your disposal, you can always be a hit among your consumers. Enticing your customers is always a good idea to create a level of excitement among them about your product.
Sponsor Products And Services
With this way you allow the other or third-party companies the rights to promote their products or services as a post on your social media account. It is also a great way to make money through the social media. The chances of making money and earn great revenue depends on the number of followers that you have and the kind of authority your social media profile has managed to maintain. While sponsoring the products or services you get to experience the chance of filling your pocket in the easiest way.
Promote Your Coaching Or Consulting Services
If you are in a consulting business or run a coaching class or other educational program, you can generate leads for your business through the social media. Although it is true for every business and for every industry, it works excellently for the consultation and coaching businesses as most youngsters make their search online. You can create excellent interest for your service among your interested audiences by connecting with them on the social media and demonstrating your skills. This strategy promises to make you popular and bring to you wonderful and excellent attention from the customers.
Social media is not a new platform in the market which is used for promotion of a product or a brand. However, it is significant to focus upon the expertise, skills and knowledge of the marketer, upon whom depends the entire success or failure of your social media marketing campaign. Bringing out the real-time results, one ought to be extremely cautious while using these platforms as a single mistake or an error on your part can mar your image in the market and can spoil all your efforts that you had put in, in the campaign.
It is thus recommended to always take the help of the experienced and skilled social media marketing firm that houses experts and well-skilled individuals for catering to meet the demands and needs of the clients. With a good team serving as the backbone of your company, you can be well-assured of building an excellent position in the social media market and can also be guaranteed to expect a high return on investment.
Header Image Courtesy- http://bit.ly/2dX1fiB