Business owners should know that social media is extremely important. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, text messages or direct mail, entrepreneurs and business owners should know it’s not just about building it and hoping they come, it’s about building it and telling everyone that you can that it’s there.
Just as business as usual is no longer business as usual, marketing as usual is no longer marketing as usual. We asked entrepreneurs and business owners what they believe is the next big thing in social media.
#1 – Videos
We believe the next big thing in social media will be video, particularly live streaming. Key indications of this are the quick rise of Meerkat & Periscope, Facebook beta testing video profile pictures- which we love! Short video snippets are the next level and future of user engagement.
Thanks to Miriam Diwan, NowMoveMe
#2 – Facebook Carousel Ads
I believe the next big thing in social media is Facebook Carousel Ads. As a Social Media Project Manager, I have been pushing my team to utilize these ads whenever possible for our clients. I noticed that they receive many more
engagements in the forms of likes, shares, clicks, impressions, and of course website clicks than the traditional ads did. I think people are more drawn to them because of the different images (up to 6) they allow users to post. Also, some brands have taken advantage of these ads as a way to tell a short story about their company, products, and/or services which makes these ads much more interesting than the old ones. I only wish that that the carousel style ads were available in other formats like Page Likes and Sponsored Posts rather than just the website clicks that is currently available, however, I am confident that Facebook will open this function up more in the coming months and I predict that the carousel ads may even make the old, traditional ads obsolete since they outperform them by so much.
Thanks to Kimberly Erskine, WebiMax
#3 – Periscope
The next big thing in social media is without a doubt Twitter's new Periscope. Our digital agency has been exploring Periscope since it launched back in March 2015 and we simply just love it! It is evident, that live streaming will be a key player in the digital landscape for social marketing for years to come. Periscope allows users to share live video streaming publicly or to selected groups anytime and anywhere. Once a broadcast is over, users can watch a replay and even post comments for up to 24 hours before it gets removed from the mobile app. We're seeing tons of marketing activity from large brands such as GE, Red Bull, Adidas, and many more paving the way to this trendy social media marketing app. We've started to include Periscope as part of our social media wheel house strategy for brands that we manage and the branding aspects of it have been extremely effective to say the least.
Thanks to Liz Rodriguez, DESIGNHOUSE
#4 – Big Data and Analytics
The future of social media, like most digital marketing, will be in big data and analytics. It will be an algorithm race as social platforms try to compete with the Facebook algorithm. The view of the consumer will become more and more granular. We can already target consumers' buying habits on Facebook, and we will soon have an even more
connected perspective of our consumers. Sentiment analysis is nothing new, but we will see a rise in the way brands use data mining to truly understand how consumers feel about their brand.
Thanks to Adrienne Morgan, Sparxoo
#5 – Social CRM
Until now business owners have leveraged social media to create awareness and get the word out there about their brands, products & offerings. While that is a good start, to maximize the ROI of their social media investments, business owners will need to integrate their social media activities with their CRM and sales systems to focus on what is being touted as ‘social selling'. In the realm of social selling, brands focus on discovering their loyal customers on social and also find similar “look-a-like” customers to increase their customer base. To improve customer engagement, brands focus on personalized messaging via social CRM tools and also rely on social gamified experiences to drive loyalty. Business owners must use social media strategically to create awareness, grow the relevant customer base, provide customer service and drive profits through gamified loyalty experiences.
Thanks to Prantik Mazumdar, Happy Marketer
#6 – Collaboration
For business owners, the next big thing in social media is deeper collaboration with top social media influencers (YouTubers, Instagrammers, bloggers, other new and emerging digital content creators) at a level beyond one-off sponsored or branded content. In the upcoming few months, we'll see a marked rise in brand Instagram channel takeovers, guest bloggers/vloggers, and hosting/live-streaming at local events. Beyond influencer marketing as a viable sponsored content advertising channel, businesses can collaborate with top influencers to harness both immense social media reach and engagement towards driving up measurable profitable action, brand affinity, and high rates of user-acquisition.
Thanks to Evan Asano, Mediakix
#7 – Paid Social Content Amplification
Although it's nothing new, a tactic that business owners seldom take advantage of is amplifying the reach of their best content via paid social ads. Most businesses promote their blog posts, videos, whitepapers, etc. on their social media channels. While this is a start, organic engagement is significantly down across the major social media platforms, especially Facebook. The solution? Paid social content amplification. This is the key to getting content in front of as many targeted eyeballs as possible. This includes Facebook promoted posts, Twitter ads, and LinkedIn sponsored updates. All three platforms offer extensive targeting options, allowing business owners to get their content in front of their ideal prospects. The more targeted traffic a business owner drives to their content, the more leads and revenue they generate, not to mention more links and social shares (which provide a nice indirect benefit of boosting SEO).
Thanks to David Smethie, GrowthOnFire
#8 – Blab
The next big thing in Social Media is Blab.im. Blab is one of several platforms for livestreaming, which offers brands the opportunity to interact with their audience on a more personal and authentic level because it is live and mostly unscripted. Blab offers several advantages over the other platforms (Periscope, Meerkat, Google Hangouts). It offers four people the opportunity to be on camera at once providing for conversation rather than a broadcast. Guests can rotate in and out of the live seats and people can stay in the chat box as well if they prefer, commenting and asking questions. It is accessible from both a mobile app and from a computer. Blabs can be prescheduled and promoted or can be spontaneous. Like other social media platforms, you can follow users and get notified when they are live and you can also subscribe to a Blab ahead of time. Blabs can be recorded and repurposed. After the Blab ends, the host receives an email with a link to the replay, an audio file, a video file and an embed code allowing the host to share it on many other platforms.
Thanks to Rebecca Simon, Simon Says Social Media
#9 – Email Mapping to Social Media
Facebook changed the social media game by compelling businesses large and small to pay to reach people on their platform. And now, 2.5M businesses do so. But they also have excellent ad targeting. One overlooked tactic is uploading email lists to Facebook to create what they call Custom Audiences (your list) or Lookalike Audiences (people like your list). This is now possible for Twitter, Instagram and even Google Ads. So while email used to be one channel and social media another, the ability to garner email addresses can help a business create powerful targeting opportunities.
Thanks to Jim Tobin, Ignite Social Media