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Around 4.62 billion people on the planet use social media. That’s more than half of the entire population readily present to consume content.
With such a massive online presence, social media is undeniably the biggest platform for marketing and advertising today. However, a big chunk of users also means a diverse and dynamic community that, when paired with highly-competitive industries and a faster rate of demands for social media innovation, results in a constantly changing space that brands and businesses may find hard to keep up with.
The great thing about social media, however, is it’s mostly data-driven. With that, we can make grounded predictions as to how it may operate in the future, particularly its influence on social media marketing.
More interactive, immersive, and engaging content
Content is the commodity of social media. Today, people use social media not just to communicate and interact with their groups, but to also post snippets of their lives, watch videos, read posts, scroll through images, and play games.
Produce more entertaining content
The value of entertainment among social media content is predicted to stay as people now expect to consume entertaining and engaging contents via social media. Because of this, social media marketing should also gear towards entertainment-driven content.
Integrate Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality (AR), or the real-time incorporation of digital technology with user reality, subtly started with filters and green-screen backgrounds creating the illusion of a different ‘reality’. While AR integration remains limited as of writing, experts predict it to garner more attention in the future and will serve as a revolutionary social media innovation in user experience, such as AR-driven shopping experiences.
With more and more people getting accustomed to having everything at their fingertips, AR will shape social media marketing to be more immersive than ever. In addition, social media platforms are now gradually transitioning to full-screen experience, especially on mobile. These expected changes will influence how social media marketing will take form in the future.
Maximize live videos
A huge portion of social media users today are millennials and Gen Z. Studies reported that these demographics have a significant preference for interactive content which allow them to be a part of the brand in any way possible. For this reason, live videos and Q and As are in-demand among younger audiences as they can interact with the brand in real-time.
Take advantage of chatbots
Chatbots are a social media innovation that provides immediate responses to users messaging brands and businesses in their social media accounts. While traditionally viewed as an initial and temporary alternative for communicating with users, Chatbots are anticipated to upgrade to AI-automation which will allow users to have full, senseful conversations with this social media tool.
Highly optimized approaches
User data can indicate preferences and experience, which can be used to strategize social media marketing and really aim for more effective campaigns.
Maximize user data
While data management and analysis already mold today’s social media marketing strategies, the future will place more significance on data sets. This means brands and businesses must mine their data and treat it like gold as social media strategies will remain data-oriented in the future, particularly in refining their approaches to further improving user experience, increasing online visibility, and broadening their reach.
Produce mobile-first content
Eighty-five percent (85%) or 3.96 billion of social media users are using mobile, which led social media giants to slowly transition to mobile-first content or optimizing contents to be fully apt for mobile usage.
With this, content-based social media marketing will become more focused on mobile usage and how this will influence the buying behavior of consumers in the future.
Social marketing
Social media is a contemporary community, albeit with a lack of physical interaction. However, through time, people learned how to still effectively communicate and interact on a more personal level using social media innovations. In the future, social marketing is expected to grow and there is a lot of potential for marketing with this.
Explore influencer marketing
Influencer marketing, or the use of social media personalities to market products and services, has become a significant social media innovation in recent years. It is anchored on the primal concept that when people trust a certain person, they can be influenced to purchase or try out their recommendations.
Influencer marketing is becoming more massive as people transition their search for personal connections in the digital space.
Work on brand transparency
The younger generation of social media users are particularly more progressive in thinking and they value brands that they trust or have shown the same progressive thinking that they have.
As such, social media marketing in the future may involve more transparency among businesses, and there are several ways to showcase this, including behind-the-scenes footage, proactive reports on brand changes and updates, etc.
Penetrate groups and niches
Brands and businesses are recommended to maximize the Group feature of Facebook as a way to effectively establish their audience and boost customer retention and loyalty. These groups and niches have increased through time, and penetrating these clumps of users that are tightly knit together with common interests will do good for brands.
Messaging
The traditional social media usage, messaging, remains an important aspect of social media. At the end of the day, users want to remain connected to their circle and social media innovations to integrate social media marketing in this medium, which users inevitably use, is a direction worth considering in the future.
While these remain as predictions, take note that these are based on current user data and experience. Thus, the key to adapting and keeping up with these changes is not to wait until everyone else is doing it but to gradually make the transition and be ahead of others.
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