To successfully plan your social media marketing strategy for 2019, here are a few trends to follow for your business.
In an ever-changing social media landscape, it is always good to review your social media strategy at the beginning of the new year to clarify what worked and what can be improved.
#1 Engagement
It is still a vital part of any social media marketing strategy and can be compared to a long-term relationship. In 2018, Facebook changed their algorithm and prioritized personal posts over brand posts in their news feed. Therefore remember to make sure your content is genuine, appealing, interesting, personal and real.
#2 The rise of micro-influencers
Micro influencers tend to have 5000 to 50 000 followers and have grown their audience by posting at a regular frequency.
It is always interesting for smaller businesses to build a strong relationship with rising micro-influencers as they are cost-effective, they have the capacity of boosting the engagement (their followers are very engaged) and they improve authenticity (they are very active and responsive). Micro-influencers are very often considered as experts in their niche and are very down-to-earth.
TIP: Working with the right micro-influencers is very important, so do not hesitate to conduct research on social media channels, Google and through your followers.
#3 Live videos (again!) or video content
Nothing new here as it has been around for quite a while now, but live video or video is a trend that is not going to disappear anytime soon. According to some experts, 80% of what we consume online will soon be video content. Video is a trend that continues to dominate social media, just look at the launch of IGTV in June 2018…
What makes a video attractive is its authentic and ephemeral nature. The interactivity of live video makes it a powerful tool to engage with the audience and strengthen the relationship with your followers.It’s also getting easier to film good content with ever-improving smartphones technologies.
In 2019, businesses should focus on investing more in newer content mediums such as stories and live feed, as well as traditional ones like photos and videos.
#4 Dark social, the silent majority of social media activity
“Dark social” refers to all the social media interactions that the public, search engines and marketers can’t see – such as communications on private social media messaging, email, WhatsApp and SMS. In other words, the sharing you see on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter etc, is only the tip of the ‘social’ iceberg…
Trends show that in 2019, dark social will likely truly impact social media marketing plans: there has indeed been a huge growth in Facebook Messenger and an insane growth curve for WhatsApp over the last few years.
Dark social is highly beneficial for brand visibility therefore think of using WhatsApp & Facebook Messenger in your marketing strategy through customer service, marketing campaigns, messenger bots or the build of communities for instance.
#5 Social listening
Social listening is the process of tracking the web and social media channels to find mentions of your brand or industry keywords. The primary goals of social listening are generally customer service and reputation management.The real trend of 2019 is going to be using social media listening for lead generation and social selling. People tend to share their frustrations, ideas and recommendations on social media platforms. For marketers, this is a golden opportunity to find new customers and engage with them. There are many social media listening tools available (Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Social Mention) to help you analyse datas and improve understanding of your target audience, from customers to prospects which can be valuable for your brand’s future success.