Tips & Best Practices on Social Media for the New Year

The world of digital marketing, particularly social media marketing, is fluid and ever-changing. As another year goes by and the marketing world becomes increasingly diverse, your brand’s approach to Social Media for the New Year must also reflect these changes. Any business with an online presence (which is essentially every business these days) should be utilizing social media as a part of their marketing efforts. And to use it effectively, you have to be aware of the rapid evolution and new ways to use it to your advantage. So, what are the top tips on Social Media for the New Year?

1. More Live Streaming Video: We saw the emergence of live streaming video on Facebook this year and nobody should expect it to slow down as we enter 2017. Live streaming video content has garnered a huge response from Facebook users because it allows people to see unfiltered and authentic content. When you live stream something for your company, you are giving your audience an inside scoop or a behind-the-scenes look at what happens behind the brand. This build credibility, trust, and intrigue.
2. Expiring Content: Snapchat introduced us to the concept of expiring content with its 10-second videos that could be viewed once and then would disappear forever. But if you wanted to save the video, you could add it to your story, where your followers could view it—within 24 hours. After the 24 hour period was up, the video would disappear for good. If you think this approach would be counterproductive for businesses to use, you would be wrong. Expiring content promoted a sense of urgency, and followers would be alerted and view it as soon as possible because once it disappeared, they would never be able to see it again. This became so effective that Instagram copied this model by adding expiring video stories to their platform. When your business takes advantage of expiring content that has a limited life expectancy, it will build a following of people who are genuinely interested in seeing your content and seeing it as soon as possible, lest it escape them and they lose that opportunity forever.
3. A Social Influencer: The power that social influencers have has greatly increased over the last couple years. Certain bloggers and vloggers have built enormous followings of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of people because they deliver content people want. They might be blogging about food, fashion, tech, fitness…virtually any topic you can think of. And because the best bloggers have built such a large following, big brands are actually paying social influencers in order to reach those followers. If your company has something of value that a certain social influencer’s following would appreciate, consider paying that social influencer to reach that untapped audience.
4. Transparency: When a business got a bad review or a complaint just a few years ago, it was usually behind closed doors. But thanks to social media, bad reviews are easily seen and sometimes they go viral. This transparency, unlike anything we have ever seen before, is making a trust economy. Social media makes everything more visible. And if you want to keep your brand untarnished, it’s important to recognize that transparency has become the new paradigm…because some companies aren’t aware of that yet.
5. New Means of Communication: Social media was created for the purpose of making communication easier. And obviously businesses have taken advantage of this form of communication in order to reach out to potential clients in a new way. But like everything about social media, communication will continuously evolve and take on new formats. For example, some companies are now offering customer service directly through social media and some businesses are using Facebook as a means to conduct more professional conversation.

Looking for more tips and best practices on Social Media for the New Year? Contact us today!