7 Social Media Trends – and 6 Apps to Use to Stay On Top of Them!

social media trends

With over 1 billion subscribers on Facebook and over 300 million on Twitter, it is clear that social media is one of the most fertile places for marketers to reach prospective clients.

7 evolving social media trends

As we move further on from 2017, social media has continued to evolve and this evolution has brought on new trends that marketers cannot afford to ignore.

To keep up with the competition, marketers need to be aware of the following social media trends and develop strategies to help use them to their advantage.

1. Mobile advertising will become increasingly competitive

Marketers should be ready to spend more money on mobile marketing.

This is because the big tech companies and social platforms have already invested a lot into making their platform’s more effective for ads.

Facebook’s changes to its news feed algorithm prioritizes content from family and friends of users over others.

This means marketers advertising on Facebook will have to become creative with their ad’s designs in other to draw attention to them over the automatically prioritized ads.

2. The expansion of live video content

Live video content is becoming increasingly popular, and some marketers have begun experimenting with it to reach more potential clients.

Fortunately there are a lot of streaming sites out there with large audiences with Facebook Live and Periscope at the forefront. These are the platforms marketers will need to watch.

But while targeting platforms with the most audience is a wise move, it also means marketers will be playing in a very competitive field against other marketers.

Thus, a smart move would be to look out for upcoming platforms with a customer base that has lots of room for growth.

Targeting platforms that are more popular in specific countries is another probable strategy.

3. Messaging apps have become a powerful tool for brands

More than 4 billion users around the world actively use messaging apps and that number isn’t limited to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat users only.

4 billion is a large audience and the sooner marketers figure out how to leverage this potential market to their benefit, the better.

Messaging apps are a quick and easy way to communicate with customers and provide them product information. It’s also ridiculously cost-effective.

Messaging apps and social media apps are part of a rare group of apps that users constantly make use of on a daily basis.

And this is enough reason for marketers not to overlook their potential capability for real-time connection with potential and active clients.

4. Ecommerce on social media could be the new sales frontline

With social media platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, users have the option to purchase services and products right on their apps.

Also, most consumers follow their favourite brands on social media for updates and to browse their products. This consumer habit is something marketers need to be aware of while strategizing their brand’s publicity.

5. Virtual reality (VR) might be the next big thing in marketing

While VR still hasn’t picked up much steam and gone completely mainstream yet, it is well on its way.

VR offers a fully immersive experience that no other technology is currently capable of emulating.

So what better way is there to convince a potential customer to buy than to provide them a full experience of your product through VR?

6. Increased use of chatbots for customer service

To increase customer service functionality and efficiency, many businesses are looking to Chatbots.

Chatbots are used to communicate answers to FAQs or offer instant information to customers concerning a product or service.

This facilitates speedy response to a customer’s query by reducing response times on social media or other messaging platforms a company is using.

So if marketers want to be able to provide quick and clear answers to their customer’s enquiries, Chatbots might be a smart investment.

7. Social media trends: ephemeral content has a role to play

Ephemeral content, also known as Temporary content, is any online content with a limited life span – it comes, it serves its purpose, then it’s gone.

This kind of content is beginning to gain more popularity as consumers feel less of a need to hold on to information they consider to be unimportant after it has served its purpose.

Ephemeral content is deliberately constructed to be short, sweet, immediately digestible and then gone.

Examples of such content includes; behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, live events, daily video series, product reveals, and so on.

This kind of content is useful because its fleeting nature drives consumers to think they’ve witnessed something valuable that they’ll probably never see again.

But what good is any of this to a marketer?

By making content a one-time only offer, a marketer creates an air of urgency around that content. This urgency will drive consumers to pay attention.

Also, because of ephemeral content’s nature, a marketer has to ensure the brevity of his/her content.

This way repetition is avoided and concise, clear and efficient content is born.

To summarize, marketers need to experiment with ads across different platforms in order to get the best results from a wider range of audience by taking advantage of each platform’s unique and upcoming features.

If there are other social media trends you’re aware of but are not on this list, be kind enough to share with us in the comment section. Let’s work together to attain individual success.

 

The 6 Apps to use to stay on top of these social media trends

social media appsThe usefulness of social media in promoting a brand’s identity or enhancing sales cannot be overstated.

Not only that, it is a reliable source of product feedback, and a means to increase a brand’s social media following to generate qualified leads.

There’s also its usefulness for keeping a watchful eye on the competition, and engaging prospective customers in conversation.

Now armed with knowledge of the social media trends to look out for, let’s now look at the apps to help best take advantage of them:

1. Bear

If your marketing job involves constantly generating online content, then you need Bear. It’s only available in the Apple store, but you can use Evernote instead if you have an Android device.

With Bear, you’ve got a place to archive inspired ideas any time they come to you. It’s a visually impressive and intuitive app that lets you write and take notes on the go.

It also keeps you organized, so you don’t have to start wondering where you penned down that great idea you had.

The app also provides easy sharing options to facilitate collaboration among teams where necessary.

2. Pyrus

With Pyrus, inefficient workflow and poor communication among a business’s team becomes a thing of the past. The app can be described as a communication tool for teams.

It delivers real-time messaging, and assists with task delegation. It also provides an integrated search feature to update its user on team members’ tasks and how far they’ve progressed with them.

Improved collaboration with the use of quick file-sharing and chats are other benefits Pyrus has to offer. If there’s no internet, the app also provides offline functionality.

3. Pocket Casts

Podcasts are a useful source of information for a lot of social media marketers. With Pocket Casts, you can easily find and keep track of all ongoing podcasts you’re interested in.

Its archive possesses almost every, if not all, podcasts you could be interested in – over 300,000 different shows sorted by trending, featured, or most popular.

4. Panda 5

This popular news-reading app helps facilitate your reading through a vast array of online content by allowing you browse the content of multiple websites at the same time.

It also integrates with other websites to connect to their RSS feeds to bring you your favourite content. For a marketer who needs to stay constantly updated, this is extremely useful and convenient.

The app comes with already integrated feeds from popular sites, such as Medium, Product Hunt, The Verge, Brain Pickings, Inbound.org, among others. You are of course allowed to edit this list to suit your needs.

Boxer Pro

This app is a smart email, contacts, and calendar manager that turns sorting through your email inbox into an organised and efficient chore.

Features like Quick Replies and Email Like help save time and effort by sending pre-set messages to emails that don’t require an in-depth response.

For a marketer who spends too much time replying upon urgent and non-urgent messages alike, this app is a life and time-saver.

6. Into

With this app, accessing endorsements or collaborations from Influencers to reach a larger audience becomes easier.

Into helps by connecting a marketer’s business with Influencers through their agents. Said Influencers range from industry leaders to celebrities.

Social media trends & apps conclusion

That concludes our list. But mind you, while all the aforementioned apps are available on the App store, not all are available to Android users.

These tools should facilitate a marketer’s quest to take advantage of the fast rising and ever changing social media trends.

While at it, also seek a web host within your locality to help register the domain name you intend to advertise on your social media.

If you’re in New Zealand for instance, a https://freeparking.co.nz/web-hosting easily tells you where the web host is, as compared to a service provider with a “.com”.

With all these in mind, a marketer can work with greater efficiency and dedicate more time and energy to what’s more important — bringing his/her products and services to the attention of the world.

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