Social Media is the most dynamic thing. The trends on social media were changing at a rapid pace. You can take the example of sharing stories on social media platforms. As it is one of the most popular content which every individual prefers to share, whether its on Instagram, WhatsApp or Facebook. As growing popularity of stories, many business now prefers to post stories regularly.
To succeed on social media, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve and understand the latest social media trends. With an analysis, we put together a comprehensive social media trends report. In this report, you’ll learn about the top major trends to help you succeed on social media in 2018. It is very much helpful for Digital Marketing Companies.
Top Social Media Trends to Prepare for in 2018
However it’s impossible to predict how the Social Media Marketing trends will change over a period, we were certain about a few trends last year.
1. Customized Chatbots
Chatbots (those chat boxes that pop up online to ask if you need assistance) are already a common sight on business websites. It’s easy to see the appeal: chatbots can simulate human conversation and help website visitors find what they’re looking for without having to call or email a customer support agent.
57 percent of consumers already said that they’re interested in chatbots because of their instantaneous responses. As chatbots become increasingly popular, they’ll also be finely tuned to better meet consumers’ needs. In 2018, we’re anticipating a couple of social media advertising trends related to chatbots:
We’ve already seen examples of these smarter chatbots this year. Facebook released their Customer Chat plugin, which lets businesses integrate Facebook’s Messenger platform with their own site so that customers can continue chatting with a business any time they’re online.
2. Video Peaking on Social Media
For the last two years, we (and many others) have been saying that video is the most popular content type. 2018 will be no different. According to research done by Kenshoo, spending on social video advertising grew 130% this year, with no sign of stopping. The problem with this is the market for social video is being saturated.
Businesses are now going to be challenged with producing even more relevant video content and distributing it properly if they actually want to get noticed.
If you want to produce social video for your brand you have 2 options :-
3. Augmented & Virtual Reality
Technological advances in social media are driving marketing strategies. Like conversational apps that use AI and machine learning, virtual reality and augmented reality are becoming faster, easier, and cheaper. Brands can now create virtual reality experiences in Facebook with a few inexpensive pieces of hardware.
But is the trend a good fit for every brand? When should your brand jump on emerging technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality?
Producing VR and AR content for the sake of a cutting-edge brand identity is not only expensive, it’s pointless. Users will not see the point in the extra investment of time, and the learning curve, to get content they could have gotten in an easier format. VR and AR ask users to interact. For that extra work, users expect extra value: content they could not have accessed in other formats.
4. Online Hangouts Become the Norm
Online hangouts are the perfect harmony between the live streaming trend and Gen Z. Houseparty, for example, is a free app where you can live video chat with multiple people that saw rapid growth last year and is starting to turn heads.
Because of this, yes, you guessed it, Facebook is reportedly investigating ways to create a similar functionality within their live streaming platform.
5. Generation Z
This generation is the first to grow up 100% online and their tech-savviness is unparalleled. According to RetailDive, Gen Z is 2-3 times more likely to be influenced by social media than they are by sales or discounts.
In other words, they value social media and what others are doing more than they do price itself. That’s a huge shift from the price conscious shoppers of the past.
Now, most marketers won’t worry about Gen Z for at least a few years, but the very first of them are about 22 years old now and graduated college in 2017. A Gen Z workforce is on its way, and marketers should stay ahead of this curve on this one, especially B2B.
Goldman Sachs says that Gen Z is more valuable to marketers than millennials in 2018 because their buying power is only going to increase, and we need to shift social media strategies accordingly.
There will be a shift in social media investments to Gen Z-friendly platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, and away from those like Facebook.
6. Preference to Social Media on Mobile
We are becoming glued to our smartphones. Facebook studied the behavior of 100 people while they were watching TV at home. 94 of them had their smartphone in their hands while watching TV. And one of the top reasons they look away from the TV is to use their smartphone.
More and more people are also using social media on their smartphone. In fact, the majority of social media users are using the apps via their smartphone:
A number of new social media trends that will impact users and brands alike are strengthening and accelerating. It is likely that video streaming and virtual reality will go mainstream. With the announcement of the new iPhones, augmented reality has a chance to become a part of social media in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago. Lastly, Twitter and Facebook will most likely adjust their policies to protect their brands from political criticism and to provide users with better online experiences.
