By Kim Smith
The year of 2017 was remarkable for social media. The introduction of new technologies and techniques opened the doors of fresh and creative marketing ideas. As we dig into 2018, it’s time for us to reflect on social media innovations and plan some unique strategies for growing through social media marketing this year.
1. Augmented Reality
This technology amazed users with the launch of adventurous game Pokémon Go. The game’s experience was no less than an adrenaline rush. It was the beginning of the new age of marketing when Facebook introduced AR as a feature. With awesome AR features, this #1 platform gave users the unbelievable experience of real-time comments, likes and shares.
Following the footsteps of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat introduced AR supported face filters that scan and overlap vivid types of 3D effects on users’ face. Augmented reality is a perk to different business verticals as they can project their ideas through special effects on the major social media platforms.
2. Video Marketing
Video marketing is proven to be an easy medium of communication. According to a report, 4X consumers would prefer watching a video about products and services over reading. Advances in technology have paved a way for video marketing as it can be presented in third dimension making it more intriguing for users to watch.
Nowadays, live video streaming is trending. Though being short-lived, it has captivated users’ attention to a great extent. Video marketing is a must to use marketing strategy as it swiftly engages a large group of users resulting in increase in the number of followers, shares, likes and comments. Not only on Facebook as FB live, you can also post live videos on YouTube, Twitter and other major social media platforms.
3. Chatbots
Chatbots act as a virtual assistance to users seeking help in consultation, shopping and other customer related services. It is designed to support users 24*7 and they are no less than humans. Chatbots provide instant solutions to the queries which make valuable contribution to the users.
There are two different types of chatbots; rule-based bots and artificial intelligence chatbots. Though AI chatbots have more potential, choosing either of the two proves to be beneficial for your business. For instance; Adidas women chatbot garnered 2,000 signups in the first two weeks of the launch with 80% retention rate. CONVRG, a chatbot development company ran a simple survey of coupons through chatbot experience and noted three times increase in the response rate compared to traditional email survey. These two examples are enough to highlight the importance of chatbots in the near future.
4. Influencer Marketing
In 2018, apart from hiring top SEO companies & services, SMBs and big enterprises will be required to invest their marketing dollars in influencer marketing. Influencer marketing is not new in the B2B sector. Many B2B companies embrace this technique to influence a group of unreachable audience inviting a potential community of influencers. Brands like Daniel Wellington, Audible, Motorola and other major ones succeeded in developing a strong connection with a new group of users with the help of influencers. This strategy is pocketbook friendly and worth considering because it boosts a) website visitors, b) number of followers, likes, shares and comments on social media, c) product sale and d) maintains a focus on relevant audience.
5. Social Listening
Social listening will create an edge over your competitors. It is as important a strategy as influencer marketing. Social listening is not about what strategies or content your competitors are using; it is a method to monitor the digital conversation and figure out what users are saying about your product and services.
With social listening, a business can strengthen their brand reputation, understand user behavior, improve customer service online, and respond to users’ queries and comments. There are numerous social listening tools around the web that allow marketers to evaluate public feedback on the basis of search query and provide useful insights. Besides, you can also collect a good amount of data that vary in different dimensions, for instance; accumulating competitive data and use it in marketing.
6. Quora
Quora will continue to add value to the users. It is a place where knowledge and useful insights are shared in abundance. Though not as popular as other major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram it continues to contribute valuable inputs to the users. Quora provides a wide-range of categories for experts to voice their opinion on the meaningful subject line and grab users’ attention.
Various business organizations step in to this platform to provide solutions to the users’ queries in the form of case studies, sharing their own experiences, examples, etc. These types of contents help in increasing user-engagement rate and incline users towards the organizations. Regardless of their business sizes, organizations keep writing on Quora once or twice a week to stay connected with the potential users.
Wrapping Up
This concludes our list of top-notch social media marketing strategies which you can employ to upsurge the growth of your business. Which SMM strategies are you planning to use in 2018? Share them in the comment section below, would love to hear from you.
