When it comes to social media marketing, tools and fads come and go in a heartbeat. What’s hot today, might not be hot tomorrow.
However, in 2014, we’re seeing some trends that won’t go away anytime soon. As truly useful tools rise to the top of the cluttered marketplace, brand marketers are gaining new abilities to drive real results via social media.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at what’s hot in social media marketing in 2014. Each of these trends has been growing for years, but finally, brand marketers and corporate leadership teams are prioritizing them and giving them more budget dollars.
1. Incentives
The days of “Like our Facebook Page” are over. The thrill of clicking the Like button disappeared well over a year ago. Today, people aren’t willing to tie themselves to a brand or company unless they get something in return. The promise of great content can be enough of an incentive to get some consumers to Like your Facebook Page or follow your brand on other social media channels, but there is a huge difference between “liking” and engaging.
Incentives work, not only in getting people to take the initial step to “like” your brand across social media channels, but also to engage with your brand. In other words, one time incentives aren’t enough. Incentives should be ongoing to build a new audience and to reward your existing audience. The latter is the part that brands are finally getting better at.
2. Mobile
Finally, brand marketers and corporate leaders are realizing that a “mobile-always” strategy is critical to ongoing success. Content and communications must work effectively or the rapidly growing (and dominating) mobile audience won’t give your brand a second chance. Simply applying an existing online marketing strategy to the mobile world doesn’t work.
3. Hyper-Targeting
Broadcasting and mass communications are taking a back seat to hyper-targeting. Whether brand marketers are pursuing hyper-local targeting strategies or laser-focused targeting based on demographic, psychographic, and behavioral factors, they’re all realizing that the power of social media marketing comes from building one-to-one relationships, not one-to-many relationships. Finding the right audience is an essential step to boosting brand awareness, recognition, sales, loyalty, and advocacy.
What social media marketing trends are you seeing in 2014? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
Image: CaptureQueen licensed CC BY 2.0
Susan Gunelius
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Social media like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Flickr are becoming more and more important in our everyday lives. There are hundreds of millions of people using them everyday.
If you want your internet business success, you should get full use of it, otherwise you will be outdated.