Not everybody succeeds in the world of social media marketing. In fact, a lot of small business owners use the wrong strategies and end up reducing online traffic from their target market instead of attracting them. So, if you want to succeed in social media, consider making good use of a combination of strategies.
Here’s a look at four social media marketing trends every entrepreneur should keep in mind.
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Social networking sites are more effective than daily deal sites.
According to Media Life Magazine reports, daily deal site growth will slow through 2016. “After astronomical growth in 2012, the online deals marketplace is showing signs of maturity…” Although daily deal sites used to be quite popular and were very effective in attracting targeted customers, many marketers no longer use these sites for their campaigns. Instead, marketers prefer to focus on the returns they get from purchases as time goes by. So, if you want to improve your marketing efforts in the long-term, it would be best to use social networking websites in lieu of daily deals sites.
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People don’t check-in online as much as they used to.
Many people don’t use location-based networks like they used to and adoption remains slow. “A new report from Forrester says that geosocial apps a.k.a. location-based social networks can ‘help increase in-store visits, your brand’s visibility and consumer word of mouth by connecting people with their locations and their friends.’ Yet consumer adoption of location-based apps is very slow.” (Source: ReadWrite) Many people cite concerns such as safety and privacy. To tackle this problem, company’s should focus on offering more rewards and contests to encourage check-ins and location sharing on social networks.
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Social bookmarking sites aren’t as popular as they once were.
Statistics indicate that people are no longer use social bookmarking sites as much as they once did. For example, “Social bookmarking sites such as De.licio.us, DIGG, Friendfeed, etc are also rapidly declining in use. 2011 saw 26% respondents using the various bookmarking services and in 2013 just 10%.” (Source: Oktopost) Although sites like Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest and StumbleUpon are still popular with marketers, most of the other sites are already dying. As such, it would be best not to rely solely on social bookmarking sites for marketing purposes.
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Social media campaigns will only work on top websites.
Social media marketers will continue to launch campaigns on social media websites to promote products and services. However, these campaigns will only succeed if they are used on popular websites. According to the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry report, “Marketers investing 40+ hours per week are much more focused on Pinterest (37% more), Google+ (35% more), Instagram (34% more), YouTube (33% more) and blogging (26% more) than those investing 6 or fewer hours a week with social media.” Meanwhile many marketers are currently planning to increase their social media presence through Twitter campaigns, as well. Younger marketers, on the other hand, prefer to use photo-sharing websites to launch their campaigns, particularly Instagram. A lot of them are also using blogs to launch their campaigns, though most of them are still turning to Facebook and Google Plus for most of their campaign needs.
If you are still stuck in the past and using old social media marketing strategies with hopes of getting ahead, now would be the time to turn to newer strategies. These four trends can act as guideposts for future social media investments.
Sameer Bhatia is the founder and CEO of ProProfs.com, a leading provider of online survey software for building, Online testing, and applying knowledge. Sameer has a background in technology with a Masters in Computer Science from USC (University Of Southern California) and is an ed-tech industry veteran.
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