Social media has transformed a lot in the last few years and is growing at lightning speed to alter the future. Whether you’re a brand, an influencer, or use social media for simply networking, you must have seen radical changes in social media from time and again. Since its slow movement in the form of Friendster, AIM, and MySpace, social media has transformed into an unbelievably profitable platform for influencers and brands.
In the recent days, the personal usage of social media has got cloaked by the newsfeed filled with eCommerce and branded content. Moreover, the pandemic has augmented this change even more as the society has switched to digital communication to find entertainment and shop for the health and safety concerns. Also though these changes came to light quickly, the pandemic’s effect on user behavior will alter social media for the future.
In the new normal world, it can seem too much to try and monitor even more moving pieces in the vast social media puzzle, but today’s emerging social media trends are critical to your brand’s success tomorrow and further. This article will throw some light on how to create outstanding content that will help lead the future of social media, amid the crowded newsfeed.
1. Focus on Community
Today, when people are maintaining social distancing and working from homes, a digital community is what people are badly looking for. Communication and developing a sense of inclusion is imperative to form a growing social media community for the future. Facebook has started to lead these groups and also stated that they organize content from groups that users often engage with. Groups display the benefits of word-of-mouth, and it’s credibility. The clients are 16x more likely to view a post from a buddy than a brand. Some of the biggest brands like Peloton and ASOS have already commenced effective groups where followers are urged to interface with other individuals who share similar interests and spark discussions around the brand.
While developing a social media community for your company, try techniques that bring out interactions among the members and generate a community feeling. For instance, sharing teasers of your product, or consistently asking for your followers’ feedback will form a relationship among the members and the brand.
Developing an effective community can also render you with insights about upcoming trends and the skills to tune in with what your clients expect from your brand. To get ready for the future of social media and your industry, a community is a precious asset that will keep your brand continually moving forward.
2. Customer Service Tool
The days of interacting with customer care reps and getting placed on hold for several hours are now gone. As the future is heading towards digitalization, customers are expected brands to pay more heed to their needs. As per a recent study, more than 60% of customers who whine on social media expect a revert within one hour.
Delivering pleasant customer service across social media platforms can be monotonous; however, it’s proven to be a more economical way to resolving problems. Resolving an issue on social media platforms is 83% less costly than doing the same through a call center interaction.
Nowadays customers expect a more personalized service, and a human touch is preferred more than a mechanical answer. Before forming a strategy for future customer service on social media, describe your voice and tone, to ensure consistent responses across the platforms going ahead.
3. Boost Engagement with Video & Live Stream
Live-stream and video have observed a swift rise to popularity recently, and will remain to take the social media world by storm even in the future. The audience enjoys the interactive part of video more than regular posts, and video content can deliver 10x more value than an image. Live video is anticipated to grow 15 times and reach a 17% share of all web traffic.
Adding video content to your promotional strategies doesn’t essentially need hours of effort, and the best part is that you can do much of editing work from your smartphone or laptop. There are various apps and tools available to assist you in making high-quality content for social media from your desk.
4. Target Your Niche
Even though common platforms like Twitter and Instagram are always dominating the social media platforms, niche social media networks are trending more amongst the audience. Niche platforms are systems formed for a target audience, specifically those with a particular interest out of the odds.
Niche networks like Twitch are an outstanding environment to launch your brand to new audiences due to less brand competition. You will have more reach on these smaller networks than Facebook, which has beyond 60 million business pages & less chance of reaching the ideal users.
Before deciding your niche, conduct proper research to know which platforms go the best with your brand and where you can expect the most success. The most suitable platform will help your brand catch the attention of new users and help you boost followers in the future.
5. Create Momentary Content
Momentary content can get regarded as rich media that is only available for a brief period like the Instagram story. Moreover, the short-lived content is advantageous in itself. The short life span develops a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out).
Syncing momentary content into your social media strategy will help you look unique in the future as users will always turn to their smartphones as the preferred way to scroll through the feed. Moreover, such content perfectly fits the mobile screens and enables you to post without blocking your page, but still receiving high engagement.
The next significant advantage of ephemeral content is the ability to share user-generated content (USG) easily. As per recent studies, as close as 50% of users claim that USG is a great way for them to find new products. By sharing USG on your momentary content, you’ll get the skills to empower your users and attract new customers to your brand.
Final Words
The future can be unpredictable and daunting, especially for brands who wish to stay relevant on social media platforms as the world continues to transform rapidly. By syncing these trends into your social media strategy, your brand will flourish along with the changes and encounter success in a unique way.