Five Social Media Trends for Small Businesses

Digital is on a constant change, so what might be trending today may be outdated tomorrow. Essentially, we believe that small businesses should be proactive by monitoring the latest social media trends and jumping on to the ones that would be effective for their business.

According to the 2018 Global Digital report from We Are Social and Hootsuite, there are 3.196 billion active social media users globally, and small businesses need to realise that social media provides a lot more opportunities, especially the one that involves reaching these billions of consumers.

We have summed up 5 social media trends that we believe small businesses should look at to leverage from and include in their social strategy.

Momentary Content

We know that Instagram and Snapchat Stories are the most popular form of momentary content that’s posted today and gone tomorrow. Small businesses can now grasp this type of content to showcase real-time stories in high-quality. You can create a momentary content strategy that focuses on behind-the-scenes content, showcasing products, delivering cool offers, sharing curated user generated content, and even live stream moments and events.

Vertical Videos

By the 2019, video will make up an astounding 80% of all internet traffic, and in the mobile-first world, vertical video rules. We know that people hold their phones upright when Snapchatting and Instagramming stories on their smartphones, so it ultimately makes sense that businesses should embrace the vertical video format to. Small businesses can now leverage from Instagram’s latest IGTV, it's longer form content hub aimed at facilitating episodic vertical video content.

Micro Influencers

We know that paying for major influencers cost a fortune for small businesses, but a new trend has submerged to save an influencer strategy that small businesses are wanting to implement, its called micro-influencers. These micro-influencers who have a following of 1K – 50k+ social media users have even more impact on consumers than the major ones. As a small business, you will need to set clear objectives and consider whether they will help deliver the best ROI; from creating brand awareness to increasing engagement.

Social Commerce

The recent explosion of social commerce is a stark reminder that shopping has always been a social experience. Consumers can now make a product purchase from the native social media platforms without leaving the platform or spending long hours in a queue. As a small business, you can jump in on this rapid trend by leveraging Facebook’s shop tab and Instagram’s shoppable tags to create convenience for your customer.

Chatbots

According to Social Media Today, one of the most enticing benefits of using chatbots is that messages sent via bots have much higher open and click-through rates than email. Chatbots are beneficial to small business in that it provides an instant connection with customers from all over the world – from solving customer issues to ordering a product.

Are you implementing one or more of these top social media trends in your social strategy? If so, share with us your social media success stories!

Want to learn more about social media marketing? Check out our Introduction to Social Media Marketing course which covers the basics of promoting brands and services online using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCES:

WeareSocial

Entrepreneur

Facebook

Instagram for Business

Social Media Today

Key Ingredients of a Successful Social Media Campaign

Suffice to say; social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools. Young adults are using social media to communicate with brands, seek opinions and product reviews to create their perspective about businesses and ultimately assist with their purchasing decision. We believe that is of utmost importance that businesses are constantly improving their social media strategies to stay relevant.

To assist you get started on your social media campaign, here are 9 key ingredients you cannot neglect in your strategy.

Setting Strategic Goals

The success of your social media campaign depends on having clearly defined goals that can help you best execute your plan. It is important that you ensure your social media campaign goals are aligned with your business goals. Some of these goals may include:

· Brand awareness

· Improve your conversion rates

· Boost brand mentions

· Increase followers

· Boost sales

· Increased engagement

· Drive traffic and generate qualified leads

Implement Strategies That Support Your Goals

Now that your goals are set for your social media campaign, you are ready to build inbound strategies that will assist in achieving those goals. For example, if your goal is to get more engagement from your audience, you could hold a photo contest and gather entries using a unique hashtag over the social channels that support hashtags, such as Twitter & Instagram.

Cross-Promote the Social Media Campaign

Building anticipation in your audience in the weeks leading up to your campaign is key. Cross-promote the campaign through email, website and promoted influencer content. Campaign reminders and mentions across a number of digital touch points will deliver better results than a social media campaign that’s only promoted on your social media platforms.

Invest in Paid Media

The days of simply posting on social and expecting all your followers to see everything are over. It’s survival of the fittest – Social platforms are favouring content not only because they are most deserving of engagement but also because they have received paid media investment to encourage that engagement.

Whilst it is essential to have high quality content feeding your social media campaign, businesses need to start investing in paid media to get that content seen and grow their audience.

Analyse Your Metrics

The best way to understand whether you are reaching your marketing goals and whether your marketing efforts are successful is by evaluating your social media campaign. Use analytical tools like Brandtribe, Ads Manager, Google Analytics to reveal useful data that can help you understand the success of your campaign, or help in optimising your campaign, as well as plan better for your next one.

Want to learn more about building your successful social media campaign? Check out our Introduction to Social Media Marketing course to assist you in understanding the social media arena and the next step in creating your campaign.

What does a digital strategist do?

Sometimes referred to as a Planner, the digital strategy role usually involves understanding and unpacking the business challenge in order to plan brand messaging online and how this should be brought to life through campaigns or platforms, or both.

A typical digital agency has a number of very different teams working together to deliver large and often complex projects. The key teams are outlined below:

- Strategy

- Account Management

- Project Management

- User Experience (UX) or User Interface (UI)

- Design

- Front End Development

- Back End Development

- Quality Assurance

This post is the first part of a series which uncovers the differing roles within these teams, starting with a Digital Strategist.

The role "digital strategist" didn't even exist in the mainstream before 2005. If we look at Google Trends data, we can see that every year the term gains traction globally, given the increasing importance of it.

Google Trends Data for the term "Digital Strategist" since 2005

In a fantastic article entitled "Advice for the Next Generation Planner" from The Planning Lab, the need for strategists or planners is described as to provide clarity and direction in the field of advertising. "Opinions, actions and interactions of people are in a constant flux as new societies and technologies emerge. In this world, account planning has become more interesting and more useful than ever. "

How does a digital strategist go about advising how best to approach the task at hand? Well, they use a variety of techniques which could include:

- A category deep dive. An industry analysis which takes into consideration the broader industry, and not necessarily just the competitors of the brand

- A competitor analysis. Looking at how competitors excel or possibly fail, specifically with regards to their digital marketing efforts

- A digital audit. A digital audit is often the best point of departure as it sets the benchmark or baseline from which a brand can improve. In order to do this, the strategist will employ tools like Google Analytics, SEO tools, hotmapping tools.

- Conducting research and analysing data. This could be as simple as reviewing previous campaign data, to conducting first hand research in the form of surveys, focus groups or one on one interviews.

- Objectives & KPI Framework. An understanding of what success looks like to the client is imperative, as this will provide a "North Star" to guide the strategist and their team. Once they have put the objectives down on paper (e.g. awareness, downloads, sales or other conversions), they will put together corresponding KPI's which will measure success.

There are arguments stating that someone is born a strategist. Whether you believe this is true or not, there are five distinctive skills which need to be inherent or honed, to produce award winning digital strategy.

What kind of skills do you need to be a good strategist?

1. Problem Solving. Unpacking problems and brainstorming ways in which to solve them for the business is probably the most crucial task the strategist performs. There also doesn't have to be a challenge at hand. It could also be a case of looking for opportunities for the business to leverage, for example a trend in the industry which may give a brand a leg up, or further enhancing the brand's inherent strengths.

2. Curiosity and a love of Research. Inspiration can come from anywhere, and in order to stay inspired, it is imperative that you read, write, take photos, ask questions, voraciously consume popular culture, read industry news, have an opinion, be okay with being wrong, listen, talk and challenge yourself daily. Merry Baskin from the Planning Lab article previously mentioned, says:

"I just spent a week with the Advertising/Planning students at University of

Oregon and was appalled at how little actual reading some of them do - apart from

devouring all those nice chatty blogs and twitters etc. (Nothing wrong with these

incidentally, but not if that is your only diet. It’s like living on beer and crisps. Great fun

to start with but ultimately a bit gassy, bloating and gives you spots.)"

Value both qualitative and quantitive research to get you to a place where you can be confident that your strategy is based off both softer "human insights" and data which inspires and illuminates. Wrangle all the information until you can create dynamic and compelling work.

3. Be Persuasive yet Authentic

Sales people are persuasive, often through persistence and force. Great strategists need to be persuasive, using more refined skills. If you are well researched, well spoken, considered and up for debate, you can usually find the answers your client is looking for. It's great if you can find these answers alone but much better if you find them in collaboration with your team and client, and bring a team along for the journey. This is likely to inspire greater action which ultimately is your reason for being.

4. Pay Attention to the Smallest Details

Coming up with a "big idea" is only half the job! Plotting every detail in roll out plans and schedules is just as important as the initial idea. Without a simple way to execute your concepts, its likely that these will end up on the cutting room floor and ever see the light of day.

5. Be Creative and Energetic in Equal Parts

Make no mistake about it, as a strategist you will be challenged at every turn. Why are you suggesting X? Why are we doing it like Y? Embrace these questions, and think of them as a a soundboard in the journey to delivering something great. Don't be precious about your ideas, and don't take criticism to heart. Boundless energy will serve you well as you take onboard feedback and deliver something even better. Creativity will help you too, as will resourcefulness. This means brainstorming things like "Even within confines XYZ, we could do this better." Or "due to parameters ABC, we can't do it this way but we can do it that way." This takes disproportionate zeal and often requires making a boring brief unboring.

Does this sound like you? Why not take the first step to becoming a digital strategist, and check out our Introduction to Social Media Marketing course. Who knows, this could be the beginning of a career in one of the most fast paced and rewarding roles in digital.