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Digital is on a constant change, so what might be trending today may be outdated tomorrow.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.
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