Social Media Forecast 2015: Trends and Outlooks

In less than ten years' time, social media evolved from a fun way to connect with friends to a major marketing tool. And the changing hasn’t stopped there. We’ve seen Facebook move from small targeted ads to auto-play video ad content, sponsored tweets and ads on Twitter, sponsored content on Instagram, and even advertising on Snapchat. It’s a constantly shifting landscape, and marketers may start to realize that the effective tactic they used just a few months ago is now stale.

With this in mind, it’s always wise to look at what’s currently trending — to use a word made more popular by social media — in the world of social media marketing. Here’s what we’ve seen growing early in 2015.

Multiple-Channel Marketing and Integrated Social Advertising

It’s not enough to put all of your eggs in one basket, or to put your entire social marketing budget in Facebook. A recent study by Canadian firm Forum Research shows that while Facebook is still the most widely-used social media site by Canadians, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram still have significant numbers of users and are therefore well worth pursuing as part of a complete social marketing plan.

Attention to Posts About Nonprofits and Education

According to a recent report by marketing firm HubSpot, nonprofit and educational organizations have more followers than businesses in other sectors, and they have much more interaction per social post (sometimes more than three times as much) than their for-profit counterparts. Even if your company is for-profit and not necessarily educational in nature, show your social media followers any connections you have to those sectors when you can.

Focus on A/V Efforts and Social Video

Reading text and looking at images are all well and good, but the real push seems to be social marketing using video. Content on YouTube has been a necessity for a few years, but content on Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat all have a lot of potential for marketers. Plus, video allows your consumers to take advantage of the crisp retina displays that they now carry in their pockets.

Mobile Micro Moments

By now, most companies have recognized the importance of having a mobile-enabled website with responsive design. Mobile is huge: think about how many times you’ve seen people standing around not looking at their phones. Every free moment is an opportunity for them to check their connections or learn something new. Marketing efforts need to respond to this and be ready with targeted content.

The Now-24-Hour Marketing Cycle

Like news, marketing now happens in real time. Remember the “Dunk in the Dark” image that Oreo tweeted when the lights went out at the 2013 Superbowl? That set the standard: great marketing now includes coming up with a timely hashtag, sending a tweet that acknowledges things as they happen, and sharing the right photo and the right time.

Need to Update Your Social Marketing Efforts?

Staying on top of changing social marketing trends is a lot easier when you enlist the help of the professionals at Adeo Internet Marketing. As a leading Montreal digital marketing agency, Adeo can work with you on social media strategies and building a following, and they also offer services such as web design, content marketing, and more. Give us a call today at (877) 841-5386, and let’s talk about improving your company’s social media marketing.