This post is for all you, my friends, who are interested in what’s going on in social media right now and what are the trends in 2018. There were a lot of changes in the purpose of social media last year, the number of businesses who use social media channels to promote their services or products was growing rapidly and people became more suspicious about promotional posts and ads. Because of that, businesses are changing their social media strategies and you should know about the trends in 2018 as well.
Building Relationships
You probably noticed how promotional were most of the posts on social media in the past few years. Gladly, it’s time to change this. In 2018 social media channels will be used to build relationships and provide feedback, not to advertise. This means brands won’t be trying to make you use their products or services asap. Instead of that, they’ll be doing their best to make you interested in what they offer, build relationships and maybe turn you into a loyal customer.
Content Content Content!
The importance of content was always huge and the trend of high-quality content was growing during the past few years. In 2018 content marketing will become even more important. Brands will try to find out what their audience is truly interested in, what problems they have and try to create content their craving for.
Social listening
Social listening tools will take an important part when finding opportunities for targeted content creation. These tools were used for a while now but in 2018 even more brands will use them. This is because content will play an important part in raising brand awareness and social listening tools will help to create targeted content.
Real-Time Messaging
A trend to use in-platform and real-time messaging will continue to rise. You won’t have to wait for a couple of days to receive a response to your email. A lot of businesses will suggest an option for real-time messaging to simplify communications and to improve your experience.
More Video
Are you a video content fan? If so, you’re lucky! The trend of videos was growing last year and in 2018 more businesses will create video content for their audiences and it will take the most important part of content marketing.
Organic Reach
If you hope to hear some good news about organic reach, I need to disappoint you. Rates of organic reach via social media channels will continue to drop. There were some important changes in social media algorithms that lowered the rates of organic reach, because of that, reaching out to your audience is getting more and more difficult. We can only hope for the algorithms to be changed again in 2018!
“New Tool” fatigue
New tools and raising social media channels were always a huge part of social media trends but not this time. There is going to be a shift back to the basics. So it would be the best to stick to the social media channels you’re already using and don’t waste your time on new ones (unless you will see a great new channel growing quite fast!).
Generation Z
Gen Z was born between 1995 and 2015 so despite the fact that even the oldest members of this generation are quite young they’re the ones to whom businesses will be promoting for many years to come. Because of that, lots of businesses will start focusing on Generation Z right away.
These trends are relevant for every business, no matter how big or small it is. Social media is irreplaceable when it comes to building relationships with your audience and promoting your biz so make sure to keep up with these social media trends and continue growing!