49% of the global population is now on social media. That’s around 3.96 billion of people who are actively using their social media accounts that businesses can target through digital marketing campaigns.
Along with this massive growth in social media users is the rise of social media marketing trends that reveal so much about the way people use a certain platform, and what works for most companies.
Whether you are a business owner or a digital marketer, you must keep yourself up-to-date with these trends. Analyzing the market and the growth potential of these platforms, as well as the behavior of their users, is very helpful in figuring out the best marketing strategies that you can employ.
But before you dive deep into the latest social media marketing trends, let’s take a quick detour by looking at the history of social media marketing.
The History of Social Media Marketing
Did you know that Friendster isn’t the first social network? The first social network is actually Six Degrees with around 3.5 million users. It was launched in 1997 and was acquired by YouthStream Media Networks in 1999.
Fast forward, we would have Myspace as the largest social networking site from 2005-2008. None of these social networking sites, however, became as huge as Facebook these days.
Now, we do not only have Facebook, but we also have the following social media platforms with their corresponding number of Monthly Active Users (MAUs) or Monthly Unique Visitors (MUVs). The Source of the data below is Buffer.
- Facebook – 2.23 billion MAUs
- YouTube – 1.9 billion MAUs
- WhatsApp – 1.5 billion MAUs
- Messenger – 1.3 billion MAUs
- WeChat – 1.06 billion MAUs
- Instagram – 1 billion MAUs
- QQ – 861 million MAUs
- Tumblr – 642 million MUVs
- Qzone – 632 million MAUs
- Tik Tok – 500 million MAUs
- Twitter – 335 million MAUs
- Reddit – 330 million MAUs
- Baidu Tieba – 300 million MAUs
- LinkedIn – 294 million MAUs
Indeed, there is an overwhelming increase in the number of social media platforms and in the number of monthly active users.
Social Media Marketing Trends
Any business that does not see the huge potential of any of these sites are missing out on a lot of opportunities for sales.
I’ve gathered a list of social media marketing trends and put them together in no particular order. Check out the list below.
1. Connection Through Community Building
Social media is now going back to being social. Brands who wish to excel in these platforms must start building communities and fostering real connection.
In an era wherein social messaging is deemed as self-serving, customers are now inclined to invest in or buy from companies that make an effort on building a relationship with their followers.
Actually, followers now no longer want to be referred to as mere followers, but as actually partners that have a social responsibility with each other.
If you can tailor your marketing approach now to creating content that appeals to your followers on a personal level, then you can start with that. The best thing about connecting with one another in these platforms is that you have direct access to real customer stories which can help you improve as a brand.
2. Organic Reach Through Tiktok
Just when we thought we have enough with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, TikTok disrupts everything and wows us with a huge organic reach.
This organic reach is critical for businesses wanting to reach people who are actively using the platform. But how can businesses leverage TikTok?
Create content that appeals to your target audience. Use ads that fit your audience. Although the demographics are showing a huge number of users belong to the younger generation, businesses, particularly B2Cs, can take advantage of it as early as possible, before it becomes even more massive.
Social networking sites like TikTok requires that you diversify your marketing approach and observe inclusivity. With more content going out there, you can hardly keep up. But for as long as you make an effort to respect the platform users, and even collaborate with others on other aspects, besides video content production.
3. Growth Acceleration
Although it has already been pointed out earlier how the social media users have grown in quantity, but it’s different when you look at the stats closer with regard ot new daily users.
There are about 180 million people who started using social media between the months July and September of this year alone. That leads to an average of almost 2 million new users daily.
68% of those who can use social media already do. You can say that most people on social media are capable of making decisions on whether to make certain purchases or not.
4. New Features
According to Time, Instagram users “like” 4.2 billion posts a day. There are over 500 million of tweets on Twitter each day. LinkedIn is the second most used platform for B2B companies.
The tremendous amount of interactions that social media sites other than Facebook experience have led to the addition of new features on these sites. Instagram, for example, has boosted some shopping features.
Just recently, Twitter and LinkedIn have also made available the feature for daily stories, thus giving more avenues for interactions.
5. Product Research via Social Networks
The younger age groups now research more about products via their social networking sites. Whenever they make purchase decisions, they check first their accounts and find more information about the product there.
Make sure that you produce content regularly so you can reach potential customers who want to get to know a product more before buying one.
You can also opt for paid posts or sponsored posts to reach even those that do not follow you but maybe following an influencer or someone close to them.
6. Engagement Metrics Matter
How do you check the performance of your social media content?
Well, you check the engagement of the posts. When a group of marketers was asked how they can define engagement, here are the metrics:
- Likes and Comments
- Shares and retweets
- Interaction with customers
- Revenue attribution
- Inspiring consumers to take action
- Inspiring an emotional response.
These are the data taken from Sprout Social Index.
Check the performance of your social media content based on these engagement metrics can help you plan your next content accordingly.
