Social Media Trends You Can’t Ignore

Content marketing is forever changing; no day is the same and sometimes that makes it hard for us marketers to keep up, especially if we aren’t aware of it in advance. Making full use of the latest trends helps you create a strategy that’ll attract more traffic, build relationships and grow your business bigger and better than the day before. We’ve compiled a short list of the latest 2019 social media trends that you can’t ignore so that you, the marketer and business owner, can optimise it in your next marketing strategy. No thanks necessary, it’s just what we do, we love to help. 

1. Ephemeral Content (Short Stories)

Ephemera…what now? It’s a foreign word but this won’t be a foreign trend to you. This basically means, content that is short-lived. Think Snapchat and Instagram stories where the content disappears after 24 hours and only lasts 10 seconds. This is the number #1 trend where you should hop on board because it helps people see brands as more authentic and transparent compared to sponsored advertising. 

Taking audiences behind the scenes of photoshoots, showing them a typical day in the office or even uploading quick videos of a conference your team is attending can add to the element of ‘FOMO’. The fear of missing out. Rather than taking up space on their timelines, you can keep them updated with ephemeral content that’s relevant to your brand and how you run as a team. 

If you need some ideas on what topics to discuss in your stories, check out our blog post “10 Live Stream Topics That’ll Gain You a Lifelong Customer”.

2. Long content is no longer in. 

It’s true, we’ve all been told longer length captions and content is the key to increasing our organic traffic but it turns out 55% of visitors only spend 5-10 seconds on a post before moving on. It’s best to understand your audience and test out what is the best length of copy they respond to. Stick to three to four sentences of valuable and relevant text when posting content on social media. This seems to perform best.

#tip: Always start your copy with a captivating hook that draws the reader in. The aim of the game is to push the reader to read the next line and the one after, until they’ve read your whole post. 

3. Live video cannot be ignored. 

It’s no secret that humans are visual beings, and agreed, images were doing the trick but now 48% of digital audiences are made up of millennials and generation z users. So what? Well…this means they understand best with what they’ve grown up with; audio-visual representation. 80% of audiences prefer watching live video as opposed to reading a blog and 82% say they would rather watch a video than read a social media post.

Facebook leads the way when it comes to live streaming, with businesses using this trend to interact and connect with audience members, promoting their brand and their latest products, as well as maximising their reach and generating new leads. 

Fun fact: The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video than any other form of marketing. (Forbes, 2018)

If you’re stuck for ideas on what to talk about during a live video, check out our latest blog post for some inspiration. 

4. Leveraging User-Generated Content (UGC)

It’s basically free advertising and it gets customers talking about your company. That’s exactly what you want! Stealing the notion of influencer marketing, the power of recommendation helps spread the word and encourages customers to take photos of your product, leveraging free influence and brand awareness.

#tip: Create a competition or incentive that will get people posting about your
brand and/or product so you have something to start with.

5. Chatbots

Once used on websites to help navigate audiences, Chatbots have been integrated into social platforms and are growing more popular by the day. A study on Quicksocial.com
suggests that roughly 80% of marketing executives have used or plan on using chatbots by 2020.  Helping people order food, return and exchange different purchases and book in appointments, chatbots have become a cost-effective solution for customer support.