The digital landscape is more interconnected than ever before and social media provides businesses with an unparalleled opportunity to reach and connect with engaged audiences from an array of different backgrounds and with a range of life experiences.
Social media should be an integral component of the content marketing strategy of every business. However, since the digital landscape is consistently in a state of flux with new developments and techniques emerging all the time, maintaining a level of flexibility and adaptability is also critical.
The Consistent Escalation of Ephemeral Content
Snapchat and Instagram stories have a sense of authenticity that cannot be matched through any other platform. As trying to keep up in the fast-paced social landscape can sometimes feel like an impossible task, the opportunity to create and share spur of the moment content that doesn’t need to look planned or polished can help to alleviate some of the social fatigue and give marketers space to channel their efforts into other segments of their content strategy.
The Increasing Importance of Social Listening
Businesses who fail to listen to their audience and don’t utilise content tracking and social media tools to strategise the development and delivery of personalised content will see a rapid reduction in their social engagement throughout 2018.
The Rise of Social Media Influencers
More than 30% [1] of Twitter users state that they have purchased a product or service after seeing a tweet by a social media influencer. We have already seen display advertising, paid searches, affiliate marketing and email marketing taking a backseat to influencer campaigns, however measuring return on investment (ROI) here is critical. Investing in social influencers can be costly but as well as monitoring success from a monetary perspective, it is also important to evaluate how effectively influencer strategies are performing in helping to achieve core business objectives.
Millennials and Gen Z
Millennials have been the driving force of social media for the last decade, but businesses must now also consider the newest generation on the social media block; Generation Z. The oldest Gen-zers continue to turn to the social sphere to make connections and find information as they emerge from University and enter the professional workplace.
It is vital that you understand with which platforms your audience engage and respond accordingly. There is no value in developing an Instagram strategy if your audience spends most of its time on Twitter. This is something that you should monitor consistently, as the most effective marketing platforms of today might not deliver the same results in 3, 6 or 9 months’ time.
Mobile-Ready Content
With more than 2.5 billion smartphone users worldwide, the demand for mobile-friendly content is constantly increasing. Technology has made the Internet more accessible and many consumers are taking full advantage of our increasingly interconnected world by reaching for their smartphones and mobile devices to complete the tasks that were once reserved for desktops. The leading social platforms report that almost 80% [2] of their users are engaging with the social sphere through a smartphone.
The content landscape is already oversaturated but rather than approaching this from a negative perspective, rising to the challenge by striving to create innovative and genuinely interesting content will deliver meaningful results in these increasingly competitive marketplaces.
