Every business owner should know by now that social media is one of the most effective ways to market your brand, connect with your target audience and grow your business. As technology is constantly changing, it is important to fine tune your marketing tactics with it. Staying on top of trends helps you refine your efforts to receive the best return on your investment (ROI). We present the latest social media trends that will likely become even bigger in 2018 for you to review with plenty of time to implement them:
Instagram Stories
While Snapchat is the social media platform that developed the ability for users to share short videos that delete after 24 hours, Instagram took that to another level. The Instagram stories daily users quickly surpassed Snapchat’s, with 20 million daily views, and should be implemented in the way you present your brand’s story to your audience.
The stories are fun to use and to view, allowing you to add filters, tags and text. They are discoverable, meaning that Instagram users can see the stories even if they are not your followers.
Any account with at least 10,000 followers is allowed to add a link to their story, which is a direct way to lead viewers to your site. In addition, just like with any other Instagram photo or video, you can hashtag relevant keywords to help users find you faster and easier.
Social Media Influencers
In years past, the biggest public relations stunt was hiring a celebrity to promote your product or service. In today’s world, celebrities have been largely replaced with influencers, who are celebrities in their own rights. These are individuals who have been able to get a staggering number of social media followers, often in the millions. Companies pay these influencers to promote their offerings on their pages, sites or accounts.
It is advantageous to find the top influencers in your niche industry, and follow them. See what they are promoting and how so you can determine if utilizing an influencer is right for your business needs.
Augmented Reality
The new iPhone 8 already incorporates the aspects of augmented reality by allowing users to project images of certain pieces of furniture from websites such as Amazon. This is a great benefit for shoppers because they are able to see for themselves how an item will look in a specific room without committing to purchasing it.
Augmented reality will likely allow business owners to offer all kinds of benefits to customers, such as seeing how a piece of clothing looks on them, the ability to try on different makeup products and so on.
Messaging Platforms
Most people consider social media to be sites such as Facebook and Twitter, but millions of people worldwide connect on messaging apps. “Artificial intelligence, voice assistants and chatbots will enable brands to offer personalized shopping experiences on messaging platforms like Messenger, WhatsApp and Kik,” a source states.
The newest trends for social media can reap great rewards for business owners; however, many of them come with a price. If you need help investing in your marketing strategies, IOU Financial wants to help you finance this goal. Contact us today at www.ioufinancial.com to learn how you can get a small business loan in under 48 hours.
