In 2014, social media will become the most dominant factor in strategizing and marketing. It needs a lot of effort in terms of investing time and resources but for the year 2014 it will no longer stay as an option. There is already a huge impact that is seen in businesses in terms of referral traffic, lead generation and revenue. Time has come that companies will hire dedicated staff that will specialize in social media marketing rather than assigning the task to existing employees.
Integrating Social Media as a part of an overall marketing campaign
Social media isn’t a game changing factor on its own as many companies viewed it and jumped right without a plan in to it when it was new in the market. Social media helps in bridging the gap between the customers even in a campaign strategy that enacts from an offline mode by adding an online mode for interaction to develop enhanced customer relation. Social media, if used in the correct way will change the whole perspective regarding the brand relationship with the customers and give a massive boost for growing businesses.
World has gone mobile!
2014 will see a further revolution of mobiles and it is important that mobile friendly content is available to engage mobile users. As per predictions made by Forbes, it is said that 87% of electronically connected devices sold by 2017 will be tablets and Smartphones. And most people use their phones to access social media accounts and they would not mind social media ads on mobile as studies indicate. Since there is a high growth in the mobile sector, it will be a thoughtful strategy to put your social media strategy expanded on mobile platforms too.
Adopt Google+
SEO is one of the most important factors and Google+ plays a very significant role especially due to the “+1” button that adds up in the Google’s search rankings. Google’s social network is designed to get a deeper relationship between individuals of shared interests and is perfect for business and educational interactivity. When it comes to adding friends, Facebook prefers users to focus on adding existing friends whereas Google+ puts emphasis on meeting new friends. Though Facebook is the leader when it comes to social networking sites, thanks to its 1.15 billion users, Google+ is catching up with an exponential rate standing currently at 343 million users.
Get away from Foursquare
Foursquare, a unique location-based feature has been under struggle in recent times since its network traffic kind of stalled in the year 2013. This even resulted in issues related to raising capital funds for its growth. With the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram offering location-based features there isn’t much Foursquare can offer. In fact it is stuck in a complicated zone where it isn’t a social or search based app. The problem is that it doesn’t have anything comparable enough to be in competition with Google, Facebook, Yelp or even Apple. And it doesn’t even have any credibility in couponing sector like Groupon and LivingSocial.
Paint Images
We have a brief attention span that intakes visual media excellently over text based content and is being noted with the consistent trends in 2013 related to sharing of images and video over text based content. E-commerce is slowly turning Pinterest-ing and social media platforms will only keep shedding its reputation as a female network in return becoming an integral part of retailer’s marketing.Social media content marketing should understand the value of timely benefits that may be extracted by investing in social media sharing sites like Slideshare, Tumblr, Path and Mobile which are gaining much popularity.
Video and its awe
Micro video will keep rising, thanks to Instagram Video and Vine. There is a rise in real-time video sharing that are actually generated by users using their Smartphones. It will be interesting to see how such user generated content via Instagram and Vine will change the way video-based social media marketing is undertaken. Brands are more interested in how videos are affecting the viewers and how can a call to action be integrated while viewing the content. It will come as no surprise if brands start targeting their resources in location video targeting too.
Retargeting of ads
Another way to target the right customers is through retargeting of ads which are related to the visitors search results. Ad retargeting is quite helpful when it comes to converting traffic online since it focuses on what the customer was looking for. This works in a better way than regular marketing since only 2% of web traffic converts in the first time otherwise. The browser cookies are used to track visited websites and once the user exits from the site those particular products or services will be shown to them again in ads across various other websites.
