What are the three biggest trends for social media in 2018?
I would like to start this blog by noting that each of the social media platforms available all have their own features and benefits, each with the attention of a different type of demographic. Obviously, the dominating platforms are Facebook and Instagram, with Snapchat on the rise, and from a professional perspective, LinkedIn. But the three I believe your business or personal profile should focus on are Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. And within these different channels or platforms, I want to highlight the different features that you should be taking advantage of in 2018.
Facebook, first and foremost. Facebook Live is where it’s at in 2018. What we are able to see fist hand and what Facebook is suggesting is that Facebook Live could generate around 300x more reach for brands and businesses and individuals, than normal posts. It gives you a great opportunity to engage with your audience in real-time as it’s happening, in a forum and in a way that’s meaningful to them. So Facebook Live, that’s the first trend and feature I would be doubling down on for your brand.
The second trend is on Instagram, being the Instagram Story function. Yes, we saw a lot of Instagram Stories last year, but they are getting better and as a result they are driving a lot more traffic. The tagging, hashtags, location, emoji and GIF function on the story platform has proved effective, resulting in phenomenal engagement and reach. And it’s a really great way of getting your content out there in a more of an emotional, engaging way versus the static image posts. Facebook also provide the story setting, but the Instagram version has clearly taken off considerably more. What is important to note is that this function is also changing the way we behave online as people are really paying a lot of attention to the stories first, before they go and scroll through individual feeds. From a business perspective, this is definitely something to note, and to really ramp up those stories to increase your chances of your content being seen.
The other cool thing that Instagram are doing, on top of the stories, is you can actually create what they call ‘highlights’ now. This means that you can save your Instagram Stories in the top section under the bio on your profile. You can also create different highlight boards or segments. For example, for my marketing agency we produce a lot of different type of content such as blogs, videos, podcasts etc. So, we have actually created these different highlight boards on our Instagram profile page.
And the third is not so much the feature, but more so the platform in general, and that’s LinkedIn. LinkedIn is changing considerably and becoming much more user friendly. As such, they recently implemented a new video function to allow users to upload videos directly to Linkedin, whereas before it required a link from other platforms such as Youtube. And what is great is more and more people are seeing the value of LinkedIn and it provides a really easy process for applying for jobs or networking with potential employers.
So, they would be the three areas that I’d be focusing on; Facebook Live, Instagram Stories and LinkedIn.
If you’re interested in learning more and you feel that you need a simplified guide to business marketing strategies feel free to grab a copy of my book or reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn. I’ll be more than happy to help if you have any questions or uncertainties in regards to your business or marketing strategy.