The entire world is going social today. In fact, digital growth continues to gather pace around the globe, with more than 2 billion people having access to the internet. Among these, almost one billion people are active social media users. Naturally, the growing use of social media has impacted the policies and functioning of brands across sectors. So while some trends and ideas may have worked in the past, now brands need to expand their knowledge to create campaigns that are creative, engaging, inspiring and effective at the same time.

Here are 5 trends that we feel will impact the field of digital marketing in the coming year.

Social media is a popular & vast medium, so invest your resources intelligently!

 The Potential

Social media is widely used, with innumerable users registering their activities every moment. Every 60 seconds, 104, 00,000 photos are shared on snapchat, 2, 78, 00,000 new tweets are added on Twitter, 72 hours of video is uploaded on YouTube and 3,600 photos are added on Instagram.

How to Milk the Opportunity?

The heart of any successful social media campaign lies in proper understanding of the target audience. So, as there are multiple social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. available, it is immensely important for brands to choose the correct social media platform and the correct target audience, so as to deliver high levels of engagement and loyalty.   

Social listening is the key to connecting with your market.

 The Potential

In a rapidly evolving social media landscape, a conversation about your brand has the potential to enhance or destroy your reputation in the market. A bad word spreads like wildfire and can devastate a brand. Social media pages have eliminated the need of having suggestion/complaint boxes. Now, customers praise/criticize a product or service (which may become viral) on the social media profile page of that brand. In the coming year, social listening will become an integral part of all social media campaigns.

How to Milk the Opportunity?

Listening constitutes an important element of good communication. It means that brands must convert their social media platforms into venues for sharing and conversation rather than turning them into monologues. Brands need to continuously monitor the customers’ posts; answer their queries and resolve issues instantly; and express gratitude for any compliments received! For celebrated branding, investing in social listening skills and keeping ears and eyes open will be a welcome idea in the coming year. 

The importance of Real Time Marketing, especially for social media will increase!

 The Potential

Real time marketing is based on up to date events, trends and customer feedback. It can be a reaction to a particular event or a brand’s own updates. With the evolution of social media platforms, real time or right time marketing has gained multifold importance. Companies believe that with strategically structured and quickly executed marketing plans based on current events or feedbacks, customers will feel more involved with the brand and believe that the brand is updated, responsive and cares for their opinions and feedbacks. According to CMO.com, real-time marketing is very important for any campaign and provides a dramatic lift to consumer sentiment (16 percent lift), purchase intent (14 percent lift), interest (18 percent lift), likelihood to recommend (18 percent lift), and seriously consider the product/service (18 percent).

How to Milk the Opportunity?

Long before the social media platforms gained currency in India, Amul Butter used the strategy of real time marketing. In the coming year, real-time marketing will become essential for marketers and brands. Brands must react to current events and have real- time communication with their potential and existing customers! They must create platforms where the consumers can voice their opinions in the forms of likes, shares, retweets, etc. and maintain them qualitatively. Big brands may also employ specialized ‘real time marketing teams’ to achieve the purpose. 

Content is the backbone of good social media marketing.

 The Potential

“Our words are our currency”– Beth Dunn

Relationships are created and maintained on the basis of what, how and when you communicate. Likewise, advertising content can make or break a brand in the social arena and decide the fate of ambitious marketing campaigns. Words directly impact the psyche and mood of the consumers, thereby affecting the success of your campaign. Thus, framing a perfect content strategy is not a luxury today but a necessity.

How to Milk the Opportunity?

Content has and will always remain the king, across all forms of digital campaigns and platforms. Good content is the one that is written according to the segment of target audience. Companies must judiciously hire quality copy/content writers, who are excellent in not only minting beautiful words and assembling them into grammatically correct sentences, but are also pros at out of box ideation and conceptualization. The ability to write engaging content that can inspire real emotions and connections will help companies get noticed and amplify their message across various platforms.  Companies must draft their content well, especially on social media, and ensure that it is engaging to such a degree, that it gets shared by your target audience, thereby increasing brand promotion and engagement.

Facebook and Twitter ad pricing will increase due to their enhanced reach!

 The Potential

Facebook has more than a billion registered users while Twitter has more than a million users. In the coming year, the number of users on both these platforms is set to increase substantially. As both of them are popular social media platforms, brands can use them to effectively promote their goods and services. Facebook ad pricing has already gone up 10 percent since 2013 and this trend will continue in the coming years as well. Similarly, Twitter is also growing as a popular medium of marketing, especially among brands that have limited budget and want to reach out to a particular segment. Further, as they allow targeted advertising, brands can reach their target market at a fairly affordable price.

How to Milk the Opportunity?

With increasing advertising costs on popular social media platforms, brands must allocate decent social media marketing budgets and carefully design their campaigns for better ROI. They must hire experienced digital media professionals or outsource their social media marketing to specialized digital marketing agencies. Bringing on board such specialization will lead to correct audience targeting, perfectly worded and designed communication across the appropriate social media platform, and elimination of any probability of hit and trial by amateurs.

#NewYear2015 will bring new hopes and ambitions, and also higher sales targets! Keeping the above trends in mind, brands can meticulously plan their social media campaigns that may work wonders for their sales.