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3 High-Octane Social Media Trends To Watch

Though it’s usually reserved for action movies, “high octane” is an appropriate term to describe the dynamic nature of social media. Its rapid and constant rate of change is its defining characteristic — and the main reason why watching it evolve is so fascinating. For marketers, social media constantly offers up new ways to engage with target audiences, but it’s important to distinguish investment-worthy innovations from flash in the pan fads that vanish after a couple of months.

Every year, new trends emerge that reshape the social media landscape, but three particularly powerful developments promise to deepen the relationship between brands and consumers. With enhanced video advertising, the move towards multi-platform marketing and the introduction of new payment systems, the social media ecosystem is proving to be a very exciting space for both consumers and marketers.

Video Makes an Impression

Video ads will continue to have a positive impact on social-media campaigns, but their duration and quality will become even more important in the months to come. Even an impression which lasts for less than a second causes a noticeable lift in ad-recall, brand awareness and purchase consideration. Watching an ad for less than 3 seconds increases purchase intent by 44% while watching for 10 seconds increases it by 72%.

Multiplatform People

While it’s clear that Facebook dominates, recent data from the  Pew Research Center.indicates that multi-platform use is rising: 52% of adults now use two or more social media sites, a significant increase from 2013, when it stood at 42% of Internet users. The study also revealed that, for the first time,  56& of all adults  65_ use Facebook, while 53% of Internet-using young adults ages 18-29 use Instagram.

The challenge is adapting multichannel strategies that are consistent with a brand’s core message while still playing to the strengths of each individual platform, as well as identifying how much time and resources to devote to each.

sCommerce – Shopping on Social

Most of us are well acquainted with the 1-click-buying option on Amazon or the Apple Store —  soon, it will be available on our social media feeds, too. Since last year, Facebook and Twitter have been rolling out beta programs to test versions of a buy-button ad as well, including pictures and prices of the product, as well as payment and delivery methods.

For brands, this is a critical space to find and connect with customers who are active on social networks. sCommerce gives advertisers the ability to match revenue with specific advertising activities, and allows them to see which posts are most profitable and reconfigure their campaigns accordingly.

Customers benefit from the added convenience of shopping on platforms that are a part of their daily lives: they can browse the products associated with their favorite brands (through brand owned Facebook pages, for example), as well as enjoy ads that are more personalized.

There are clear incentives for social platforms to invest in sCommerce. It creates more opportunities to help advertisers reach consumers through value added payment systems, and it even provides ways for individuals to use social media platforms to transfer or make money. sCommerce is not only the result of sophisticated infrastructures and the increasing power of personal mobile phones — it’s also helping to change users’ attitudes towards how and where they do their online shopping.

Soon, shopping or sending money via Facebook could be the norm. As social media payment systems continue to develop, traditional credit card and online payment companies will be forced to respond to this disruption in their space.

Next: The Marketer as Technologist

Let’s face it: the days of direct mail and full-page newspaper ads are over. Consumers are demanding that advertising be increasingly more relevant and simultaneously less intrusive. It’s time to step up.  Marketers and brands need to be platform-conscious and technology-driven if they want to survive.

Social platforms are constantly remixing and reinventing how we connect to each other — and this rate of innovation and change will only continue to accelerate.  Instead of shying away or becoming overwhelmed, marketers need to embrace this new digital landscape for what it is: an opportunity to connect directly with consumers, on their terms, across multiple platforms and media types, in more relevant ways, from brand awareness through purchase.

 

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