With over 250 billion social media users, 2018 is already another busy year for online trends and updates. We’ve summarised five social media trends that your business MUST be paying attention to in 2018.
Think experiential, think bots, think interaction…
Instagram Stories
With over 250 million monthly users, Instagram Stories were the fastest-growing social platform of 2017 and they’re our number one social media trend to implement in your strategy for 2018.
According to KPCB’s 2018 Internet Trends Report the average daily time spent on Instagram is 28 minutes, compared to 15 minutes in the pre-stories era.
KPCB also found that one in five stories from a brand will result in a direct message.
With these statistics it’s easy to see why Instagram Stories should be at the top of your priority list.
User-Generated Content
Thanks to social media’s (particularly Facebook’s) constantly changing algorithms, organic reach from branded material is consistently decreasing across all platforms.
Brands such as BMW, Starbucks and Adobe are using user-generated content to combat this decline. These posts not only increase reach but also drive higher engagement rate between brands and their customers.
The KPCB report said user-generated content re-posted by brands created seven times higher engagement rates than branded content.
The study also showed that social media users are seven times more likely to trust user-generated content, and 56% of them are more likely to buy a product after seeing that content.
So, if you’re not currently using user-generated content in your 2018 social media plan, it’s time to re-think your strategy.
Social Media is Mobile
We all know how reliant we are on our smartphones. For many of us, especially in the communications industry, it’s glued to our hands 24/7.
Interestingly, Facebook recently conducted a study that showed 94% of participants had their smart phone in their hand when watching TV. The results also showed that viewers focused on the TV screen just 53% of the time, and one of the top reasons they looked away was to use their phones.
With 94% of Facebook users and 82% of Twitter users primarily using the mobile app, it’s clear that ‘we’re mobile’ and that’s only the beginning!
As such, in 2018 it’s important to ensure our content, websites and links are as mobile friendly as possible.
Social messaging has overtaken social media
According to a recent study by Business Insider, more people are now using the top four social messaging apps – WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat and Viber – than the top four social media apps of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
The popularity of ‘dark social’ has been on a steady rise over the past three years and shows no sign of slowing down.
If social media has been a great opportunity for businesses, then social messaging cannot be ignored, especially when our last social media trend of 2018 is chat bots!
Chat Bots Are Here to Stay!
With the increase of social messaging, social bots are also on the rise. A study by Business Insider showed a major increase in chat bots, from 33,000 to 100,000 on Facebook’s Messenger alone.
The same study also showed that 80% of marketing managers are already using or plan to use chat bots by 2020, and with chat bots increasing workplace productivity by up to three times, it’s easy to see why bots are becoming the communicator of choice for businesses.
With voice and bots here to stay, define what ‘experience’ you should be creating for your audience.
Don’t have time to keep up with all the latest online trends? Well, its’s our job to identify social media trends and keep our clients at the top of their social media game. Get in touch.