1. Opportunities for personalized content arise due to robust social analytics:

   Everyone likes content relevant to them, which is especially true during interaction with a brand you have a rapport with. The only thing we want is a piece of relevant content that offers something unique to us as a member of that audience. In fact, only 25% don’t care about the content while rest get really frustrated with irrelevant content.

   Personalized content for audiences is a major trend in content marketing, and same goes for social media, too. As social media platforms evolve, their analytics tools and business-specific insights and features will become more important to brands. This kind of data means marketers will have the insights to craft better and more personalized content that speaks and engages audiences.

   The need for selectivity arises as platforms’ features overlap: –

   Timed videos and visual content were both features of Snapchat and Instagram, so the main points that differentiate them are the audience and reach. Compared to Snapchat, Instagram Stories has a wider reach and is more engaging. Daily opens with Instagram Stories of Instagram celebrities are up to 10 percent of their audience members, which is significantly higher than in case of Snapchat. On the other hand, Snapchat continues to entice younger demographics.

   As more platforms continue to offer overlapping features, brands and marketers will have to be more creative and selective about what to invest in. Take advantage of analytics and reporting features to identify which platforms could offer you the best return, and start there.

   Brands will be able to get through to audiences by social listening: –

   Mentions and what people are saying should be key metrics of comparison of social media performance between competitors and us.

   “Using web monitoring, we can collect an enormous amount of data on our company and our competitors that can be used in our marketing strategy. At Brand24, our research showed that in one month, 14,000 online searches started with ‘Can anyone recommend?’ and about 30,000 searches started with ‘Where can I buy?’ About 60 percent of these questions never received responses from companies; this is a huge opportunity,” says Magdalena Urbaniak, global communications manager at Brand24.

   Urbaniak says monitoring these social mentions can be an insight into the shared audience’s like and dislike, which can show how a brand can improve. Social listening can be the key advantage in social media strategy as they give you valuable information about your competitors’ performance and your own audience.

   Chatbots will be key to faster and easier customer service: –

   Instant connection and high internet penetration have prepared an adequate condition for brands to give instant feedback to the fast-growing impatient customer base. Unfortunately, this has prompted a lot of brands to do one of two things: respond so quickly that mistakes are made and service quality suffers, or freeze in their tracks because they’re not quite sure how to meet this demand for speed.

   Chatbots give you the chance to interact quickly and personally with your audience. Maybe that’s the reason why there are at least 100,000 monthly active bots on Facebook Messenger and over two billion messages per month are exchanged between brands and their audiences.

   Transient content will lead the pack: –

   Latest marketing buzzword ephemeral/transient content, in the coming years. Snapchat Stories and live streaming videos are some examples of ephemeral content today. This type of content has a short lifespan of 24 hours and then disappear. Thanks to Snapchat’s popularity this content has seen a steady rise.

   The Snapchat Discover channel of Cosmopolitan generated “more than 19 million average monthly visits.” It is interesting to note that the brand’s website generates “20 million unique visitors per month.” With 10 billion daily video views, it is one of the best platforms to reach millennials and generation Z. It’s a no surprise that Instagram and Facebook are also following the footsteps of Snapchat by providing services for distributing fleeting content.

   It’s a difficult time for marketers as it might sound scary that all efforts and money that went into creating the content which has become fleeting in nature. But the results may be quite outstanding provided content created is really interesting and have proper strategies for ephemeral content marketing. There are quite a few reasons why ephemeral content works:

   Fleeting nature of the content, like those raw clips and images available on Snapchat or Instagram, fills users with excitement and trust for the brand. A great way to show insight into forthcoming projects, showcase BTS content, offer promotions and other content that is supposed to be short-lived.

   Augmented Reality will gain more focus: –

   Apple announced the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X at the first-ever event hosted in the Steve Jobs Theater. Both devices incorporated a new chip that allows the phones to become augmented reality enabled and provide users with extraordinary experiences. While mobile gaming seems to be first affected by augmented reality, it is likely that social media platforms will find ways to incorporate the new technology as well.

   Similarly, brands could soon project their products into the homes of social media users through special filters.

   Social platforms compliance will become stringent:-  After a series of controversies that cropped up during 2016 US presidential election, social media platforms have adopted a far stringent way to govern the conduct on their respective platforms. Facebook recently turned over thousands of ads that seem to be connected to Russian meddling and has invested in new AI and human forms of monitoring.

   In 2017, Facebook and Twitter received a very wide criticism, it is likely that these platforms will embrace codes of conduct and governance policies that protect the brands from future criticism. Better compliance will not only promote better content but also safeguard the interest of the users.

Conclusion

Understanding these trends will present marketers with better opportunities to connect with the audience and create better content. These shifts are frequent, therefore understanding and staying ahead of the trend is of vital importance.

Karunakar Mohapatra