2018 mid-year insight: Social media trends that are taking over

Can you believe it, we’re half way through 2018 already!

It’s also been an exciting time for social media as well. Since 2018, there have been several developments that have changed the landscape of how we use social for our brands.

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Video

Video has become a major component to your success on the platforms. In my most recent post about live video, I alerted how it would become huge in 2017, and now has become a huge asset for brands when it comes to interaction and awareness in 2018.

Video can influence behavioral activity from your audience – specifically as it relates to conversion. According to data from depositphotos, 90% of consumers say video can help them make buying decisions. Their data also suggest that video on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 80%.

Video has proven to be a huge demand on social for brands. In Buffer’s 2018 State of Social Media Report, they describe video as one of the biggest priorities for their social channels

Paid Social 

I foresaw that by 2018, advertising on social media would become one of the biggest trends for businesses. It’s the best way to support conversion and call to action with your brand’s content. It’s also the best way to guarantee visibility of your business page as the reach in organic posting has suffered significantly – unless you’re a household business. There are still methods in organic social media that helps build engagement and reach without spending money, but it’s inevitable to include a paid social strategy in today’s state of social media. Social media advertising grants brands the opportunity to reach a specific target audience.

Buffer’s report notes that Facebook is dominating paid advertising on social. 94 percent of businesses are utilizing the paid tools on Facebook – this includes boosting post, creating conversion ads, retargeting ads and much more.

Community management and engagement 

It’s not to say that brands weren’t interacting with their audience before, but there has definitely been a rise in making sure you establish trust and a genuine relationship on social these days.

Engagement leads to conversion in time. Responding to comments, commenting on influencers, sharing relevant content from other people all makes a difference in the social landscape. Engagement is critical to your social media success.

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With new changes always occurring on the platforms, video, paid social and engagement will continue to thrive in 2018. We’ll have to see how the rest of the year will pan out. Expect my year-end insight to come near November.