Today, almost every business has a branded social media profile across all major platforms. It wasn’t always so. In the early days of social media, marketers regarded social media marketing as a fad that would pass with time. The growth of Facebook and then Twitter, to a lesser extent, forced more businesses to develop social media marketing strategies.
Virtual Reality (VR)
The future of social media marketing is exciting. Disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR), will immerse users in social experiences.
Virtual reality is shaking up many niches, and social media marketing is no different. It has opened a new frontier for marketing, and in the upcoming years, we will see businesses tweaking their social media content strategy to account for VR. How long do you think until VR-optimized product videos become commonplace?
Live streaming
Live streaming has turned out as an essential social media marketing strategy already. But we are still far off from large-scale adoption. As more brands realize the benefit of using live streams to access target audiences, the market will witness a significant shift in the strategies.
Recorded videos still work well, but the average social media is more likely to pay attention to a live video than a recorded marketing message. As more people tune out conventional marketing videos, live streaming could take over in the future as the best way to generate leads using videos.
Social Media Customer Service
Social Media customer service will become more common in the future. Less than 30% of businesses actively use social media to address customer grievances today. Granted, many brands do not have the budget for such services for now; however, in the future, it will be almost unheard of to ignore customer complaints online. PayPal is one of the best examples of brands showing where social media customer service is headed. Its customer support feed monitors all brand mentions to resolve all complaints.
With 23% of the time spent on the internet going to social media, brands that do not have a robust social media strategy will be left behind by the competition. Businesses with a social media strategy should not rest on their laurels either, as the dynamics of the brand presentation will evolve rapidly.
The social media world has grown in leaps and bounds in the last decade. With internet and mobile phone accessibility improving even further around the globe, the industry’s growth will not slow down anytime soon.
