Across all industries in different markets around the globe, social media marketing is seeing a phenomenal rise. Businesses are beginning to dedicate serious funds and manpower for it, and customers are responding positively.
Companies are also generally keen on monitoring trends – for example, that Facebook continues to be the top platform and thus should get the most share of the resources. But behind the popular trends that are guiding important marketing decisions are the less known but equally important patterns. We look at those trends in this article:
Social media drives traffic to the website. In a survey conducted by Social Media Examiner participated in by 3,720 marketers, business owners and solopreneurs from the U.S. and abroad, while social media primarily promotes exposure for the brand, its number two benefit is how it drives traffic to the company website.
This means that while social media is truly an area of growth, companies should also strive for their web portal to keep up, by offering something fresh for all these new visitors that social media will draw. Moreover, they should ensure continuity and consistency in brand messaging, so that both platforms only serve to strengthen the brand, and not confuse the users.
Social media access is also growing on desktops. Everyone is excited about the significant rise of social media consumption via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In response, many businesses took the steps to ensure that their content are mobile-friendly, and that is good practice. But not everybody knows that social media access via desktop is also growing, as revealed in a study of comScore last March 2015.
The research says that adoption of mobile devices did not, in fact, cut the use of social media activity via desktop. Instead, it simply complemented it, by providing access when desktop viewing is not possible, e.g. when on the go, when in bed, or during waiting times. This means that companies can still devote resources towards social media materials meant for desktops, and expect the same level of engagement.
Interest-based networks may be the next big thing. Social media networking is currently largely people-based – one adds people he knows personally. And much of this kind of networking happens on Facebook, and other sites that attempted to operate on the same framework have failed, or are failing. According to HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes, interest-based groups have a much better chance at growing (and sticking around), despite Facebook.
To learn more about navigating social media marketing, get in touch with digital marketing experts today.
