Social media trends are always changing, especially year after year for B2B marketers. In a recent post from WTWH Media, they break down six social media trends that you need to know about for 2024. In this blog, we will be taking a look at each trend and why you might want to incorporate them into your 2024 strategy.
Trend One: SEO
SEO isn’t just for your website but can be used on your social media platforms as well. Google is always ranking and optimizing search results for users. Creating practical and helpful social media content can help to drive traffic to your account. Consider adding keywords to captions, descriptions and hashtags to your posts as leveraging SEO can lead to a 30-percent higher engagement rate.
Trend Two: Social Media Platforms
Over the years we’ve seen many social media platforms pop up, but this doesn’t mean your brand should join every social media app you see. When it comes to social media, brands should prioritize quality over quantity. Companies should focus their time and energy on platforms that resonate with their target audience.
Trend Three: AI
AI is here to stay in 2024! AI can help marketers brainstorm content ideas and provide support to save time while giving valuable insights. Several platforms have AI tools for marketers to use such as listening tools, AI-generated images, writing assistants and more! While AI can assist with ideas, marketers are still the brains and leaders when it comes to marketing.
Trend Four: Authenticity
While AI-generated content is spreading, it’s important to keep high-quality, human-led content at the top of your strategies. Right now, nonpromotional content is the number one type of content consumers don’t see enough of from companies. Think about the type of content you’re posting for your audience and think about what they might find valuable. Leaning into community engagement and nonpromotional content can build trust with your audience. Try showcasing employees, company events or even behind-the-scenes content to strengthen brand reputation.
Trend Five: Influencers
Influencers are for every company, especially within the trades! Many brands are having success with utilizing micro- and macro-influencers. When working with influencers, you can target your audience and showcase your products to them. Other influencers for your brand are your employees. Employees can provide trusted expert content and drive authentic engagement for your brand.
Trend Six: Video
The growth of video has skyrocketed, particularly short-form video content. This doesn’t mean you can’t use long-form video, and since social media keeps expanding their video length, we might see an increase in how long videos are. At the same time, the human attention span has shrunk to 8.25 seconds. If you’re not already, think about adding videos to your marketing mix for social media. Videos are a great way to capture the attention of your audience and provide valuable information they’re seeking.
If you’re not already using one of the ideas listed above in your 2024 plan, think about adding it! With the everchanging social media platforms, it’s important to stay on top of the game against your competitors. Check out the full article from WTWH Media to learn more.
In this five-part series, we are taking a look at the 2022 social trends from Hootsuite. The final macro trend for 2022 is the customer care trend.
The Customer Care Trend
Social marketers rescue their brands from the customer service apocalypse
Spurred on by lockdowns and chaotic shifts in business operations, we’ve seen social marketers take on more responsibility for managing an influx of customer service inquiries.
Social has become the front line of this crisis
Consumers, fed up with waiting on hold, have discovered that service delivered via social is immediate, convenient, and effective. In a Nielsen survey commissioned by Facebook, 64% of people said they now prefer to message rather than call a business. The pressure on businesses to adapt to as many digital customer service channels as possible is sky high.
According to Gartner, 60% of all customer service requests will be managed via digital channels by 2023. Consumer expectations are mounting. Demand for integrating customer care channels is increasing—and social is where that pressure is peaking.
Most organizations are not ready to deliver customer care on social.
Despite a rise in demand, many organizations aren’t well positioned to deliver effective customer care over social media…at least not yet. Our internal data from research conducted in July 2021 tells us that 71% of organizations have either not started investing in social customer care yet, or they don’t plan to invest in it at all.
In 2022, business leaders will look to social marketers to take a greater role in customer care. Pioneering social marketers will break from their departmental silos to build deeper inroads with customer service teams and take more agency in delivering customer care.
What do you think about these five trends and where does Social Media rank in your marketing priorities for 2022?
In past blog posts, we’ve discussed some of the ways companies can hit the ground running with Instagram and make it a useful cog in their marketing machine. Now that you’ve set up an account, accumulated some followers and fired off some posts, you may be wondering why your posts haven’t performed as well as you had hoped. The reason may be that your posts aren’t optimized for the best possible engagement. What do I mean by that? Well, as you may have noticed, your Instagram feed is no longer chronological. Instead, the feed is actually run by an ever-changing algorithm that is constantly trying to figure out and prioritize and show you posts that you are most likely to interact or engage with.
While Instagram hasn’t publicly divulged the specifics of its algorithm, those able to read between the lines understand that getting the most exposure on the platform comes down to engagement, not just “likes” and a regular posting routine. What this means is that the algorithm is specifically looking for posts that users spend time and interact with, or content that will illicit more shares, saves, comments and longer video views. So, how can you get better engagement and overall performance with your Instagram channel? Here are five suggestions!
Create content that users will “save” or “share.”
Instagram now has a “save” feature which allows users to archive photos and videos into a special folder that they can view later. Saving a post signals to the algorithm that a user found the post to be worthwhile, which helps boost the post’s visibility. Additionally, if a user “shares” a post via direct message, that also scores better for the algorithm than standard likes and comments. As a company, there are plenty of ways you can create savable or shareable content. Examples include infographics, how-to videos, tips, tricks and sharing fun content created by influencers.
Post when your followers are most likely to be online.
While posting daily (or at least 4-5 times a week) is crucial for growing your channel, posting at the wrong time can cost you meaningful exposure. Since Instagram’s algorithm favors posts that receive a lot of interaction in a short amount of time, it’s important to post when your followers are most active and have the best chance to see your content. While early first thing in the morning, lunchtime and right after 5 p.m. are generally viewed as acceptable times to post, Instagram now offers business accounts an Insights tab that allows you see the exact hours your followers are most engaged.
Improve the quality of your content.
This one might seem obvious, but if your content isn’t working, maybe it’s time to take a step back and see things from the user’s perspective and what they would like to see. Everyone on Instagram is fighting for attention, so what can you do to pull people in? Consider posts with real people, good lighting or some sort of action shot. If you’re making a video, try to get right to the point within the first couple seconds to grab people’s attention and try to make the length as short as possible to increase your views. Or, think of a thoughtful caption with helpful product or how-to info that your followers would want to read. These minor tweaks can help keep eyeballs on your content for longer periods of time, which will lead to a boost in the algorithm.
Explore all of Instagram’s new features.
Another tactic that both pleases the algorithm and gives you more ways to interact with your audience is utilizing all of Instagram features for content creation. A few years ago, Instagram introduced Stories, a feature that allows users to share short clips and moments that disappeared after 24 hours, and IGTV, a feature for long-form videos that allows users to create content that more resembles vlogs and other web series. Last summer, Instagram introduced Reels to compete with Tik Tok and give users a space to easily share and swipe through 15-second and 30-second clips with all kinds of audio and visual effects. While not every company is the right fit for trying to replicate the kind of Instagram content that goes viral or participating in the latest meme or social media “challenge,” companies need to research these features and see if there is a natural segue to use them for fun product demos, instructional videos, Q&As and other types of engaging content your followers might engage. As previously stated, when it comes to engagement, the longer a user is looking at your content, the better. Plus, Instagram has been known to reward accounts that utilize more of its features.
Monitor what works and what doesn’t work.
Any social media manager will tell you that a successful Instagram account is one that is flexible, persistent and versatile. Don’t be afraid to experiment with a variety of different content types and see which ones your audience responds to best. Analyze the elements of your posts that seemed to start a conversation in the comments or received a lot of saves and shares and let that steer you in the right direction. While some of these metrics can be viewed in your Insights tab, companies interested in taking a deeper dive into these analytics should consider social media listening and monitoring services like Agorapulse, Sprout Social and many others.
While we can’t anticipate the next big change in Instagram’s algorithm or user experience, I believe making a strong commitment to making quality, engaging content on a regular basis will always be in a company’s best interest.
To read more about optimizing your company’s efforts on Instagram, read:
Social media has been an essential cog in every consumer brand’s marketing machine for more than a decade, but manufacturers in the trade industries have been slow to embrace the many marketing advantages that come with social media. I believe this comes from the perception that social media had originally only targeted the younger generations, and with the average age of the professional tradesmen skewing higher and higher, these manufacturers felt more comfortable using more traditional methods with their marketing dollars.
However, with Facebook and Twitter both grossing hundreds of millions of users, it quickly became clear that almost any brand had customers and prospective customers on these platforms. While many companies in the trades have adapted and are actively using Facebook and Twitter to connect and engage with its audience, there are plenty of other digital and social platforms whose features can be useful to companies in these industries. And with only so much time, effort and money available, brands should examine all of these platforms and their potential and effectiveness in reaching the professional tradesman.
Here is a rundown of some of the most popular social and digital tools out there, how they help reach the professional tradesman and how well they do it.
Facebook
Despite its well-documented PR hiccups, Facebook still casts a wider net than any other social media network…for now. Facebook has more than two billion users, and there are more than 65 million businesses using Facebook Pages. Because of the sheer volume of users, every company should be on Facebook to regularly promote new products, announce trade show appearances, share positive media coverage and company news, etc. (more…)
Social media is transforming to be more visual and ultimately more mobile-friendly. LinkedIn recently introduced some changes to improve the overall Company Page experience and made it easier to interact with your connections.
I’ve asked Rachel Kerstetter, our PR Engineer, to give our readers an overview of LinkedIn’s changes and how you can take advantage of them.
Facebook started the wave of change by introducing timeline for brand pages and eventually individual profiles. Now, in the same short span of time, Twitter introduced a cover image and LinkedIn overhauled its company pages to be more visual and mobile-friendly.
Just as Facebook pushed all of its brand pages to timeline by a certain date, LinkedIn has a deadline of November 30th for all company profiles to have the new format.
Here are a few of the main changes that you should be aware of if you control a LinkedIn Company Profile:
Banner image at the top of company pages. Mimicking the Facebook cover photo, LinkedIn’s banner image gives you the opportunity to show off some personality for your company. This image should be 974 x 240 pixels; many companies that have already uploaded banner images have incorporated not only their branding but some of their corporate culture and a few have used it to highlight products or services. LinkedIn gives you the option to make this banner clickable to take people to your company’s website.
Career section. LinkedIn has highlighted the career section of company pages, making it easier for businesses looking for new talent to showcase opportunities.
Refined company information. The overhaul makes communicating about your company cleaner and hopefully more effective. The About section is now shorter, but you can post more links to send people to your blog or other social media as well as your company website. Products and services are more visible in the side bar, drawing attention with visuals. A custom company module gives you a place to showcase your company culture, awards, events or other information.
Better visibility. Updates from your company are now front and center on your company page and LinkedIn has updated their stream, so your company information is more visible overall.
LinkedIn is also rolling out changes to individual profiles:
You can now endorse others for their skills or be endorsed. Recommendations are still very powerful, but to show that a colleague or partner is particularly skilled in a certain area, you can now endorse individual skills. Your list of skills has been turned into a list of buttons, but if you have a wordy skill description, it will be cut off and there isn’t a way for your connections to see the entire skill, so take a look and shorten your skill descriptions if needed.
Mouse over a skill and click to endorse it
Profiles will also get a new look, without any action needed from you. I requested to be switched to the new design early, here’s a brief snapshot of what my profile looks like now:
To preview more of the new individual profiles and request to switch early too, check out LinkedIn’s blog.
