The changing role of social media in marketing

Social media isn’t what it used to be. User-behaviour has evolved, and businesses are under increasing pressure to adopt different posting habits to make it worth their while.

Here’s what’s different in social media marketing, what you need to do to stay up to date, as well as what’s predicted to come.

How social media has changed

Social media is still a dynamic tool for business marketing and seen as pretty much essential to any awareness raising strategy, including setting up a profile, posting regularly and responding to followers. But the sophistication levels, and competition, have gone up with new ways of interacting and tools to use.

Posting should be platform-specific

Brands’ target audiences do not occupy every platform and the way they interact on each platform is different, therefore the posting strategy is to respond strategically to this with different campaigns. Gone are the days of simply posting the same post to each platform and expecting the results to roll in.

Highly creative posts

Content needs to be highly creative, suitable for each platform, to grab attention in an increasingly social media active environment.

This includes use of video (sorry, but it is). Video content boosts social media engagement, there’s no getting away from it. You’ve heard of TikTok, right? But also, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and ‘Live’ versions on each platform present ample opportunities and encouragement for you to post video content.

User-generated content (UGC)

This is where you encourage and succeed in getting users to post positive content about your brand for other users. UGC is seen as vital to a brand’s success since ads alone are not a trustworthy form of content in users’ eyes. Users trust other users, more than they trust ads. 
UGC demonstrates social proof and happy customer community – it doesn’t get much better.  
Brand-specific hashtags are effective as well as offering incentives like discounts and special offers for customers to post and share their experience with others. 

In-app purchasing

Many social media platforms now support in-app purchasing and users expect to be able to go from browsing inspiration to purchase in one seamless process.

‘Social selling’ is now possible through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Pinterest and for approximately 28% of internet users is the sole reason they browse social media. By 2025, the global social commerce market is predicted to rise to $2 trillion (McKinsey and Co.).

Considered influencer marketing only, and don’t forget the microinfluencers

In the old days, if you got an account with a very high number of followers to endorse your products or brand you could expect to scale. Now, follower count on its own is not ‘a thing’.

The watchwords are ‘tread carefully’ with influencer marketing since users want authentic, natural marketing only by influencers. Brands must exactly meet followers needs and increasingly this is done by using microinfluencers with a dedicated following rather than an influencer appealing to the masses with millions of followers.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If entering into an agreement or partnership with an influencer or microinfluencer ensure your full transparency and compliance with regard to any consumer data. Social media is a highly regulated environment and consumers, including the regulations surrounding them, are more concerned than they’ve ever been about data privacy and protection.

What’s the future of social media?

Social media doesn’t stand still, as demonstrated. So, what’s next for the future? AI, chatbots, live video and employee advocacy to name just a few of the trends predicted to be coming our way.

Watch out for another article soon all about the future of social media.

Want to chat about upping your social media game? Get in touch with our digital team.

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