This past year for social media can be summarized in a few words: mobile, video, real-time marketing and content. In a field that is continuing to grow and mature, knowing where you should put your time and resources can be challenging. Looking down the road of where social media marketing is heading, we can make smarter choices for our 2014 planning.
Here are my top five predictions for 2014 in the realm of social media marketing:
Prediction #1 :: REAL TIME MARKETING
Remember this?
During the blackout at Superbowl XLV11 in 2013, it took the team of creatives 4 minutes to write, get approval and tweet this game-changing tweet. Integrating social media with real time events is catching fire. This ‘lightening in a bottle’, massively viral event happened because Oreo’s agency planned ahead by having a creative team at-the-ready to respond to the live action with Oreo’s executives nearby to give instant approval. You can be assured that every advertising agency whose client is a stakeholder in this year’s Superbowl will be trying to “do an oreo”. Think integrated media – social and digital and across all channels. Be prepared and pay attention to respond to what is happening in real time.
Prediction #2 :: PAY TO PLAY
Changes to Facebook’s news feed hurt organic reach. Twitter is a public company who must generate revenue. Google+ has initiated advertising on its platform. I predict in 2014, in order for companies to increase their online exposure, we will need to pay for our posts to gain visibility. The fight for our attention within social media channels has become growingly more difficult. Smaller businesses will suffer the most as they have fewer resources to pay up.
This shift towards ‘pay to play’ marketing will mean marketers will be required to possess a deep understanding of the paid side of social. Those who ignore paid social media risk falling behind their competitors.
My advice is to be selective and realize you don’t need to be active everywhere all at once. Outline your goals, chose your channels and dive deep only where it makes the most sense by dedicating real time, effort and budget.
Prediction #3 :: CONTENT CONTINUES ITS REIGN
Social Media Today reported that 78% of CMO’s believe custom content is the future of marketing. Content creation is a major compentent of marketing effort – most marketers have begun to accept this – and the result has been a plethora of content-discovery apps to support this emerging trend. Flipboard, Pulse and my favorite, Pocket are just a few, but expect increasingly more to appear.
If you are still not earmarking part of your marketing to spend in content development, you should seriously consider doing so in 2014. And most importantly, when you do create content, make it relevant and valuable to your audience, brand, and the social platform you are in.
Entrepreneur Magazine columnist Rick Mulready wrote of content creation, “Brands should start asking themselves, ‘How are people using a particular social channel?’ and ‘What makes a channel unique?’ Then they will create contextually relevant content based on that insight.”
Prediction #4 :: WE CAN NO LONGER IGNORE GOOGLE+
Back in 2011, I waited to see if Google+ would grab hold or go away. In 2013, I had my answer. Google+ had slowly, quietly passed the tipping point in both popularity and users (it now claims to have 300 million active monthly users). Today, it is high-time we recognize that it is not going away, but rather emerging as an important player on the social media scene. What we also cannot ignore is its heavy-hitting one/two punch – integration with Google search results and Google Authorship – making even a little activity on Google+ priceless in terms of improving your search engine ranking for your business. It’s time to get active on Google+ in 2014.
Prediction #5 :: IT’S A MOBILE WORLD
A Mobile Strategy Becomes Compulsory
Reports are predicting that mobile will overtake desktops between 2014 and 2015. Having a mobile-friendly website isn’t enough anymore – you need to start thinking about inserting mobile into all aspects of your marketing strategy. Here are some questions you to get you started thinking about mobile:
- How will people be primarily accessing your business site: responsive design, an app, or mobile?
- How will you integrate your marketing goals to include unique mobile experiences? Keep in mind that 84% of smartphone owners use their phones while shopping (coupons, product reviews, comparison shopping, checkout… and the list is growing!).
- How will you adapt your content for mobile? For example, how will you revise copy into short, easily understood chunks suited for specifically mobile-users?
- How will you use segmentation to deliver the right content to your right audience at the right time?
The above are just a few of my predictions for social media in 2014. What are yours?
~Amy
