It’s 2018 and that means it’s time to dust off your marketing strategies and adjust for the boatload of social media changes that occurred in 2017. If you’ve already accounted for most of the updates mentioned below you’re ahead of the game. If not, this blog post will provide some helpful tips for incorporating the latest changes into your marketing plans as you navigate 2018.
Adjusting Marketing Strategies in 2018
Updating marketing strategies every year is a necessity, especially when we’re talking about social media platforms—which often seem to change on a daily basis. Adjusting for changes will allow you to modify your tactics—or adopt fresh ones—to capitalize on new opportunities. This is a great way to improve the performance of your marketing strategies in the new year and stay one step ahead of the competition.
Facebook Eliminates the 5% Fee on Donations
Marketing and charitable donations go hand-in-hand. Donating is the perfect way to not only support causes that are near and dear to the heart but also to garner goodwill for your brand. In November, Facebook announced they were removing the 5% fee placed on all donations that were made through their platform.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
More businesses will be able to increase the charitable dollar amounts they contribute, as well as the amount of money they spend promoting their charitable donations. This is a great way to improve brand image and build brand affinity with a wider audience.
YouTube Launches “Reels” to Replicate “Stories”
The “Stories” format will no longer be exclusive to Snapchat and Instagram after YouTube announced they are beta-testing a similar feature called Reels. According to their announcement, YouTube’s new format will include “creator-focused features like linking to YouTube videos and YouTube-y stickers.”
If Reels catches on the way Instagram and Snapchat story formats have, there could be a major shift in the platforms on which people choose to consume their story-feature content.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
Use agile story format tactics that integrate with your 2018 marketing strategy and can be transferred from one platform to the next. YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the US and the number of hours people spent on YouTube in 2017 jumped 60%. The potential for growth is massive. If there’s an opportunity to use Reels and your audience prefers YouTube over Instagram, don’t be afraid to make the change.
Bots Are the Now
Bots are not the future of social media marketing—they’ve already arrived and will only become more prominent. Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WeChat are just a few of the names racing to secure their place in the world of chatbots. Meanwhile, marketing automation bots are swiftly gaining popularity for their ability to enhance the customer and brand experience.
HubSpot’s own GrowthBot is a perfect example of a bot that quickly and efficiently pulls research and information in response to user questions. It also provides growth recommendations and can even tell jokes.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
Bots are usually cost effective and easy to set up which means there’s a low barrier to entry if you want to incorporate them into your digital strategy. Bots can increase your brand’s online engagement, reach a larger audience, analyze data and provide feedback, improve communication, and enhance efficiency by saving time and automating tasks. Just be careful not to eliminate the human element of communication.
Generation Z is the Target of New Marketing Strategies
It’s not just Millennials anymore. Brands are beginning to target Generation Z on social media because they will make up approximately 40% of all consumers by 2020 and have parents from both Generation X and the Millennial generations. Generation Z makes up 26% of the population and are even more social media savvy than millennials with a multifaceted approach to each platform. They use Twitter for finding news, Instagram is for aspirational content, Snapchat is about authenticity, and Facebook offers a way for them to gather information.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
It’s time to expand your target demographics beyond millennials. Based on Generation Z’s level of social savvy, your marketing strategies need to include a buyer persona that accounts for each of their social platform preferences. Once you do that you can target Generation Z with content customized according to their consumption habits.
Facebook Messenger Broadcast
Messenger Broadcast is designed to help businesses send mass messages to users that have initiated a conversation with the brand’s Facebook page. This makes it much easier for businesses to communicate with people that are already interested in their brand.
Read About the Facebook Messenger Broadcast Prototype Here
What this means for your marketing strategies:
Messenger Broadcast is still in the testing phase so there’s no way to know how much impact this could have on marketing capabilities. One thing we do know is that Messenger Broadcast could be a great way to drive qualified traffic and improve conversion rates because users must initiate the conversation. This demonstrates a degree of interest in the brand and could indicate lower resistance to brand messages.
Twitter Doubles Up
Gone are the days of trying to trim each tweet to fit within a 140-character limit. In November, Twitter officially increased the number of characters in each tweet to 280. While many people felt this would hamper users’ ability to focus on brevity, so far most people are staying well below the 280 character limit in their tweets.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
The increased character limit isn’t groundbreaking, but it does offer an opportunity to share a little more information and enhance the context of each tweet for your audience. In addition, many professionals have increased their hashtag usage which has driven greater organic reach for their tweets.
The Year of Instagram Stories
2017 was a big year for Instagram Stories. They celebrated their 1 year anniversary and reached 300 million active daily users—almost twice the number of Snapchat users.
Not only has Instagram mastered the act of quickly copying each of Snapchat’s new features, it appears that Stories may be the future of Instagram. With more than half of their 500 million daily active users already on board, Stories continues to grow exponentially.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
It’s time to switch your thinking from a traditional “posting” mentality and consider when more experiential social media will benefit your marketing strategies. Not all brands will be a good fit for Instagram Stories, but the ones that are, have a massive opportunity to drive website traffic and revenue. Not to mention improving brand awareness and reaching a wider audience.
Snapchat Adds Some Context
Snapchat introduced Context Cards to the world in October. Context Cards are a handy new feature that allows users to discover and access more information and features through Snapchat than ever before. These features include restaurant reviews, locations, calling for Uber or Lyft rides, making reservations, and more.
What this means for your marketing strategies:
Context Cards have many interesting possibilities that brands can use to strengthen their marketing plans. For example, if you run a tech company that has a cutting-edge vendor booth at a big convention, you could use Context Cards to share your booth’s location, information on what people can find at your booth, links to your website or interesting blog posts, and even company reviews.
Finishing with Strategic Adjustments
Most marketing strategies are written to cover a 12-month span. At the start of each new year, you need to review the current market conditions and see how your current tactics performed over the last year. If something isn’t working, that means one of two things:
- The tactic isn’t effective
- The execution is flawed
If it’s the former, then an adjustment needs to be made. Adjustments are a natural part of the marketing process. When something isn’t working, or something else could be working better, it’s time to make a change. Being agile is just as important as sticking to a plan in marketing. This allows your marketing strategies to adapt to changes in the market and compensate for tactical performances that didn’t meet expectations.
Want to help your content achieve optimal reach and deliver maximum impact?