Top 41 social media marketing trends for 2015 by social media authority

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Report Summary This 30+ page report takes a deep dive and analysis of current and emerging trends expected to manifest by the end of 2015. The report contains easy-to-digest insights with a rich analysis of data, research and published articles. Methodology includes discussing with industry experts who provide qualitative opinions and authoritative insights into the emerging and current state of Social Media, and its place in the digital marketing space. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re looking to increase your web traffic or create a strong and loyal customer base for your website, product or brand, then social media marketing is of undeniable importance. According to 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report (http://about.datamonitor.com/media/archives/5346 ) by Michael A. Stelzner of Socialmediaexaminer (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/ ), 97% of marketers use social media and 92% of the marketers realize its importance for their business. But since social media is constantly evolving, you must know the latest Social Media Marketing Trends if you really want to leverage social media at its best.

Contents 1. Relationship and human-experience focused campaigns .................................................................... 4 2. Rise of social media shopping ............................................................................................................... 5 3. More social media consumers buying via mobile ................................................................................. 6 4. More content means more social media marketing............................................................................. 7 5. Leveraging most popular social medias sites........................................................................................ 8 6. Rise of videos for content marketing .................................................................................................... 9 7. Podcasting is becoming more popular................................................................................................ 10 8. Facebook ad pricing elevates .............................................................................................................. 11 2

socialmedia-authority.com 9. Google+ Authorship becomes insignificant ........................................................................................ 11 10. Twitter Ads comes with new fee structure....................................................................................... 12 11. Social Media Marketing Strategy implements A/B testing ............................................................... 13 12. Social media statistics will influence marketing decisions................................................................ 13 13. Twitter search engine is now more powerful ................................................................................... 14 14. Slideshare adds video for B2B........................................................................................................... 14 15. YouTube turns down as other medias accept hosted videos ........................................................... 14 16. Rise of Google+ with improved Local Search .................................................................................... 15 17. Businesses will embrace owned digital assets .................................................................................. 16 18. Paid Media for more conversions ..................................................................................................... 17 19. Platform-specific campaign impossible ............................................................................................ 18 20. Too much of information brings obstacle ......................................................................................... 18 21. Multi-platform social media use ....................................................................................................... 19 22. LinkedIn for all sizes of businesses.................................................................................................... 20 23. Instagram remains number one for images...................................................................................... 21 24. Expansion of visual based content.................................................................................................... 21 25. Emergence of new content forms .................................................................................................... 23 26. New applications will help consumers to filter contents.................................................................. 24 27. New platform for organic advertising ............................................................................................... 24 28. Hashtags will build shared community ............................................................................................. 24 29. Direct Marketing becomes conventional .......................................................................................... 25 30. Innovation of new tech change social marketing ............................................................................. 25 31. Social Media silo faints away & becomes dialogue channel ........................................................ 25 32. Increased reach via republishing ...................................................................................................... 26 33. Social Media focuses on niche groups .............................................................................................. 26 34. Merge of content marketing and social marketing .......................................................................... 27 35. No money means no reach ............................................................................................................... 27 36. Social conversion funnel gets shorter ............................................................................................... 27 37. Emphasis on private messaging ........................................................................................................ 28 38. Mobile continues to dominate ......................................................................................................... 29 3

socialmedia-authority.com 39. Social media on wearable gadgets.................................................................................................... 30 40. Your social media, your social wallet ................................................................................................ 30 41. Social marketers become cautious ................................................................................................... 30

Follow the top 41 social media marketing trends for 2015 below:

1. Relationship and human-experience focused campaigns According to Gartner (http://blogs.gartner.com/laura-mclellan/10-proof-points-whycustomer-experience-is-the-next-big-thing/ ), “By 2016, 89% of businesses will differentiate primarily on customer experience.” The growth of customer-driven marketing world is gradually shifting marketers from channel-dependent technologies into creating more meaningful human experience that will create strong relationship and brand loyalty in the long run. Ekaterina Walter (https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterinawalter ), Global Evangelist at Sprinklr (https://www.sprinklr.com/ ) has explained why Experience Cloud (http://www.ekaterinawalter.com/2015/04/how-the-experience-cloud-will-redefinemodern-business/#more-1235 ) is the future of digital transformation. 2015 calls for this significant shift in designing social campaigns which are more inclined on providing meaningful human or customer experience (http://blogs.forrester.com/harley_manning/13-08-12customer_experience_meets_business_technology_in_forresters_new_podcasts?intcmp= mkt:prd:prg:CXHub_CX_Podcast ). In today’s fast-evolving digital era, having a great product is not enough if you want to acquire a competitive edge. Relationship building and experience enabling are the only keys to survive and prosper in the business. This does not only build a strong relationship capital but helps to earn loyalty of consumers in the long run. Online marketers now need to view and serve their targeted customers from 360 degree view, acknowledging their every touchpoint in the business. 4

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Google and Facebook are now developing social media marketing strategies focusing more on user experience; they are planning to give more human experience to their target audience. With the hope of expanding businesses more effectively, social media managers are now looking for ways to market their products and services by being more relevant, providing more value to audience and making the engagement more like human. Hootsuite (http://blog.hootsuite.com/online-user-experience/ ) explains why a good user experience is so important for digital marketers.

2. Rise of social media shopping 2015 is going to be the year of social media shopping as indicated by the trend that’s been going on for last few years. Therefore, the year 2015 is likely to have more social media sales than 2014’s social sales i.e. $3.30 billion, which was again 26% increase of 2013’s social sales. It is important to note that, along with the expansion of social sales, there was significant rise in incoming traffic coming from social media networks too. According to Statista, social media selling will increase to $30 billion by the end of 2015, which means 50% increase over 2014. That’s huge! Be ready for it. Here is the actual data the leading statistic provider has to show:

Marcel Munoz, Chief Technology Officer of Thanks Media, has explained why social media is important for driving more sales in 2015 in his article The Rise of Social Selling in 2015 (http://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/articles/the-rise-of-social-selling-in2015/ ). Here is the excerpt of the article: 5

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“Having a company presence on popular social media platforms has become a “must have” expectation for consumers, who see it as a sign that a company is dedicated to hearing customer feedback and delivering customer service. However, maintaining an open line of communication with customers on social media is only the first step in leveraging this powerful medium to connect with customers. We see tech-savvy brands moving to the next level — social selling.” In response to this astounding fact about the increased sales driven by social media, the social media networks are likely to improve on delivering what the paying really customers want, more effectively. Most popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest are creating action buttons, i.e. “BUY” buttons so that visitors can directly purchase items without having to visit the actual store. Even Tumbler, the microblogging site, has applied this feature (http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/02/tumblr-buy-actionbuttons/ ).

3. More social media consumers buying via mobile According to Stefanie Sammons (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniesammons ), founder and chief strategist of Wired Advisor (http://www.wiredadvisor.com/ ), “Having a professional, strategic, and sustainable "digital" process for attracting your ideal clients in the this age of social networks and mobile devices is key to your future growth.” According to U.S. Digital Future in Focus (http://ir.comscore.com/releasedetail.cfm?releaseid=903514 ), internet access via mobile had increased by four times in 2014 where social networking was found to be top internet activity. A research by eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com/article/mobile-continuessteal-share-of-us-adults-daily-time-spent-with-media/1010782) has found that most people in U.S. have switched their social activity from desktop to mobile. It also predicted over 50% social networking via smartphones and tablets by the year 2015. According to Datamonitor, 1.4 billion people are going to access internet only through their mobile gadgets. (http://about.datamonitor.com/media/archives/5346 ) However, it’s important to keep in mind that the mobile domination has not caused decrease in desktop usage for social networking, which is expanding too, but in a slower rate than mobile. Mobile domination is seen as an extra time spent by people during offhours as they bought tablets and smartphones, occupying their television time, waiting 6

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time, Starbucksâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; line and bed time. Google, Yahoo and Facebook are found to be the top 3 social area gaining major attraction.

4. More content means more social media marketing As stated in one of the Forbes article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2014/12/23/why-visual-content-willexplode-in-2015/ ) and according to Content Marketing Institute (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2B_Research.pdf ), 70% of the B2B marketers are creating more content than they did a year ago and according to Forrester Research finding (http://www.workforce.com/ext/resources/archive_mediafiles/Google_GSA_ROI_WP.pd f ), content volume is growing at a rate of 200% annually. Content King is growing and this is a sure indication that his kingdom will grow too. More content means more social marketing in 2015 because social media is the only platform that ensures good targeting among audience allowing to use a diverse range of media. Among the most popular B2C content marketing tactics, social media content is the most effective one.

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Social media content is the most rated as the most popular tactic, i.e. 93% among B2C marketers and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effectiveness was rated as 58%. This implies that content in 2015 will be distributed more in social media rather than in other paths like emails, website, video channels, blogs, illustration, etc.

5. Leveraging most popular social medias sites Although different social media are good for different products or purpose, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s wise to know which one is the most popular. According to 2015 B2C Content Marketing Trends - North America (http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/10/2015_B2C_Research.pdf ) , B2C marketers are using 7 major

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social media platforms to market their content and all of them (except LinkedIn) are expanding in usage.

According to data collected by 2015 B2C Content Marketing Trends-North America, Facebook is the top social platform for B2C content marketing, followed by Twitter and YouTube on second and third position. As a smart marketer, one must know which platform is more popular and used more often than the rest. While keeping this mind, one must also consider the kind of product or service going to be sold via social media platform.

6. Rise of videos for content marketing Videos are going to be trendy in 2015 for content marketing. Keeping in mind the innate behavior of human of sharing experiences with fans and followers, businesses are now trying to focus on creating world-class sharing video platform with the ability to share stories, shopping and interactions in fascinating ways. Videos, being the most easy, convincing and convenient way to share an experience, video marketing is likely to skyrocket in 2015, like never before.

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Consumers now seem more interested in hearing truth from other consumers (reviews and advices) than about the brands which might be polished and fake. This gave rise to vblogging. In one of her article (http://www.socialnomics.net/2014/02/04/forget-bloggingit%E2%80%99s-all-about-%E2%80%98vlogging%E2%80%99/ ), Laura Harrison of Socialnomics states on popularity of video as:

Zoella (https://www.youtube.com/user/zoella280390 ) and Tyler Oakley (https://www.youtube.com/user/tyleroakley ) are already taking advantage of vblogging.

7. Podcasting is becoming more popular According to The Infinite Dial 2015 (http://www.edisonresearch.com/the-infinite-dial2015/ ), “Monthly audio podcast consumption grew from approximately 39 million monthly users in 2014 to approximately 46 million in 2015.” According to Tom Webster (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomwebster), vice president of strategy and marketing for Edison Research, “The podcast is always fun, always interesting, and always on-target with insights and ideas that will turn up your marketing intellect to an “11.” Podcasting is gaining traction in enticing audience to follow and befriend them on social media. Podcast landing pages are popular due to social media buttons present in them, enabling listeners to share, like and comment easily. If you’re looking forward to implement podcasting for your business, make sure you refer to a reliable guide on how

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to do social marketing using podcasts (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/tag/podcasting/) 2015 is the right time to begin discovering the potential of podcasting for social media marketing of your business.

8. Facebook ad pricing elevates Facebook, the most dominating social media site for both desktop and mobile, is likely to raise price for ads in 2015. But since there is decline in post reach (http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/03/the-filtered-feed-problem/ ), the social media marketers are facing problem in exposing their promotional posts to a large number of audience unless they are ready to pay price for ads which are becoming more and more expensive. According to Campaigner (http://www.campaigner.com/), Facebook is limiting the amount of viewers reaching the posts we post on news feed.

According to Ad Week article (http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/facebook-adprices-are-rising-amid-organic-reach-squeeze-156888 ), 2014 Q1 Facebook ad pricing increased by 10% of 2013 Q3 ad. The increment seems to continue in 2015 too. Facebook still continues to dominate social media and elevated ad price is something most business marketers must consider while making their social marketing decision.

9. Google+ Authorship becomes insignificant

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Google+ Authorship will become insignificant part of social marketing after the failure of Google Authorship experiment (http://searchengineland.com/goodbye-google-authorship201975 ). Google states (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6083347?hl=en ), “Authorship markup is no longer supported in web search”, which means Google+ doesn’t provide any extra value other than Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Now, Google has planned to remove photo and circle count of author in search snippet and only display name of the author.

Source: https://moz.com/blog/bye-bye-author-pics

10. Twitter Ads comes with new fee structure The new fee structure of Twitter ads offer flexibility in terms in payment, especially for small and medium- sized businesses. Now, you can pay for certain Twitter Ad performances rather than for clicks and retweets like in the past. The new objective-based ad campaigns still in beta phase are suitable for businesses who want to pay for actual results.

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11. Social Media Marketing Strategy implements A/B testing In earlier days, A/B testing meant testing of two versions of landing pages, website layouts, email newsletters, online ads, etc. so that you compare the two versions to see which one performs better and them implement it. A/B testing, thus, helps to convert more of the web traffic into customers by improving their user experience. However, in case of social media, it might be about testing different versions of call-to-action used in advertisements. In 2015, more businesses may invest in implementing A/B testing (https://www.optimizely.com/ab-testing/) to see which version of ad or call-to-action is more effective in generating traffic, lead and finally the revenue.

12. Social media statistics will influence marketing decisions According to Social Business Benchmark 2014 (http://blog.hootsuite.com/socialbusiness-benchmark/ ), a research conducted in 2014 by Hootsuite on 750+ global respondents, organizations still face challenges despite confidence and investment in social media. The research revealed that 60% of the organizations are challenged by the effort to turn social media data into something actionable.

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Although social media statistics are complex to put into action, social media managers still believe it can help them make better business decisions. Therefore, in 2015, they are going to work harder in analyzing social media tools and apply the facts in order to better their social marketing campaigns.

13. Twitter search engine is now more powerful On November 18, 2014, Twitter published “Building a complete Tweet index” (https://blog.twitter.com/2014/building-a-complete-tweet-index ) on its blog informing that the new Twitter search engine will have better optimizing system. The more powerful search engine will now allow people to search every single tweet ever published, based upon hashtags, images and links used in the tweets. Meaning, if right keywords are used by the users, your tweets will be more visible in the search engine.

14. Slideshare adds video for B2B Dave Kerpen (http://davekerpen.ceo/ ), CEO and Founder of Likeable Local says, “If you’re a B2B business or a marketer who represents B2B clients, make sure SlideShare is squarely on your radar for 2015” in the article 28 Social Media Marketing Predictions From The Pros (http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-media-marketing-predictions-for-2015/ ) Slideshare is becoming popular among B2B marketers since 2014 and is more likely to dominate even more in 2015. Being one of the popular content marketing tools for creating, distributing and viewing presentations, it has been able to attract massive number of page views, great amount of leads, SEO juice and long-lasting content. Slideshare has already added video feature to share in LinkedIn in 2014 and there is a good chance that it will extend this feature to their whole viewers out there in 2015.

15. YouTube turns down as other medias accept hosted videos Social media marketers, in 2015, can now upload videos directly to other social media networks other than YouTube. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are likely to focus more on promoting videos uploaded on their platform by expanding exposure to those videos 14

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which tend to hold users for longer period of time, providing solid advertising opportunities. In 2015, marketers are more likely to focus on these media other than YouTube to upload and distribute video content as a part of their marketing strategy.

According to data chart above by Socialbakers, share of video posts on Facebook is rising up throughout the year 2014 whereas YouTube declines down towards the end of the year. Not only Facebook, other medias like Instagram can now host videos on their own platform indicating further chances of decline of YouTube in 2015. In order to get popularity or huge number of shares of videos, businesses are beginning to produce the kind of videos that are short, informative, insightful and entertaining.

16. Rise of Google+ with improved Local Search A new feature enabling businesses to appear easily in Google Local Search is now being promoted in Google. Many businesses are beginning to claim their listing on local search results. This is sure going to elevate Google+ in the year 2015. Here is a screenshot of the kind of local search result based on star review:

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This feature seems effective in terms of exposing the businesses with authentic reviews and also the small businesses as once they have five reviews, the stars will be shown. People are likely to trust on businesses with high number of stars appearing on top, making them to click on the apparently high-ranked businesses. Google+ Local Search has improved on many factors (http://blumenthals.com/blog/) to improve search results such as addition of map links, lack of phone number which induce more clicks. The likelihood of Google gaining stronger connection with the real world seems positive in 2015.

17. Businesses will embrace owned digital assets 2015 is the year of increased content distribution as well increased sharing opportunities throughout social media. However, many businesses donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t own a good relationship with their audience over social networks which have become a noisy and costly place. On top of that, the existing rules are constantly changing creating more challenging experience for the social media marketers. In order to minimize hazards that are likely to appear due to difficult social media situation, most businesses might look for alternative path to distribute their content among their target audience and this may include owned digital assets like creative partnering, influencer marketing, niche content-marketing and content curation.

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18. Paid Media for more conversions In 2015, you can no longer rely on organic social marketing if you seriously want to make a considerable amount of profit because paid media is proving more conversions than organic media. According to Converto (http://www.convertro.com/), paid social leads to 25% more conversion than organic social.

Facebook started off its paid advertising in 2014 in a way making marketers forced to approach paid form of marketing for their businesses. With only paid advertising, businesses get increased organic reach, more number of likes and increased number of promotional content of brands appearing on news feed. Not only Facebook, other social networks are following the similar path. As per the research conducted by Converto, although the conversion rate is low (0.1%) for Facebook for using paid ads, Twitter has almost doubled its conversion harnessing power by using paid ads. Pinterest, however was found to reveal reverse result. In average, however, the conversion lift of paid vs. organic social content was found to be 25% in 2014. It might be impossible to gain considerable amount of conversions without paid advertisement on social media in 2015. 17

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19. Platform-specific campaign impossible Social marketers are realizing that audience is being increasingly fragmented across different platforms. It was only Facebook a few years back but now it’s about Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram too and it’s being difficult and expensive to create campaigns for all of them. Plus, there is no more free ride and you must go for paid media if you want to make a considerable impact as stated in #18 above. So, the ultimate trick to follow will be to be present in more places at the same time and this can be achieved by having one clear goal and go everywhere possible in order to achieve that goal. It’s important to keep in mind that it’s not about where your target audience is but it’s about how to achieve your ultimate goal.

20. Too much of information brings obstacle From 2015, social marketers are going to face challenge in passing through the massive content to get a share of attention from their target audience. The amount of information is increasing rapidly every single second in web, esp in marketing area. Due to too much of information, it has been more and more difficult for audience to pass through the hurdle of information in order to reach the right information. This trend is likely to increase the amount of existing information by 600% in the next 5 years. In such foreseeable situation, marketers must learn few facts before their fight through filters. Facebook might not be considered as viable channel because of too much of content, drop in organic reach and too expensive advertising rate. 2015, however, is surely inviting some innovative contents, it may be an interactive video or short-form visual content. Venkatesh C.R. (http://www.business2community.com/author/venkatesh-c-r) CEO of Dot Com Infoway (http://www.dotcominfoway.com/ ) has recently explained about the role of visual content in social media growth by using an illustrative infographics (http://cdn.business2community.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Visual-ContentInfographic7.jpg7.jpg ) After the arrival of innovate contents in 2015, hopefully there will be no obstacles in between contents and their targeted readers. 18

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21. Multi-platform social media use As per 140 Proof and IPG Media Lab (http://ipglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ANetwork-for-Every-Interest-140-Proof_IPG-Whitepaper.pdf)’s research in 2014, over 50% or 107 million US adults over the age of 18 use more than two social media platforms.

People who use different platforms have different reasons to use them. For e.g. they use Facebook for family and friends, LinkedIn for business connections, Instagram for friends and family and so on. As a marketer, you will now need to target your audience on various social media platforms on the basis of kind of product your business is trying to sell. According to Campaigner, (http://www.campaigner.com/ ), “Getting your brand on different sites allows you to connect with people who are only active on one or two social media channels” as shown in its infographics:

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To succeed social media marketing in 2015, one must incorporate multi-platform social media, mixing various social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram into their marketing plans. Social marketing in 2015 will require you to produce appropriate content that interests your audience in each platform.

22. LinkedIn for all sizes of businesses Businesses of all sizes are using LinkedIn more in 2015. LinkedIn Publishing (http://heidicohen.com/linkedin-publishing/) is expanding, providing an opportunity for your content and social media strategy to target your B2B audience more easily. Slideshare, owned by LinkedIn, is going to grow as the leading platform for business presentation. If you want to unleash full potential of LinkedIn for your business, you must know all the LinkedIn Business Tactics (http://heidicohen.com/linkedin-business-tactics/). Social media marketers must build an alumini group, creating value for business and employees for a long term and develop a strong LinkedIn strategy including content curation 20

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followed by active participation and interaction. LinkedIn has the feature that allows you to create category-related groups to expand your thought leadership and foster your leads. LinkedIn is becoming more and more famous among professionals for up-to-date industry news, building professional networks and becoming influencers in their specific field. It is more popular for professional content than Twitter, Facebook and Google+

23. Instagram remains number one for images Instagram is number one when it comes to image-based social media marketing. In 2014, Instagram dominated Facebook in number of photographs and it will continue to grow with the use of superior photographs and video embedding features in 2015. Although it continues to grow popular among the users, it might fall back on advertising as it still needs to create a financial model. For generating revenue, it might charge money by including new features like filter in near future. Become active on Instagram (http://heidicohen.com/instagram-visual-content-marketing/ ) and showcase your products, employees, customers and events in photographs and videos. And donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to make it a major part of your visual content strategy.

24. Expansion of visual based content Software Advice finds â&#x20AC;&#x153;use of images or photosâ&#x20AC;? as the most important way marketers can optimize their social media content in one of its studies (http://b2b-marketingmentor.softwareadvice.com/study-how-marketers-optimize-social-content-0614/ ).

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Facebook reports 3.6 times increase in posting number of videos from Jan 2013 to Nov 2014. Buffer reports 1.5 times increase in retweeting of tweets when they contain visual images. In 2015, marketers will be engaged in taking image and video content to the next level of their marketing strategy. Rising popularity of visual platforms like Pinterest and Instagram last year is a clear indication that visual content is going to rock in the following years. Why not get started in 2015 then?

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Visual seems to be becoming more popular in Facebook too as videos have become more popular on Facebook. YouTube is the second largest search engine, after Google. All the facts are indicating and leading us to create more visual contents in upcoming days. Many online tools (http://www.modgility.com/tools-to-enhance-visual-content/ ) are helping marketers to create graphics and images in easy and cost-effective ways. More YouTube, more slideshare, more infographics, more memes and more imagery are waiting to cover in 2015.

25. Emergence of new content forms As social networks are continuously evolving and as new social networks are emerging, new forms of content are likely to emerge too. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s difficult to say what forms of content will emerge next, however, it is more likely that there will be more short visual contents and interactive video content which are already expanding on Pinterest.

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LinkedInâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s specifically created Slideshare that allows business marketers to create new form of content in a platform, combining the potential of both Powerpoint and Google Drive.

26. New applications will help consumers to filter contents With the growth of more content and marketing, web has become overpopulated with massive information. Customers will now turn to apps that will help them to filter through the clutter of information that are not relevant to them and reach the content that are meaningful for them. It is no surprising that web is already expanding with new forms of content every now and then and in order to convey their message to the targeted audience, marketers will turn to apps that will help people sort the clutter according to their preferences. One of the best instances of such app is Zite (https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/zite/id419752338?mt=8 ) which learns what users like based on their past experience and filters for similar result accordingly.

27. New platform for organic advertising Although Facebook has more videos being shared from YouTube, it still lacks amount of reach it provides to the users. As Facebook has been pulling more marketers towards its paid advertising by reducing the amount of reach an organic campaign can have on the network, businesses will now need to look for alternative platforms where they can distribute their organic content. Thus, 2015 will be the year of content moving away from Facebook to new platforms for organic advertising.

28. Hashtags will build shared community Hashtags will serve to form community among people with common interest across different social media. Such communities will then provide a strong foundation for business marketers to conduct their market research. Hashtags give wonderful opportunity to join any conversation before, during and after the event, even if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re not physically present in the event.

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29. Direct Marketing becomes conventional As both Twitter and Facebook introduces “BUY” button, there will be significant amount of sales happening on these platforms and the sales will be of micro-payments rather than hundreds or thousands of dollars. Facebook will have a marketplace for products and services of small prices where users can easily buy things. LinkedIn is likely to follow the same path too. Most of the businesses are going to have successful social microconversion strategy in 2015.

30. Innovation of new tech change social marketing With ongoing and unpredictable innovation of both hardware and software technologies, it’s difficult to say what will impact more in social marketing in 2015. Nevertheless, it is certain that the upcoming innovations will definitely make social engagement more realistic and intuitive than ever. In 2015 and ahead, there will always be quest for better and truer social engagement and connection and that will be achieved by innovation of new improved technologies. Hardware innovation like Oculus Rift (http://mashable.com/2014/09/23/virtual-realityoculus-rift-crescent-bay/ ) has proved how mind-blowing virtual reality can be and D-Wave’s Quantum Computer (http://www.dwavesys.com/media-coverage/wired-agequantum-computing-has-almost-arrived ) has the most powerful artificial intelligence. Innovations popping up as such are signals of social interaction taking place in more advanced way in future.

31. Social Media silo faints away & becomes dialogue channel 2015 is meant for better social connection. Businesses no longer use social media to boast about their brands as they are beginning to realize that social interaction with genuine and potential consumers are more important than anything. The huge gap between brands and consumers that existed in 2014 is slowing disappearing in 2015. 2015 is awakening people of fact that the real purpose of social media is building relationship and mutual interaction. Therefore, marketers are trying to break the social media silo (http://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2013/10/02/the-silo-mentalityhow-to-break-down-the-barriers/ ) they’ve been holding so far by embracing meaningful 25

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conversation with their targeted audience in humane way. This time, they will prefer talking with customers by telling a story rather than just pushing their message to them. To build a strong customer connection, they might need to emphasize on creating brand persona that is not just fun and interactive, but also targeted and consistent.

32. Increased reach via republishing The greatest challenge all social media facing today is struggling to be visible in news feed because of growing crowds of content. Gone are days when people post updates once and keep their fingers crossed, hoping for the best. After the drop in reach of posts, social marketers are now looking for ways to promote them every other ways possible. One of the ways will be to repost the updates again and again, piece by piece. Therefore, in 2015, republishing posts multiple times is one of the ways to get organic reach. Instead of only focusing on writing unique contents which may or may not drive audience, marketers can now focus on creating the kind of content which gives them more organic reach and more interaction among fans and followers while republishing.

33. Social Media focuses on niche groups Niche or specific groups with similar or shared interests seem to be more important area to focus in 2015. Besides social media sharing, niche groups are usually communicated and shared via email or text messages in 2014. But in 2015, we will see this kind of sharing happening from app developers too. For more focused niche groups, more focused social media networks are emerging. Ello (https://ello.co/beta-public-profiles ) and This (https://this.cm/ ) are great examples of such networks. Apart from this, Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s crowded content in news feed and limited organic reach as well as Twitterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s likelihood of treading the same path soon give clear indication that some big changes are on the way to social marketing in coming days. In 2015, businesses will need to explore their target audience through diverse social media and interact with them in relevant and human way.

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34. Merge of content marketing and social marketing With massive growth of content since 2014 and before, social marketing is likely to grow too in the same ratio. Content needs a reliable distributing or marketing platform which can give them great targeting using a diverse medium. Social media is their answer. On the other hand, social media too needs good content to grab attention of their targeted audience. In 2015, it looks like content marketing and social media marketing will depend or even merge with each other.

35. No money means no reach It all started with Facebook’s big descent in organic reach of posts appearing in news feed. In 2015, the free coverage seems to descend even more, maybe down to nil. But since we are in the age where social media marketing without social ads is impossible, business must spend money if they want to get good reach for posts. No money means no reach in 2015, simple as that! It also means that social media marketers now need to look for every possibility; from audience analysis to targeting, in order to utilize paid social ads to the maximum limit.

36. Social conversion funnel gets shorter Businesses had tried hard enough in trying to convert their traffic into customers by promoting on social media. The process, however, is troublesome as it is lengthy with several steps including redirecting to the site, introducing call-to-action and finally converting them into paying customers. It’s lengthy process for both the business and consumers. In response to this problem, we’ll see changes in social media that will allow consumers taking direct purchasing action through engagement in social media, then and there. According to Douglas Karr (http://www.marketingtechblog.com/ ), CEO of DK New Media (http://www.dknewmedia.com/ ), “I believe we’re going to see a lot more methods across social media that provide direct action through engagement. It may be a purchase through a tweet, mobile click to call, a Facebook registration or a Pinterest purchase, which bypasses the funnel and drives the social user directly to a conversion.”

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In 2015, the social conversion funnel will get shorter with less number of social marketing steps. It might include introducing of new technologies into social media platforms or using of third-party apps making the conversion process shorter, with shorter distance between advertisements and customers. Shorter conversion funnel saves time and reduces hassles. By improving social media conversion performance, social sales channel will turn simpler and it will be easier and quicker to achieve social conversion.

37. Emphasis on private messaging According to Runa Sandvik, a privacy and security researcher at Freedom of the Press Foundation (https://freedom.press/ ), “There’s no tool out there that can guarantee 100 percent anonymity. Even Tor does not guarantee it.” Privacy concerns seem to revive because people are worrying about their safety of their private activities. They don’t want anyone to track or record their private online and social media activities. However, savvy users know how personal data are collected skillfully via social media. A new network has appeared which claims to never sell users’ data or do advertisements. Also known as Anti-Facebook, this network Ello (https://ello.co/) is exclusive in a sense that you cannot join it unless someone who has already joined sends you an invitation. Be ready to see rise of services that makes sure your self-destructive messages go off record once you have communicated. Snapchat (https://www.snapchat.com/ ), Confide (https://getconfide.com/ ), Clipchat (http://www.clipchat.com/ ) and Wickr (https://wickr.com/) are messaging apps on their way to rise in 2015. The beauty about these apps is diversity of content formats that can be used to exchange messages. No post is really anonymous, in fact, but these networks has great chances of gaining attraction as they provide veiled anonymity to the users. Private messaging ability seems to have already begun with these seemingly trustworthy apps and businesses are taking advantage by making it a part of their social media marketing.

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38. Mobile continues to dominate Mobile has started dominating and will continue to dominate in 2015. Facebook reports 30% of the worldwide monthly active users use mobile only. Thanks to free Wi-Fi access at shopping malls, cafes and airport lounges and many other places. This shows that more people want to stay connected for more amount of time. No doubt, this calls for websites and social media to become compatible in mobiles. Many businesses are already focusing more or only on mobile than just prioritizing it over web. According to recent study, mobile digital time in US (http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobilemarketing-statistics/ ) is found to be 51% which is higher than desktop, i.e. 42%.

It means if your business doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have mobile friendly social media strategy, you might miss something very big.

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39. Social media on wearable gadgets Wearable gadgets might just be a dream in past but now they are going to be the most exciting part of reality in 2015. These devices are not just health-improvers or entertainers, some of them have social media too. Apple Watch (http://www.apple.com/watch/ ) launched in 2015 enables you to interact with social media on your wrist. You will be notified on someone liking your Facebook page, giving +1 on Google or retweeting your tweets. Watch out for new and innovative gadgets to intimately connect with your social media in 2015.

40. Your social media, your social wallet After discovery of line of code in Facebook messenger App in 2014, it was revealed that there is a possibility of payment and transfer platform done on cards. On activating this feature (http://time.com/3542410/facebook-money/ ), users will be able to send money to one another by using their debit card information, without any charge. Besides, Facebook also has the ability to allow users to save their credit card information so that they can check out with 450,000 ecommerce merchants as well as buy goods via the social media. This ability will be activated by implementing Autofill feature (http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/30/facebook-ecommerce/) which can also enable â&#x20AC;&#x153;BUYâ&#x20AC;? button. This powerful concept can be the greatest aid in social media marketing ever provided that users are comfortable trusting Facebook and other social media with their money. Not sure if this will happen in 2015 but itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s predictable that social networks will definitely find ways to regulate your transactions.

41. Social marketers become cautious Social media marketing is carrying whole new kind of challenge in 2015 which is extremely complex than it was a few years ago. It has become so complex that social media marketers now need to be cautious on every decision they make. Due to the increasing complexity of various ad options offered by social media platforms, specializing them on individual level seems to be tough and time-consuming. Since, one

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individual cannot learn it all, one must do it alone. And to do it well, one must become cautious in making choices. Being cautious in 2015 means being able to study and focus on what social media approach really works for oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s businesses and what not. It might also be monitoring and evaluating performance of your Facebook page, Facebook ad, Instagram, etc. After that, you might want to take a step back and measure all the results so that you can end up embracing the ones that are effective and remove the rest. Therefore, social marketers become more cautious in 2015, all to make sure their choices are right.

This report has been produced by Richard Santoro for the Social Media Authority Blog, learn more about this case study and find the latest updates on www.socialmedia-authority.com Social Media Authority has helped large business, SMEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s startups, entrepreneurs, and even individuals to grow their business, brand and authority through social media marketing. Find out more about our high-end predictive analytics and social media management services, for data-driven business decisions. info@socialmedia-authority.com

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About Richard Santoro

Richard Santoro is the founder of Social Media Authority, author of the books: A Beginners Guide To Ruby on Rails and The Ultimate Ideas Guide To Starting An Online Business. Social Media Authority is a growing marketing and business blog which helps businesses discover how to best use social media. Over 18,000 people receive Social Media Authorityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original content in their email inbox weekly. Follow Richard on Twitter at https://twitter.com/richysantoro And on the blog at: http://socialmedia-authority.com/blog/ Like the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Social-MediaAuthority/376034155918948