The success of social media marketing lies in the right mixture of fruitful strategies. The wrong combination will simply decrease the traffic from targeted customers rather than attract them. In the event that you devise your social media strategies such as social media optimization based on current trends, you can increase profits and use social networking sites effectively for marketing. Listed below are the recent trends highlighted within an article published by Forbes using the 2013 SOCIAL MEDIA Industry Report.
Low Usage of SOCIAL BOOKMARK CREATING Sites
According to the research reports, the use of social bookmarking sites has decreased to 10 percent from 26 percent in 2011. This considerable drop of usage clearly indicates nov bookmarking sites. Even though the websites including Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Pinterest are still popular among marketers, most sites (e.g. DIGG, Friendfeed) are almost dying. Therefore, it is not an excellent practice to trust a bookmarking site blindly for marketing purposes in today’s scenario. Instead, check for the websites that are hottest and perform the bookmarking very cautiously.
Decline of Daily Deal Sites
Daily deal features or simply daily offerings of deals are regarded as a powerful way to attract numerous targeted customers at the same time. The study report says that around 80 percent of marketers are not interested in using the hottest daily deal sites including Groupon or Living Social because of their campaigns soon.
Now people concentrate more on the considerable amount of returns they receive from their purchases as time passes. Hence, you should use social networking sites for long term marketing goals instead of daily goals.
Top Sites for SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Campaigns
Marketers who use social media marketing for marketing will obviously perform social media campaigns (using social networking sites for promotion) because of their products or services to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will be successful only when the relevant site is popular among the customers.
The study report indicates that marketers who spend more than 40 hours a week for social media marketing perform their campaigns more intensely through Google+, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram compared to those that spend six hours or less a week on social media. Also, around 92 percent of marketers who’ve five or more years of experience prefer LinkedIn than 70 percent of marketers having significantly less than five years of experience. Forum marketing in addition has decreased to 16 percent this year from 24 percent in 2011.
Around 67 percent of marketers are preparing to increase campaigns through Twitter even though it is really a slight decrease from 69 percent last year. Young marketers, a lot more than older ones prefer photo sharing sites including Instagram for launching campaigns. 62% chose blogging because so many suitable platform to master, that is the highest one followed by Google + (61%) and Facebook (59%).
Trends of B2C and B2B Marketers
Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketers use Facebook at an increased rate of 67% than other platforms. In the case of Business to Business (B2B) marketers, both Facebook and LinkedIn have equal most 29% each. Given below may be the pie chart showing usage statistics for each platform pertaining to B2C and B2B marketers.
B2B marketers use a more diverse selection of platforms in comparison to B2C marketers. Both of these do not completely utilize blogging and have minimal You Tube usage.
If you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, make an effort to encourage blogs because they are regarded as the most used social media marketing platform. YouTube being the next largest search engine, you can enjoy the benefits it provides by posting low-cost videos. Premium Vacation Packages (B2C Company) and Blentec (B2B Company) have grown to be strong brands by making use of low cost YouTube videos.
As B2B marketers increasingly use LinkedIn, they have an opportunity to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). This social media marketing entity can be utilized for generating leads for B2B organizations.
Fewer Check-ins Online
As per the research reports, there is a reduction in the usage of geo-location services including Foursquare from 17% in 2011 to 11% this season. These services allow check-in to your locations automatically online. The decline in most of these services indicates that people are now concerned more about privacy and safety. Marketers can tackle this situation by introducing contests and rewards. This will encourage visitors to check-in more.
If you are still following a old strategy for social media, then it is the time and energy to develop new strategies based on all these current trends. It is better to entrust this tedious task to a reputable social media marketing company that offers reliable social media marketing services instead of try implementing the strategies all on your own.
