The Future of Social Media – Three Predictions for 2018 and Beyond

As social media platforms and their users continue to evolve, your small businesses must be prepared for new developments and how they will change the ways your brand interacts with your audience. How will social media change in the months and years to come? Here are three expert predictions.

Prediction #1: Consumption of visual content will change.

It’s becoming increasingly important to incorporate visual content into your marketing strategy. Facebook recently reported that people spend an average of 1.7 seconds looking at a piece of content, meaning it’s important for your post to make an instantaneous impact. Content paired with a relevant image is 40 times more likely to be shared on social media. Facebook posts that include images receive twice the engagement and tweets with an image receive 150% more retweets than tweets without one. Already using static images in your posts? It might be time to consider using videos. People spend five times longer looking at a video compared to a single image.

Prediction #2: Ad growth will accelerate.

Recent changes to the Facebook news feed have made it much more difficult to reach followers organically. Building a large number of followers has always been an important part of a social media campaign, but the number of followers that will see the content you post to your small business page will decline this year. Facebook claims that with the huge amount of content posted on the network every day, they need to be extremely picky about what they choose to place on their users’ news feeds. As a result, businesses will need to start running more sponsored ads to reach the same audience.

But on the plus side, Facebook ad targeting tools are now even more precise to help you reach your specific target audience (for example, 30-something married stay-at-home moms living in Dallas who have one or more children under the age of five and a dog and a college degree). With the right strategy, ad money promises to be well spent. 50 million small businesses currently use Facebook to connect with customers, but only four million are currently using social media advertising. This means that Facebook ads can easily help you gain visibility and surpass your competitors.

Prediction #3:  Brand fatigue will force changes to the current social media formula.

As social media has become more popular with small businesses, social media users are becoming less interested in and less likely to engage with sponsored or branded content. It’s more important than ever to post interesting content that is applicable to your target audience and to avoid being overly promotional. Local small businesses should work on engaging consumers in their communities, both on social media and in-person. Remember that even in the digital age, interpersonal connections are essential.

Not sure where to start? A social media strategy that isn’t well thought through or badly managed can hurt your brand. Evolve Impact Group offers personalized social media management solutions for your business to ensure improved market presence and sustainable, long-term impact in the marketplace. We can also help with creating original and relevant content to share both on your blog and on social media. Contact us today to learn more!

Sources: https://www.socialreport.com/insights/article/115005500563-3-Predictions-On-The-Future-of-Social-Media-by-Experts, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/12/27/7-social-media-trends-that-will-dominate-2018/2/#3f50871e7aba, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanholmes/2018/01/02/2018s-biggest-social-media-trends-for-business/#a4277ca56237, https://www.dreamgrow.com/21-social-media-marketing-statistics/