Social Media Predictions for 2015

Stop! Are you using the same old social tactics and strategies of yester-year for this year’s social media strategy? You’re doing it wrong. Social media is evolving at an unimaginable rapid pace. Infact, what you thought was successful yesterday is obsolete today (i.e. number of Facebook likes as a parameter of a brand’s success). So, if you’re thinking 2015 is going to be just another year with tons of useless postings and status updates clogging your newsfeed, you’re in for quite a shock.

Our research team has been working for quite some time now to document some of the important changes in social platforms for 2015. We would like to share these insights with you and hope that you will incorporate them into the coming year’s plan for your social campaigns.Even Twitter, the platform that was purely textual until a year ago, is now loaded with pictures and videos. This shows a rising trend for visual components instead of mere textual tweets. People want to see quick videos and inspiring images rather than to read quotes. The same applies for Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn. According to several reports, an estimate of 75% of the content shared on social media is images. So this year, plan on designing custom posters, banners, quotes and infographics.

Another new rise is the demand for videos – most specifically high resolution videos. If you’ve got the money, invest in an ad or animated production. The trend now is a one-minute entertaining video and lots of creativity in concept. Vine videos are the best example of short, entertaining streams. Not ready for video yet? It’s alright. Powerpoint presentations can do too and uploaded to Slideshare. Anything that you think you can present in an appealing visual manner is definitely of more value than simple text.Facebook and Google are not being friendly to businesses this year as they now emphasize strictly on paid advertising. This is a strategy to ensure that only serious businesses that want to invest in marketing should be given exposure and visibility.

“It’s already happening, but 2015 will be the year of paid amplification. With content marketing reaching near-ubiquity, the success pendulum will swing toward boosting consumption of content. That will put a new focus on math, testing and optimization as content production and content distribution become equally important.” So get your credits rolling if you want your carefully crafted content to be shown out there.If you’re always selling, selling and selling, this will be a bad year. People no longer want companies to sell. They want companies to be altruistic. They want some benefit of joining your page. So offer something valuable – some tips, a discount, a free membership perhaps? Anything, that can make you seem less of a salesman and more of a brand.

Those that pitch are becoming ignored. A little bit of selling here and there is great, but those marketers who do nothing but sell, sell, sell, are gonna get ignored, dismissed and overlooked by consumers and prospects. Get cracking folks, it’s time to actually care. That means dedicating more resources to things that are harder to track, like answering customer questions and providing more value online. Be there for your customers and make them like you enough to share your content.Some important statistics show us that, Pinterest and LinkedIn will be the most popular networks in 2015, with Pinterest beating Twitter by a 18-21% in popularity! This definitely shows, people are moving more towards sharing images than tweets and re-pinning pictures of their favorite products. This is clearly also the case with Instagram; the picture sharing network that is predicted to, “emerge as the most important network for B2C companies.”

LinkedIn on the other hand is no longer a mere networking platform for professionals, but one that can attract serious leads and business partners. With the option for publishing articles now available to all LinkedIn users, it has become an even more attractive platform – especially for those that have a wealth of knowledge to share with the world. For 2015, if you really want to build professional connections, focus primarily on LinkedIn rather than on Facebook or Twitter.Mobile has already dominated the social sphere since 2013, however, by 2015 as millions of people will be buying more smartphones and tablets, this number is expected to rise. People expect to get daily news, social updates, RSS feeds and social communication available to them 24/7 on their mobile devices. 47.25 million unique visits are made to the Facebook app on iOS in June 2014 alone! And Android takes in 72million unique visits! Users are not only limited to Facebook, but also use other networks with equal fervor. Music sharing apps like SoundCloud, iTunes Radio, Pandora, Grooveshark are equally getting popular on mobile. Image sharing networks like Instagram and Pinterest beats the record and chatting apps like Whatsapp, Viber and Snapchat form the core of every mobile user.

So what does all this stat tells us? Businesses should take to mobile seriously and should consider launching versions of their apps especially if it’s a product based business. In fact, Walmart even reported that 72.5% of their traffic this Black Monday was from mobile!Now, now, don’t you worry with these predictions. We are here to do the work and let you reap the rewards. Call us 425-233-4623 and let us know how we can help you with your next social campaign!