The success of social media marketing lies in the right mixture of fruitful strategies. The incorrect combination will simply reduce the traffic from targeted customers rather than attract them. In the event that you devise your social media marketing strategies such as social media marketing optimization on the basis of current trends, it is possible to increase profits and use social media sites effectively for marketing. Here are the recent trends highlighted in an article published by Forbes using the 2013 SOCIAL MEDIA Industry Report.
Low Usage of Social Bookmarking Sites
According to the research reports, the usage of social bookmark creating sites has decreased to 10 percent from 26 percent in 2011. This considerable drop of usage clearly indicates the fall of bookmarking sites. Even though the sites including Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit and Pinterest remain popular among marketers, majority of sites (e.g. DIGG, Friendfeed) are almost dying. Therefore, it is not a good practice to trust a bookmarking site blindly for marketing purposes in the current scenario. Instead, check for the websites that are most popular 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 a large number of targeted customers at the same time. The research report says that around 80 percent of marketers aren’t interested in using the hottest daily deal sites including Groupon or Living Social for their campaigns soon.
Now people concentrate more on the significant amount of returns that they receive from their purchases as time passes. Hence, you should use social media sites for longterm marketing goals rather than daily goals.
Top Sites for SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Campaigns
Marketers who use social media for marketing will obviously carry out social media campaigns (using social networking sites for promotion) because of their services or products to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will undoubtedly be successful only when the relevant site is popular among the customers.
The study report indicates that marketers who save money than 40 hours a week for social media marketing carry out their campaigns more intensely through Google+, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram in comparison to those that spend six hours or less weekly on social media. Also, around 92 percent of marketers who have five or even more years of experience prefer LinkedIn than 70 percent of marketers having significantly less than five years of experience. Forum marketing has also decreased to 16 percent this season from 24 percent in 2011.
Around 67 percent of marketers are preparing to increase campaigns through Twitter even though it is a slight decrease from 69 percent this past year. Young marketers, 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 accompanied by Google + (61%) and Facebook (59%).
Trends of B2C and B2B Marketers
Business to Consumer (B2C) Marketers use Facebook at a higher 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 Private Jet Travel showing usage statistics for each platform pertaining to B2C and B2B marketers.
B2B marketers use a more diverse array of platforms compared to B2C marketers. Both of these usually do not completely utilize blogging and also have minimal You Tube usage.
If you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, try to encourage blogs as they are regarded as the most used social media marketing platform. YouTube being the second largest search engine, it is possible to enjoy the benefits it includes by posting low-cost videos. Orabrush (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 a chance to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). This social media entity may be used for generating leads for B2B organizations.
Fewer Check-ins Online
As per the research reports, there is a reduction in using 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 these kinds of services indicates that people are actually concerned more about privacy and safety. Marketers can tackle this situation by introducing contests and rewards. This can encourage visitors to check-in more.
If you are still following the old strategy for social media marketing, then it is the time to develop new strategies based on all these current trends. It is best to entrust this tedious task to an established social media marketing company that offers reliable social media services instead of try implementing the strategies all on your own.