Think you know what 2015 holds for social media marketing? We do, kind of. Here are 5 predictions (and hopes) for the new year from Moosylvania’s Senior Community Manager:
No More “One Size Fits All” Strategies
Optimizing content to make sure users will engage and interact with it has always been the focus of social strategy. Counting how many Likes, Retweets and Pins was a nice way to start understanding how fans felt about a brand’s social voice, but the time has come to move beyond that.
In 2015, brands will begin to have a clear idea of what they’re trying to accomplish with each piece of content on each channel. Is it driving people to their blog with the idea of creating an ownable community? Is it leading them to purchase a product? Is keeping an ongoing campaign fresh?
These are three very different pieces of content and they require different success metrics. If your content is taking a user to a website, it may not result in a Like, but a sale instead – which is more important? If brands are ready to move past the basic vanity stats, they’ll get stronger strategies from the start and more accurate stories in the end.
Organic Goes the Way of the Dodo
Two things every social media professional knows: 1) Facebook’s organic reach continues to drop like a brick, 2) There’s a lot of killer content out there. With that said, it’s time to face the facts that without paid support, you’re kind of screwed.
Distribution of your content is just as important as the creation and publication of it. If an awesome video is posted on Facebook, and no one sees it, does it exist? Yes, that’s corny, but you get the point. At this point it’s only Facebook that’s handed down the death sentence to organic content, but let’s not be naive, it’ll soon be the standard.
So why would a brand put money behind a “rented” space like Facebook instead of building and owning communities on their website? Because it’s extremely difficult to consistently get consumers to visit and spend time on a brand website. Users are at home within their favorite social networks – they don’t have much desire to hang out over at your house (sorry). The sooner this is realized, the sooner brands will focus on promoting the killer content they have. Content is still very much king, but you’ve got to give him a horse to ride on.
The Selling (Hopefully) Stops
A brand posting on social media is advertising, whether it’s a funny video, a conversational “what’s up?” or photos from an event. People aren’t dumb, they know this. So why do we still see brands selling like they’re on a late night infomercial? Selling entertainment or a lifestyle doesn’t have to be so obvious anymore, and an overly sales-pitchy approach just doesn’t fly with millennials.
Let’s hope that in 2015 it becomes common practice for brands to ditch their pushy salesmanship and just be themselves – or align with someone who’s awesome at being themselves. A great example of this is Kate Spade and their #MissAdventure campaign with Anna Kendrick.
Real-Time Marketing Finds Its Footing
Real-time marketing can be creative and set you apart, or it can come across as opportunistic and desperate. Brands and agencies are building command centers so they can churn out content in order to capitalize on trends and breaking news, and a lot of the time they’re just doing it so they can be the one that goes FIRST! when something happens.
Will this come across in poor taste? Does it make sense for our brand’s social voice? Will this entertain/interest our audience? These are the questions brands will start asking themselves in 2015. Just because the opportunity’s there, doesn’t mean you have to jump on it.
Video Becomes an Obsession
Video will be big in 2015?! Shocker.
No, this isn’t a huge change. Video is already such an important part of current social media efforts, but next year we’re going to see it evolve. Honda’s “The Other Side” YouTube video and Pharrell’s music video for “Happy” are just the tip of the interactive iceberg.
Everyone is fighting for eyeballs and users don’t spend much time watching a video unless they’re hooked from the start, so it better be cool. These video battles will get even more interesting when Twitter rolls out its native video platform in Summer 2015.
So there you have it, one daydreaming Community Manager’s predictions for the future. Agree or disagree? Let us know on Twitter, and don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter!
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