The success of social media marketing lies in the right mix of fruitful strategies. The incorrect combination will simply reduce the traffic from targeted customers rather than attract them. If 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. Listed below are the recent trends highlighted within an article published by Forbes in line with the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.
Low Usage of Social Bookmarking Sites
Based on the research reports, using social bookmark creating 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 remain popular among marketers, most sites (e.g. DIGG, Friendfeed) are almost dying. Therefore, it isn’t a good practice to trust a bookmarking site blindly for marketing purposes in today’s scenario. Instead, check for the sites that are most popular and perform the bookmarking very cautiously.
Decline of Daily Deal Sites
Daily deal features or just daily offerings of deals are regarded as a powerful way to attract a large number of targeted customers at a 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 significant amount of returns they receive from their purchases over time. Hence, you should use social networking sites for longterm marketing goals instead of daily goals.
Top Sites for Social Media Campaigns
Marketers who use social media for marketing will obviously perform social media campaigns (using social media sites for promotion) for their products or services to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will be successful only if the relevant site is popular amonst the customers.
The research report indicates that marketers who spend more than 40 hours weekly for social media marketing perform their campaigns more intensely through Google+, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram in comparison to those who 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 planning to increase campaigns through Twitter 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 as most suitable platform to master, which 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 majority of 29% each. Given below is the pie chart showing usage statistics for every platform with regard to B2C and B2B marketers.
B2B marketers work with 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, try to encourage blogs because they are regarded as the most famous social media marketing platform. YouTube being the second largest search engine, you can enjoy the benefits it offers by posting low-cost videos. Personal Growth (B2C Company) and Blentec (B2B Company) have become strong brands by using low cost YouTube videos.
As B2B marketers increasingly use LinkedIn, they have a chance to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). This social media entity can be used for generating leads for B2B organizations.
Fewer Check-ins Online
As per the study reports, there is a decrease 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 actually concerned more about privacy and safety. Marketers can tackle this example by introducing contests and rewards. This can encourage people to check-in more.
If you are still following the old strategy for social media, then it is the time to develop new strategies based on all these current trends. It is best to entrust this tedious task to a reputable social media marketing company that offers reliable social media services rather than try implementing the strategies on your own.