The success of social media lies in the right mix of fruitful strategies. The wrong 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 based on current trends, it is possible to increase profits and use social networking sites effectively for marketing. Here are the recent trends highlighted in an article published by Forbes in line with the 2013 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.
Low Usage of SOCIAL BOOKMARK CREATING Sites
In line with the research reports, the application of social bookmarking 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 is not an excellent practice to trust a bookmarking site blindly for marketing purposes in today’s scenario. Instead, check for the websites that are hottest and perform the bookmarking very cautiously.
Decline of Daily Deal Sites
Daily deal features or just daily offerings of deals are seen 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 his or her campaigns in the near future.
Now people concentrate more on the significant amount of returns that they receive from their purchases over time. 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 perform social media campaigns (using social networking sites for promotion) because of their products or services to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will be successful only when the relevant site is popular amonst 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 compared to those who 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 less than five years of experience. Forum marketing in addition has decreased to 16 percent this season from 24 percent in 2011.
Around 67 percent of marketers are planning to increase campaigns through Twitter even though it is really 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 as most suitable platform to master, that 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 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 the pie chart showing usage statistics for each platform pertaining to B2C and B2B marketers.
B2B marketers use a more diverse array of platforms in comparison to B2C marketers. Both of them do not completely utilize blogging and have minimal You Tube usage.
If you’re a B2B or B2C marketer, try to encourage blogs as they are regarded as the most famous social media platform. YouTube being the next largest search engine, you can enjoy the benefits it offers by posting low-cost videos. Orabrush (B2C Company) and Blentec (B2B Company) have become strong brands by making use of low cost YouTube videos.
As B2B marketers increasingly use LinkedIn, they will have an opportunity to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). Lifestyle Enhancement marketing 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 year. 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 old strategy for social media, then it is the time and energy to develop new strategies based on all these current trends. It is better to entrust this tedious task to an established social media marketing company that provides reliable social media marketing services rather than try implementing the strategies on your own.