A new trend in social networks. Social media activity by source type. Tired of “new tools”

Social networks have been actively developing this year - there is a large number of interactivity for users and new formats for advertisers, and messengers were finally separated from social networks. Digital agencies explained how brands’ SMM strategies have changed in this regard and what they will have to rely on when promoting content on social networks in 2018.

The real boom in stories and live broadcasts has already happened: 2017 passed under the auspices of supporting clip-based thinking modern society due to the development of tools for “disappearing”, momentary content (although there has been a slight rebound - stories can now be made even eternal). The effectiveness and relevance of the format has already been proven by Instagram - they won’t embed advertising tools into something that barely works. We are waiting for similar monetization steps from Facebook and VKontakte.

Anyone who really wanted to jump on the chatbot hype bandwagon should have done so in 2017. Those who didn’t have time, don’t have to try anymore - you won’t make a splash and will fall into the “one of the” category, especially after the Coca-Cola cases. Or just come up with something out of the ordinary.

Adding to chatbots artificial intelligence will help make it not only (and not so much) image-bearing as functional. This will help both for image and possibly for sales (isn’t that what we all work for).

In 2018, due to technically more complex mechanics social media will become increasingly used in a large split of digital tools (rather than as a separate channel) for deeper involvement of the audience in communication with the brand.

Due to the increase in the share of situational content and the audience’s reaction to it, all brands will be even more active in Stories and broadcasts. Among the disadvantages of this trend: the lifespan of such content will become shorter, and the speed of its writing will increase (which may affect the quality). On the plus side (especially for agencies): the time for reducing the number of posts in exchange for increasing the coverage of these same posts is slowly ending - more “disappearing” content will be needed.

And, of course, messengers will develop even more actively next year. I think that everyone is waiting for Durov’s statements on Mobile Congress 2018. This will give an even greater impetus to the development of the application than the scandals with Roskomnadzor, especially considering that Durov mentioned monetization of the service in 2018.

1. The growth of mobile. The trend continues this year, with people still more actively accessing social networks from mobile devices.

2. Chatbots. Having received their first successful cases, almost all brands have toyed with chatbots to one degree or another; the tool is interesting, but quickly gets boring.

3. Masks, gifts, sticker packs. Brands actively gave gifts for activity, messengers added new trendy masks, etc.

5. The video format is still going strong. Users have become even more accustomed to simplified content consumption.

6. Brands have become more active in using non-standard formats for integrating content (videos, covers, stories), which is not surprising: direct targeting has long ceased to produce stunning results.

7. The top Russian social networks have already become equal in age and purchasing power. One cannot safely call VKontakte a social network for teenagers, FB a platform for marketers, OK a social network for my mother, etc. Active actions brands on key platforms, rather than exclusive ones, began to produce better results.

1. Social networks are actively being feminized. This is more about engagement. The female audience is rapidly dominating comments, likes, shares and promotional activities. Many brands have already taken steps towards adapting content and advertising campaigns and will clearly continue to invest large budgets in the middle solvent segment of the audience.

2. VR and AR technologies have already begun to be integrated into sites, which is facilitated by the active development of neural networks and site statements (FB).

3. Brands will significantly increase their social media budgets (as usual).

The algorithmic news feed in all social networks (which replaced the chronological one) had a tremendous impact on the principle of work in SM. The vast majority of large brands have abandoned the priority associated with increasing the number of subscribers, moving to work on maximizing reach and increasing the engagement rate. The involvement of subscribers in communication with the brand is what the “client + agency” teams strived for in 2017 (there is no doubt that this goal will continue in 2018).

Situational marketing has moved from the “nice to have” category to a must have, compulsory program. There is no point in talking about the importance once again quality content, but it is worth noting that this year the speed of work on operational processing news feeds in connection with the brand and its content policy on social networks. In fact, relay races and flash mobs are born in a matter of hours, and selections of the best situational posts regularly appear in specialized media.

All social networks from Instagram to Odnoklassniki have increased the number of new tools (plus the frequency of updates has increased). All year there was a kind of competition: who would be the fastest to use new targeting capabilities; which brand will be the first to release dynamic covers or will direct buttons to go to the site in “story”.

In general, we can safely say that in 2017, social networks became one of the key channels brand communications with audiences. This is completely logical in light of the general trend towards increasing advertising budgets on promotion on the Internet compared to TV and the dynamics of mobile traffic growth.

The visibility of a post on a social network, as in 2017, will depend on the content, its relevance, uniqueness and interest to the audience (and of course, on how professionally the content promotion strategy is built). We remember that the post is evaluated by a neural network that takes into account tens of thousands of factors. The rate for each community will be different. The principle of the algorithmic feed changes daily as the neural network learns.

The “here and now” principle will increasingly extend to content: disappearing “stories” in this moment available on Instagram and Vkontakte, it is obvious that next year other social networks will also integrate the format. This means an even more interesting and active fight for the attention of users; it is literally necessary to convey the message before the content disappears from the network. Of course, the majority of posts will be posted in standard forms (but even here it would be appropriate to include the fashionable meme “but that’s not true!”).

The influence of bloggers and the scale of projects with them, judging by the colossal number of requests in 2017, will only continue to grow in 2018. More and more brands want to move from point-to-point activations to long-term contracts. I would like to believe that the new stars will respond with a new breakthrough in the quality of content and the level of creativity; after all, it is not for nothing that most of the top leaders have already acquired their own production studios.

In conclusion, I would like to note one of the most pleasant trends of the year - the interest of large brands in original image projects, in which the desire to convey brand values ​​prevails over the desire to directly advertise the product. There is no doubt that next year we will see many challenges and surprises on social networks.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is constantly evolving, changing, and reaching more and more users. For example, in one of research on the thematic portal it is said that social Facebook network visit daily more than 1.09 billion users, and more than 50 million companies have opened their pages there. The social network Snapchat is already used by more than 100 million users, and their number is growing every day.

To build a successful strategy or strategy, you need to follow trends. We have collected 9 SMM trends of 2018 and briefly described each of them.

9 SMM trends in 2018

Targeting mobile device users

The mobile segment is constantly growing. In 2016, the number of visits to social networks from mobile devices exceeded the number of visits from desktop devices. 81% of users used mobile- this was described by the Romir research holding in its publications . Now this figure continues to grow, so most of the content needs to be created specifically for mobile users - for example, use short structured posts, bright pictures and short videos.

Development of trade in social networks

Trading on social networks is convenient for the users themselves - they do not need to follow links to the online store, read the description, or place an order: just make one click and write to the seller. This development opportunity should not be missed.

Increasing consumption of video content

90% of content consumed in social networks in 2017 it is video. According to IBS Russia, advertisers' advertising budgets increased by 29% in just six months. This indicates the growing popularity of the video format - in order to interest users, you need to show a video. But here it is important not to shoot too long videos and to interest users in the first 3 seconds, then this format will be effective.

Content reduction: less words, more action

The audience of social networks is constantly growing, but users are becoming lazier. Now they don't want to read long posts, but prefer shorter publications. According to research Sberbank with the Validata agency, the average period of user concentration on one object is 8 seconds, and information is consumed in small “snack” portions. Therefore, it is important not to stretch the content, but to present it in a compressed format, with maximum useful information.

Integration of instant messengers and social networks

Nikita Yabloko, head of the SMM department of Webline Promotion, gave an interesting report at the 2017 conference. According to him, the integration of managers and social networks is great idea, because the time for users to become familiar with advertising is reduced to 30 minutes.

Use of graphic content

Users quickly perceive information - this became clear from the Sberbank study, which we discussed above. And the Social Media Examiner company conducted study , surveyed more than 5,700 marketers and found that 85% of marketers use visual content in their posts. This indirectly confirms the popularity of infographics, pictures and photographs among users. Therefore, it is worth thinking about using graphics in posts.

Live streaming is gaining popularity

At the Vk Digital Day event management of the VKontakte network reported that the audience of stories increased to 40 million per month after their addition. And 61% of marketers surveyed in the study above plan to use services Live video for promotion. Therefore, to stay in trend, you need to at least somehow interact with the format of live broadcasts on social networks.

Interest in educational content

Even though users in Lately They quickly grasp the main idea and move on; they are ready to read long posts if they contain valuable information. Therefore, you can safely use training (educational) content: master classes, life hacks, checklists, infographics, collections, longreads and other formats. The main thing is to give the reader benefit and interest him valuable information from the first sentences.

Engagement

Engagement is important when ranking your posts in social media news feeds. The more users like, repost and comment on posts, the more popular your posts will be. So you can cover large quantity target audience and promote your company/products/services even more effectively. To increase your engagement rate, follow trends: publish interesting but short posts, pay attention to videos and live videos, target users on mobile devices.

And what SMM trends Will 2018 guide you? Share your opinion in the comments.

2016 is slowly but surely approaching its end, and now is the time to talk about SMM (Social Media Marketing) trends that are worth paying attention to next year. Which social networks will be popular, which ones have ceased to exist, where and why people will communicate in 2017, and where it is worth promoting your projects.

Social Media Trends in 2017

The video doesn't give up

YouTube remains one of the most visited sites in the world (1 billion users, 400 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute, more than 5 billion videos are watched every day) and the second largest search engine after Google. So if you have been thinking about starting your own YouTube channel, now is a very good time for this.

In addition to Youtube, an interesting, although not new, platform is Vimeo. And Vine, unfortunately, announced its closure a few weeks ago.

"General mobilization"

People are increasingly using Cell phones- for accessing the Internet, communicating with friends, reading, shopping, and so on. 51% of the world's population uses mobile phones, 27% access social networks using them. In this regard, instant messengers (WhatsApp, Messenger from Facebook, Telegram, Kik) are gaining more and more popularity. The audience of messengers exceeded the audience of traditional social networks in September 2016.

Messengers have become very similar to social media: people not only send messages to each other short messages, like SMS before, but communicate in groups, share entertaining posts, videos, pictures, etc. Marketers learn to use messengers to promote goods and services, and promotion in them is called Mobile Media Marketing (MMM to replace SMM 😀).

Among messengers, I advise you to pay attention to Telegram, it is not just a messenger, but new channel interaction with friends and readers. And given the character and past of his ideological inspirer, he will still surprise us.

We plan to write about Telegram on our website, stay tuned.

Snapchat

At the intersection of these two trends (mobile and video), Snapchat confidently took its place. A very interesting, rapidly growing network, which is still popular mainly among teenagers and students, but is gradually opening up to the older generation. The trick with Snapchat is that the videos and photos you send to your friends disappear within 24 hours. There is no concept news feed”, as in other networks, there are no public “likes”. All this, as well as the humorous nature of the application, liberates users and draws them into communication and play.

Many large brands and organizations are already actively using Snapchat. There are currently 10 billion views by app users! videos every day. Please note, this is already more than on YouTube!

Live

I’ll put it in a separate paragraph live broadcast. This is also a very hot trend. That is, not just a video, but a video in live. Periscope marked this trend, but now Facebook with its “live” shows is gradually weakening its position.

There are others interesting services, but they are extremely short-lived - Blab and Meerkat, having experienced a phase of rapid growth, have already ceased to exist. Alternatively, check out Ustream.

A few words about Facebook

Despite its incredibly low organic reach, which has made working with business pages much more difficult, it still leads the global social media charts and is the 3rd most visited site in the world (after Google and Youtube). Among the social networks of the Runet, Facebook ranks 4th (after Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and Instagram), and depending on your target audience, many bloggers and company owners should be present there.

In addition to pages, there are groups on FB, and they are now experiencing a new blossoming, pay attention to this.

LinkedIn for professionals

LinkedIn's network of professional contacts also continues to grow. You shouldn’t discount it if you position yourself as an expert, provide services to companies, or work in the B2B sector. Moreover, it was recently acquired by Microsoft, and we can expect steps towards integrating LinkedIn with Office products.

Disclaimer: at the time of writing this article, LinkedIn is blocked in Russia at the request of Roskomnadzor (it turned out that the company is violating the law on storing users’ personal data on Russian servers). Negotiations are underway, and let’s hope that the management of the social network will be able to reach an agreement with representatives Russian authorities, and LinkedIn will be unblocked.

Instagram continues to grow

Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has only grown. 🙂 More than 500 million people currently use it. And in Russia Instagram overtook in number Facebook users and Twitter, ranking 3rd in popularity (after Vkontakte and Odnoklassniki).

There are many more interesting things, but these are the main, in my opinion, trends that now determine which social networks we will use next year.

We will talk about this in more detail as part of the training course, which will soon open again for registration on limited time. Follow our news so you don't miss out important information.

What do you think is the most promising? Where would you like to develop your presence in 2017?

Social networks dominate the minds of millions (or rather billions) of users around the world. Despite the fact that social networks appeared quite recently - just in the last decade - they continue to develop rapidly, being at the forefront of digital progress. Changes are happening faster and faster, and those who do not have time to keep track of everything SMM -trends, risks being left without access to the fantastic opportunities that social networks provide when used correctly and consciously.

IN In this article we will look at 9 of the brightest and current trends social networks today.

Streams and live broadcasts

Live videos continue to rapidly gain popularity, increasingly displacing TV from users’ lives. They have a number of psychological advantages over regular videos, the main ones being the anticipation of the broadcast and the feeling of receiving the latest information here and now. This is exactly what is missing regular video.

On at this stage streaming videos are beginning to transform from separate services into part of the functionality of social networks. In many ways, this process is facilitated by the purchase of the largest streaming services by such market giants as Twitter, which acquired Periscope and closed access to user profiles for Meerkat applications(already almost forgotten direct competitor of Periscope). Now the main players in the live video market are Periscope and Facebook Live. Moreover, the latter is developing very actively - in addition to regular video, broadcasting in 360° formats and support for VR devices like Oculus Rift are available.

Streaming video is a powerful influencer tool for any marketer, because broadcasts are eagerly awaited and loved to watch. It's just like the good old days with TV. Regular scheduled broadcasts are of great interest to the audience. As for the content of the broadcast, it could be another lesson or tutorial, a review of a new product (or new feature product), answers to questions, conversations with a person interesting to the public, and so on. There can be a lot of ideas and it all depends on the specifics of the business. The costs of producing streams are minimal, but the effect (with due diligence and creativity) is colossal. Most practicing marketers say they are already working or intend to work with live streaming video.

The choice of a specific streaming service depends entirely on the preferences of your audience - it is wise to choose the platform whose users have the most of your (potential) clients. The effect can be enhanced by broadcasting the stream through several services at once, maximizing the audience reach.

Disappearing Content

At first, the concept of disappearing content proposed by Snapchat caused a lot of skepticism - few believed that users, spoiled by an abundance of information, would be delighted with content that very quickly ceases to exist. However, the public liked this artificial, but necessary for the human psyche, limitation. Social networks, faced with an oversaturation of content, quickly adopted the concept of disappearing content.

Following Snapchat, disappearing stories appeared on Instagram, and more recently on VK. From a marketing perspective, disappearing stories, which can include short videos, text, pictures and drawings, become a way to convey something “real” and valuable to the audience, thereby increasing user loyalty. The most attractive things in the context of stories that disappear after 24 hours are small interesting or funny moments of the company’s working days, useful tips and ideas, announcements, tutorials, etc.

Problems with organic engagement

The unprecedented amount of content has caused another problem - organic engagement on social networks has dropped to a trickle. Social networks are moving from chronological placement of posts in the feed to complex algorithms that analyze hundreds of factors influencing the display of certain posts to users. Of course, if a person likes what you do and write, he will be involved in any case and will see your post. But this is rather an exception to the rule, since most of the news and updates on large platforms are increasingly made up of user-friendly content - videos with cats, photos of friends, and so on. Facebook is the most striking example of reducing marketing posts in favor of those same videos with cats.

As compensation, you can offer to strengthen personal work with the audience via e-mail, as well as the use of other platforms and channels. However, social networks are still too important a channel of interaction with the audience not to try to defend their positions. You can do this as follows:

Audience targeting on Facebook. Very useful and completely free feature, allowing you to display posts and advertisements " to the right people", as Facebook itself puts it. When setting up targeting, the post will not be seen by all your subscribers (many of whom are definitely not interested in it), but by those users who are more likely to be interested in your updates.

Payment for promotion of posts. Paid promotion at the same time, Facebook easily turns into organic - users who have your post appeared in their feed on on a paid basis and who decided to repost, thereby attracting other users who see reposts of your post as organic content.

Emphasis on video. We have already talked about this more than once - video content has enormous engagement rates.

Quality content. A banality that needs to be talked about constantly. Organic engagement is created by high-quality and truly interesting content. You can post relatively infrequently, but if each of them has informational value, then it is more likely to reach the target user.

Selling on social networks

Messengers and chatbots

Personalization

Personalization is more relevant than ever - users have learned to masterfully ignore advertising and value a personal approach. Retargeting, combined with automation of data collection, has become powerful tool increasing conversion. The further you go, the fewer resources are required to offer each individual user exactly what he needs and is interested in.

Opinion leaders as an alternative to celebrities

Good results can be achieved by forms of cooperation close to native advertising, when a blogger and a brand jointly organize some kind of interesting competition, write down cognitive interesting videos and so on.

VR technologies

Video consumption is not just growing, the quality of consumption itself is changing. Technologies virtual reality do user experience even more impressive and exciting. VR formats and corresponding devices are no longer just entertainment for geeks and are gradually becoming a mass standard for consuming visual content. The complete dominance of virtual reality over regular video is still a long way off, but today marketers are actively using VR content to reign supreme over the minds and hearts of users.

Any more or less decent business has virtually no options left in hiding “jambs” from users. Particularly dramatic and striking errors may well become a kind of meme and instantly spread among the target audience, and in the worst case, go beyond its limits. Being under such close attention, brands and companies are forced to take their own reputation extremely seriously, carrying out competent work on mistakes and actively interacting with customers. With every step in the development of social networks, the situation gets worse, forcing companies to behave impeccably.

conclusions

An overdose of content, the desire for an individual approach, vivid impressions and complete openness on the part of brands are trends that determine the mood and state of today’s social network users. It's not all bad and it seems that social networks are only changing better side, becoming more friendly and individual-oriented.

Anyone who doesn’t promote brands on social networks is acting stupid. Now social platforms have taken a strong position in the world of SMM promotion and have long been included in the list of effective business tools. We bring to your attention the best SMM trends that will be relevant in 2019. With their help, you can always be one step ahead of your competitors.

We think there is no need to tell what business opportunities social platforms open up. In the era active development informational and communication technologies this is clear without words. At the moment, social networks are a really working tool for entrepreneurship. On social platforms sell, look for new clients, monitor competitors, study their experience and even work to improve the company’s image. In order to successfully promote brands on social platforms, you need to use the right SMM tools. We bring to your attention promising SMM trends that will be relevant and popular in 2019.

SMM trends 2019of the year

1. Longreads are popular again

Long posts are back in trend. Remember one thing, if the post is really interesting, then they will read it to the end, even if it is long. This does not mean that all publications should be lengthy. No, it is enough to monitor the effectiveness of such publications and respond to them accordingly.

1. Micro Influencers

Large opinion leaders who have millions of users are losing their positions in the field of SMM promotion. Small opinion leaders with up to 150 thousand followers come to the fore. Why have priorities changed so much? Because such bloggers, politicians, and businessmen have a more vibrant and loyal audience. In addition, the price for their services is much lower.

1. Public mailings on VK

This is what we're talking aboutsocial media tool as special VK application that functions as mass mailing messages on behalf of the community. But at the same time, the messages do not arrive by mail, but in users’ personal messages.

What’s interesting is that, in theory, such messages should infuriate ordinary users, but in fact the open rate of such letters is 90 percent. This is a very cool result. By the way. Another significant figure: 20 percent of users even respond to such messages, and this is a direct dialogue with a potential client.

1. Chatbots

Another useful onebusiness tool– chatbots. This special programs, which replace interlocutors in instant messengers. Experts do not rule out that in the future, chatbots will completely replace human operators who respond to messages in instant messengers.

1. Interactive content

SMM trend 2019 year - active content that will be interesting and in demand by users. All kinds of sweepstakes, competitions, surveys, games and testing are becoming increasingly popular. Thebusiness toolhas viral effect and quickly spreads across the network.

1. Highlights Stories on Instagram

Instagram does not stand still; the service is constantly developing and offering its users new opportunities for promotion. Thus, Insta developers worked on and improved stories and introduced additional functionality, which they called Highlights Stories or “ Key points" From now on, users can group their Stories by topic. It's quite interestingsocial network tool,which saves a lot of time searching for the necessary information.

1. Shopping Tags on Instagram

Another promising one SMM trend 2019 – product tags on Instagram. For now new functionality is available only in Europe and the United States of America, but the developers promise that it will soon be available in the CIS.

Shopping Tags are special tags, when clicked on, users are redirected directly to product pages from their detailed description, price and contacts.

1. IGTV on Instagram

And again usefulbusiness tool from your beloved social platform. Just this summer they introduced some cool functionality there -IGTV. This platform allows you to upload long videos (up to one hour) to Instagram.

1. Short video content in the news feed

With all the advantages of the IGTV format, short videos that are interesting to users are also popular. For example, various life hacks and recipes. Experts predict thatthis SMM trend in 2019year will take up to 80 percent of all traffic.

1. Streaming

Online broadcasts on social platforms are becoming increasingly popular and in demand. Moreover, we're talking about specifically about “live” streaming online, without editing or editing. Thus, according to the company Social Media Today, 85 percent of users of the social platform FB prefer streams rather than regular television broadcasts.

1. Maintaining blogs and personal pages by businessmen

With this tools can be given to business human face. This great way make the company relatable and trustworthy. In addition, the psychological factor plays a role here, because everyone wants to “look behind the scenes of the theater”, to find out how the company lives, which is so “appetizingly” described on a blog or page.

1. Augmented Reality

Cool SMM trend of 2019 - “augmented reality”. Many companies around the world have already tried this toolkit. This is a luxurious opportunity to present your products to your customers in the best possible way.

1. Strategic planning coupled with an integrated approach

IN modern conditions frenzied competition without comprehensive strategic planning is nowhere. For successful planning you will have to look communication channels, which are suitable specifically for your business.

Afterword

Basically nothing new SMM trends in 2019 They don’t cook for us this year, but there is one important feature that we need to pay attention to. Main characteristic featuretools for social networksnext year – “humanization” and “revitalization” of content and work methodology. From now on forbusiness toolsqualitative indicators come to the fore, and quantitative indicators, that is, the number of subscribers and likes with reposts, fade into the background.