The success of social media lies in the right mix of fruitful strategies. The wrong combination will simply decrease the traffic from targeted customers rather than attract them. In the event that you devise your social media strategies such as social media optimization on the basis of current trends, you can increase profits and use social media 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
Based on the research reports, the use 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 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 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 a time. The research 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 in the near future.
Now people concentrate more on the considerable amount of returns they receive from their purchases as time passes. Hence, you should use social networking 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 media sites for promotion) for their services or products to attract targeted customers. The campaigns will undoubtedly be successful only if the relevant site is popular amonst the customers.
The study report indicates that marketers who spend more than 40 hours a week for social media marketing perform their campaigns more intensely through Google+, You Tube, Pinterest and Instagram compared to those who spend six hours or less a week 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 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 last year. Social Media Management services , more than older ones prefer photo sharing sites including Instagram for launching campaigns. 62% chose blogging because so many suitable platform to master, which 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 majority of 29% each. Given below may be the pie chart showing usage statistics for every platform with regard to B2C and B2B marketers.
B2B marketers use a more diverse selection of platforms compared 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, make an effort to encourage blogs because they are regarded as the most famous social media marketing platform. YouTube being the next 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 become strong brands by using low cost YouTube videos.
As B2B marketers increasingly use LinkedIn, they will have a chance to utilize SlideShare (owned by LinkedIn). This social media marketing entity can be utilized for generating leads for B2B organizations.
Fewer Check-ins Online
As per the research 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 most of these services indicates that people are actually concerned more about privacy and safety. Marketers can tackle this situation by introducing contests and rewards. This will 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 better to entrust this tedious task to an established social media marketing company that offers reliable social media marketing services rather than try implementing the strategies on your own.