Over the past decade, Social Media Marketing has grown into a multi-billion dollar agency.

As you’d expect, such massive growth in an industry usually brings forth significant changes in marketing strategy.

The trends in social media marketing are practices you know and possibly have being a part of in one way or another.

But the question is; are you already implementing these trends in your Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Below I’ll reveal 4 of these trends, so you don’t miss out on improving your marketing strategy.

#1 Engagement

Engagement has always been the staple of social media marketing, but with changes in the algorithms of social platforms and also customer orientation, it has become even more important.

To stay relevant, your content needs to be interesting and relatable to your audience. People no longer want to see straightforward content asking them to like, share, or subscribe at the end.

Even the top brands in the world, like Coca-Cola, and Nike regularly dish out engaging and interesting content.

Brands now make an effort to play their content and most times, hire social media specialists to assess their marketing strategies.

#2 Influencer Marketing

Despite some bad rep on some influencers this past year, influencer marketing is still a big thing.  A study revealed that influencer marketing is still very much relevant and is becoming a key strategy in social media marketing.

And the reason isn’t so far fetched. Businesses make a great deal of profit when they use influencers for marketing their products. In fact, businesses on an average earn about $6.5 on a single dollar spent on influencers, while the top 13% earn a staggering ROI of up to $20 or more.

If that isn’t convincing enough, the influencer marketing industry is expected to hit 10 billion dollars in 2020.

At the moment, its popularity as gone past that of print advertising that seems to have been around forever.

Tapping into this channel of social media marketing may seem daunting if you consider the cost of hiring top influencers. But that’s not an issue anymore.  Now, you can hire micro influencers and nano influencers cheaper fees and with better audience engagement.

#3 Chatbots

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is obviously going to be a big thing in the next few years but alongside Chatbots.

With the improvements in AI, Chatbots can now handle many customer service responsibilities in real-time across many social media platforms, like WhatsApp and Facebook. Using humans will most likely be slower, and obviously, be more expensive.

Wells Fargo, for instance, uses AI and Facebook Messenger to interact with customers who want to carry out simple transactions. The chatbots help their customers with simple tasks; like report on account balance, expenses on an item they recently bought, the nearest ATM around, and many more.

Due to these advancements, companies are switching to chatbots to help increase their customer satisfaction levels.

Moreover, the field of AI continues to break grounds, so you can rest assured chatbots will soon be a norm in social media marketing.

#4 Close-Knit Groups On The Rise

You are most likely familiar with Facebook groups, which are simply a community of like-minded folks sharing ideas on their passion or professions, sometimes, within a specific location.

With recent updates to Facebook and other messaging apps, you can now add live videos, 24-hour story updates and other interactive features.

These groups weed out generalized posts or followers that aren’t interested in what you have to say. In other words, you’re sure to get engagement and feedback on your products and even better with the upgraded features.

A similar group effect is now gaining ground on Instagram with influencers making their accounts private. This way, they have a better chance of getting good conversion rates because they’ll get an active and interested audience.

These sort of grouped ads and categorized content can be expected to shape the future of social media marketing.

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