What Will Social Media Look Like in 2018?

Before the internet took over the economy, “marketing” used to mean spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a creative team, communications staff, and messaging. And that’s before the billboards, print ads, and TV spots necessary to get a brand in front consumer eye-balls. It was almost impossible to track your efforts and accurate ROI of marketing campaigns. Things have turned around dramatically in the last decade. Social Media has taken over the internet like a storm. In 2017 thousands of businesses entered the social media marketing stream and I bet the majority are happy with this decision. According to Gary Vaynerchuk, "Social media is the current state of the internet" and why not? This is where all the customer 'attention' lies.

At the end of every year, we make predictions about what will social media turn out to be in the next year. Some turn true and some surprise us. Based on the 7 years of my social media advertising business (Digital Maxima), I have the following predictions on how social media will evolve in the next 12 months. All business owners should read this because this might change their business growth forever.

Influential and Advocacy Marketing will be a growing trend in the next year. It has evolved a long way from 2016 since now. According to MediaKix influential marketing is heading to become a $5 to $10 billion market in the next 5 years. The reason behind is simple. It drives word of mouth on a much larger scale using the people whom common people listen to or follow. Finding the low-cost & large-following influencer in your industry will be a game changer for your business in 2018.

Online Shopping trend explains where the modern day consumer is going. Did you know that a record $6.59 billion was spent online on Cyber Monday last week, which made US history? The convenient shopping methods on Facebook and other social platforms are enabling more immersive shopping experiences for the consumers. The trust in buying an paying online is dominating more than ever. 41% of Baby Boomers and 28% of Seniors will click to purchase when they like something online. Get your products on the leading online retailers (Amazon, eBay, Jet, Walmart) today if you shockingly haven't done it yet.

Voice search has been available to us for quite a while now. The trend is dominated by Amazon's Alexa, Apple's Siri and Google's personal assistant. People will start using these voice technologies more in 2018 because they really make things simple for you. Being a small business owner, Amazon, other online marketplaces, and 'Google shopping' will give you a good chance to get noticed through voice search.

High costs of Social Ads might be seen by the digital marketers. The economy 101 explains, 'higher demand increases the prices'. Since social Ads have been working so well for businesses and individuals to market their services and products, the social ads might give us a higher CPC (cost-per-click) in the years to come. Although it won't be a big shift in the pricing, it has to go up eventually. The social ads, however, will remain underpriced as compared to Adwords and Bing Ads.

Videos will continue to rule the social media platforms. The use of videos will become more diverse as well. A lot of awareness and reasons will prevail to educate your customers, do a daily Facebook Live, or update stories to keep the customer thinking about your product/service once a day, at least.

Followers on your social pages with being considered as your new equity. Numbers of fans will justify how well a product is rating. The importance of online reviews will crazily put an impact on your end sales. Marketers will start working on converting their followers to customers and customers to loyal customers. Social media is on the verge of becoming a perceptional battlefield. Take action on building the right perception without wasting a second.

These were some of the aspects of social marketing that marketers and small business owners have to keep in mind before entering 2018. The more you make your content relevant to the consumer, the better conversions you are going to produce. Spend good quality time listening to your consumer. This homework pays off!