5 Big Changes Coming to Social Media in 2016

It’s been a memorable year in social media. 2015 saw the birth of live social streaming, with apps like Periscope and Meerkat winning over early adopters. Snapchat fully shed its reputation as a niche network and now counts more than 200 million active users. Meanwhile, video dominated social headlines, with Facebook users now logging an estimated 8 billion video views a day(even more than on YouTube, by some counts).

What does 2016 hold for social media users? Expect to see new technologies fundamentally change how we interact with social media, opening up new options like shopping and enabling us to share ever-more vivid, real-time experiences. But new functionality and the widening universe of social options also threaten to leave some users in the dust. Here’s a peek into the crystal ball at five trends that will change how we use social media in 2016:

Virtual reality comes to social media: “Imagine sharing not just moments with your friends online, but entire experiences and adventures.” That’s what Mark Zuckerberg wrote after Facebook acquired Oculus, the virtual reality company, for $2 billion back in March 2014. Well, we won’t have to imagine much longer. Facebook has already begun incorporating Oculus technology into its 360 Video. The unique videos, which have rolled out on News Feeds, allow users to experience scenes from different angles (looking right, left, up, down, etc.), on both web and mobile devices, creating a more immersive experience.

Right now, there’s 360 Video available from the likes of Vice and The Disney Channel and a really cool clip from Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Expect to see more immersive videos in 2016 as publishers and even brands catch up with the technology and begin creating more content. As for true, fully immersive VR, the consumer version of the Oculus Rift headset is slated for release in early 2016, opening up even more interesting possibilities for our News Feeds. Meanwhile, Oculus VR has already released a new “social” appcalled Oculus Social Alpha, for use with the Samsung Gear VR headset. The virtual movie-watching app allows you to “sit” in a theater and watch a video in real-time with other users — perhaps the first truly social application of Facebook’s new technology.

Social shopping takes off: Over the last year, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest all unveiled or upgraded in-line buy buttons, which allow users to purchase clothes, crafts, gadgets and more without ever leaving their feeds. In many respects, this development is long overdue. We’re already discovering and talking about products on social media, and four out of five people say that posts from friends directly influence buying decisions. Plus, overseas in China, Korea and elsewhere, social channels have long incorporated ecommerce functionality.

So far, the primary stumbling block in North America has been ease of use. To buy on social media, we’ve had to click out to other sites (always problematic on smartphones) or we’ve been offered limited selection (a lathe now defunct Facebook Gifts). But innovations like Pinterest’s Buyable Pins now let users browse color and style options and pay, all without leaving the platform. In 2016, expect to see networks’ role shift from being channels whose primary function in ecommerce is providing referral traffic to being platforms where users make purchases directly.

Facebook Live takes live streaming mainstream: 2015 started off with lots of excitement about the new crop of live streaming apps, which allow users to broadcast live video to their followings. By late summer, Twitter-owned Periscope already boasted 10 million active users, and just this month it was named by Apple the best iOS app of 2015.

Expect to see live streaming reach a whole new, mainstream audience in the year ahead as Facebook rolls out its own mobile streaming functionality, generally referred to as Facebook Live. Already being beta-tested among a small number of U.S. iOS users, the feature allows for instantly sharing live video using the Facebook platform. What’s key here is that you don’t have to download a special app or leave Facebook to use the new video functionality. If Facebook Live rolls out as expected, it’s likely to not only dominate other live streaming options but also to fundamentally change the way Facebook’s 1.5 billion users engage with the platform.

The social media skills gap at work widens: With the explosion of workplace social networks like Slack (which recently saw more than 1 million users logged in at the same time) and the imminent launch of Facebook at Work, using social media in the office has gone from taboo to requirement. Businesses are incorporating social tools to streamline internal communications, to help sales staff reach customers, and, of course, for marketing and advertising. The problem is that front-line employees aren’t up to the challenge. Among 2,100 companies surveyed by Harvard Business Review, just 12 percent of those using social media feel they use it effectively. Even millennials brought up on social media are falling short: “Because somebody grows up being a social media native, it doesn’t make them an expert in using social media at work,”explains William Ward, professor of social media at Syracuse University.

The consequence of this social media skills gap can be seen in mounting corporate social media gaffes, from misused hashtags (see #WhyIStayed) to scheduled posts gone awry, not to mention trillions of dollars (yes, trillions) in lost productivity and business value. In 2016, expect to see social media training finally begin to make its way into the workplace in an effort to close this gap — similar to initiatives launched when office software suites and later email and the Internet itself emerged as critical business tools. A number of online offerings now provide self-paced lessons and video modules designed for the workplace. (Hootsuite is giving our course away free.)

Social media customer service gets a lot better: Customer service on social media has always seemed like a great idea. Why wait on the phone when you can Tweet and get an answer immediately? But the reality has been quite different. A new study of 500 top retailers shows that only 20 percent answer questions sent via Twitter and 54 percent respond via Facebook. And the average response time ranges from 27–31 hours! Not to mention that not all customer service problems lend themselves to being handled out in the open in a public forum.

Fortunately, change is on the horizon. In the latter part of 2015, both Twitter and Facebook significantly upped their customer service functionality. Twitter ditched the “mutual follow” requirement for its DM (Direct Messages) feature, meaning companies and customers can now contact each other directly and privately. At the same time, it lifted the standard 140-character limit for Direct Messages, so DM now makes a great one-on-one channel for tackling customer issues. Facebook, not to be outdone, has launched a beta version of Messenger Business, offering a new chat-based avenue for companies to have real-time, personal conversations with customers. Considering that Messenger has more than 800 million users, it’s not hard to see it evolving into a ubiquitous, mobile-friendly channel for customer service in the years ahead.

Perhaps the biggest change in social media is the accelerated evolution of networks into “everything platforms.” Twitter isn’t just for blasting out 140-character updates anymore: It’s for one-on-one messaging, video-sharing, customer service and more. Facebook isn’t just about connecting with friends: It’s now (or soon to be) a workplace productivity tool, a video sharing and streaming platform, a place to shop, etc. Similar transformations can be seen across LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Snapchat, among other networks. Social media has become less a discrete thing that people do than a natural component of everything they do. And that trend shows no signs of slowing.

Source : http://bit.ly/1PkKSKb

Quote of the day.

The Latest Rules of Social Media Marketing

Social media is no doubt an ideal way for you to acquire new fans/followers and engage with them. It’s also an ideal tool to boost the reputation of your company/brand. In a way, social media has become an integral asset in marketing your business.

But how are you going to maximize its tools for your company?

Listed below are some new do’s that you should follow when it comes to your social media marketing so you’d be able to achieve your goals in no time.

Social Plan

Do you have one?

Most of us don’t.

Social plan is essential to make your social media marketing more powerful.

It’s a plan that compiles all fresh contents on your social media. You can create a daily, weekly or a monthly theme.

With a plan, you’ll have consistency. This will also allow you to send out your social updates at the right time.

When your audience knows when you’re going to post your content, they’ll go back to your site and wait for your next awesome piece of content.

Then again, what you post should provide them value. Else, they’re going to leave or unfollow you.

Even though you have a social plan, you should still monitor your channels.

Don’t just post and leave. You want your social media accounts to be as professional as possible as they reflect what your brand is.

That said, you’d want to monitor your channels and take out those spammy comments or inappropriate remarks.

Monitoring your channels will also help you find some comments and questions posted by your prospective clients.

When you’re there monitoring, you can make an instant reply and begin a real-time conversation with them.

Content Should Reflect Your Brand

It simply means that your content must provide value to your audience by sharing content that’s information and educational.

This gives them a sample of what they can expect when they visit your site. It also gives them a preview of what type of information is housed on your own site.

You already have followers. So, give them a reason to click through your link and visit your site.

But never assume what your audience wants. Just because you share your content on your social media accounts doesn’t mean that you’ll increase your CTR.

For that reason, you should know the profiles of those who interact with your content. In this way, you can share content that attracts attention to your potential customers.

Test the Times and Types of Content

A good social media marketer will always test the best time to post content in a social media channel. In this way, you’ll know what content works and what needs to be improved.

As you survey the activities on your social channel, you can generate useful pieces of information that may increase engagements and schedule your post during optimal times.

The best time to post is different from one company to another. That said, it’s necessary that you know your audience.

You can do so by using Google Analytics and check out your demographics, location and so on and so forth. Use these pieces of information to get to know more about your followers.

Source : http://bit.ly/1P7peIf

10 ways to combine SEO and content marketing

Gone are the days when search engine optimization was enough to land your website onto Google's good graces.Now you must to add content marketing to your arsenal of digital marketing tool if you want to gain search engines’ approval and ultimately win the heart of online users.

Given the important role content marketing now plays in the success of online business, it's time that SEO ties the knot with content marketing.

The two digital marketing tools that were once viewed as separate entities are now an inseparable couple, promising to inch businesses closer to the proverbial “overnight success. ”The amazing duo can greatly help your online business reach the pinnacle of success and outwit your competitors.

Here are 10 ways you can ensure that the two digital marketing tools work in harmony:

1. Set common goals.

Setting common goals is the first step to make SEO and content marketing work together to bring additional revenues.

Ask yourself what activities overlap between the two digital marketing techniques. Is it increased online traffic, rankings or links? How can you align the activities to achieve common goals?

The answers to these and other similar questions will give you a starting point in creating an integrated SEO and content marketing strategy with clear and focused goals and strong communication.

2. Establish key performance indicators.

Another way to optimize synergy between SEO and Content Marketing is to establish key KPIs that will track performance, and ensure that it is on track for achieving common goals.

These KPIs include content sharing, links to content, online user engagement, call-to-action conversion rates and several others.

3. Understand your target audience.

Understanding your audience is the key part of an SEO and content marketing strategy. Create personas of the target audience and develop a unique digital marketing strategy for each group. The personas can be based on age, location, gender, hobbies or interests.

Don’t undertake any digital marketing activity without considering what your audience wants, and also what you want them to do in return of fulfilling their demand.

4. Create SEO-optimized content.

Google places great emphasis on quality content. You can make the content more relevant for the search engine by incorporating high-impression keywords. Optimizing the content in this way will allow your Web pages to become visible to online users by appearing on the search results.

Avoid overstuffing keywords into website content. In order to play it safe, limit the keyword density to 1 percent or less. This will ensure that your site doesn't get penalized by the search engine, decreasing online traffic.

5. Research high-impression and relevant keywords.

Include high impression and relevant keywords in the website. Each keyword that you select should be researched properly using online tools such as Google Planner, Google Trend, Word Stream and other similar tools.

Optimizing your content in this way will ensure that your online content is able to attract maximum number of online users.

6. Attract online consumers through link building.

Another way you can make SEO and content marketing work together is through link building. Link building is a pure SEO strategy that results in distribution of online content to a large number of targeted, qualified audiences. You can greatly increase your content’s effectiveness through these efforts.

The links pointing to the published online content is placed on various high authority and high page ranked sites. These sites attract thousands of online visitors that can be diverted to your site by placing targeted links on the site they first visited.

Enlist SEO professionals to enhance your link building strategy. Here are some reputed SEO companies, based on user reviews:

TIS India

SE Media Online

Anpee Media

7. Focus on internal link building.

Internal link building works wonders in increasing your website’s ranking along with your published content. Moreover, creating internal links will also result in improved user experience due to easy navigation around the site.

Internal link building is simple to implement, and should be part of your digital marketing arsenal. This will help to improve your ranking and guide users with the content that is relevant to them.

8. Optimize your website content’s title and headings.

Your website content’s title and headings should also be optimized using relevant keywords and phrases.

The title is displayed on top bar of the browser, and headings are included inside the content. Your title should be descriptive, persuading users to click. Headings should be catchy enough to make the content readable.

Both must also be SEO-optimized to make your content more visible in the search results page.

9. Measure your results.

Make use of various online tools to measure the outcome of your combined SEO and content marketing efforts. Google Analytics can track changes in search volume over time. You will also know which pages and content attracts the most visitors, and the keywords they type to enter the website. The information gathered can help you fine-tune your content.

10.Keep your efforts going.

Combining SEO and content marketing must be an on going effort that should not stop at any time.

Make the most of the opportunity and watch the extraordinary combination of SEO and content marketing work wonders for your organization or client. It will position you perfectly on the fast track to success.

Source : http://bit.ly/1N6CI3x

How to Explain Influencer Marketing to an 8-year-old (or your boss)

You ’ve read all the recent Influencer Marketing case studies and are a little jealous of the return other brands are achieving. You would prefer to be the ‘cool kid’ rather than the ‘new kid’ on the block and have a great idea for an Influencer Marketing campaign. There is one thing stopping you from achieving rock star status with your branded content – approval from your boss.

You recognize Influencer Marketing is a necessary addition to your marketing budget, but how do you get buy-in from the top? It is simpler than you think. Just explain the concept of Influencer Marketing to your boss, as you would to an 8-year-old child.

Tell a story 

As humans, we are wired to be captivated by stories and easily recall information if it is relayed to us with rich meaning and visual cues. Stories engage the emotional side of our brains and drive us to take action. If you open your pitch with a story, you will be able to grab attention, make facts stick and data more retainable and understandable.

You know your boss best and what story would be relevant to them. Perhaps share a personal story of why you booked the company lunch at a restaurant that a friend recommended on Facebook. You could relate your story back to relevant stats such as: the average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times a week in conversation with friends or family or that 68% of people feel that Facebook is the most trusted platform for product and service recommendations.

Tip: Don’t make your story long, but make it memorable.

Be the favorite teacher
Gives examples of superheroes Show how you can achieve a gold starBe ready to answer “Are we there yet?” 

We all had a favorite teacher at school that was an expert at explaining complex topics. Influencer Marketing is new and can appear to be overwhelming if explained poorly or if not understood correctly.

 It is important to provide background information, definitions, statistics etc. but don’t overcomplicate things to appear smart or knowledgeable on the topic.

Instead, keep things simple and avoid using too many technical terms that although might be relevant, make your boss feel that you need to be a rocket scientist to run a successful Influencer Marketing campaign. Don’t make them feel you are under qualified to do the job. Instead, make them feel confident that you have done enough research to take advantage of this new opportunity and are convinced of the value Influencer Marketing can add to your business and marketing plans.

Tip: When explaining complex topics, show how something works rather than resorting to just talking about a topic.

My own childhood superheroes were the Ninja Turtles and I was absolutely convinced that nothing could ever beat their ninja moves. In the world of marketing, there are many brand superheroes that kick butt at Influencer Marketing. The internet is full of case studies and examples that you can use to showcase potential success and return on investment. Search for case studies related to your industry, business objectives or even concepts you find innovative. These case studies will provide credibility to your pitch and also give you a foundation for best practice.

Tip: Show what your competitors are doing with their own Influencer Marketing plans and explain how you will differentiate your business. If they are not using Influencer Marketing yet, this is an added opportunity to highlight.

Now that you have given the background into what Influencer Marketing is and have shown the results that other brands are achieving, you need to explain whyyou think it is relevant for your business and how you plan on achieving your own Influencer Marketing gold star status. This is the point you need to reveal how it will add value to your business.

The most effective way to do this is to show that you have already put thought into your own Influencer Marketing plan.  In short, a solid Influencer Marketing plan will specify the target market, propose a campaign that meets the business objectives, identify relevant influencers, explain how workflow and logistics will be managed, as well as how you will track the results.

Tip: Having a plan instills more confidence that the additional investment has potential to add value. Ensure that you showcase what you foresee as being the potential return on investment for the new budget allocation. Use your Influencer Marketing plan to propose not only how you will achieve your first gold star, but also how it is sustainable to be awarded ongoing gold stars.

Once you have buy-in and approval to go ahead, first give yourself a pat on the back and then be prepared to answer many eager progress questions. Trying something new and innovative is not just exciting for you, but all the stakeholders involved. You will be anxious to prove your campaign victorious and your boss will want regular updates on the status and results.

Tip: There are Influencer Marketing platforms and tools which make tracking your campaign results easy. This is important to not only showcase success, but also to justify ongoing Influencer Marketing budget. The investment in these tools helps you answer the question, “Are we there yet”, with confidence and provide all of the relevant data of the journey.

The tips I have shared are intended to help you put your best foot forward when explaining Influencer Marketing to your boss. Just remember that you know the audience you need to pitch to best – so tweak and personalize your content to what is most relevant to them.

Source : http://bit.ly/1FPWUqx

The Future of Content Marketing is Online Video

Cisco’s latest whitepaper on global internet provider traffic forecasts is the usual food for thought for content marketers. The company’s ongoing analysis makes some truly staggering predictions on global IP traffic going into the next four years.

Perhaps the most eventful is that by the end of 2016 Cisco predict that global IP traffic (that excludes data within closed or private networks such as peer-to-peer) will have surpassed the 1 zettabyte per year milestone (that’s 1000 exabytes, or 1 billion terabytes).

Fuelling a lot of this is the massive growth of online video. Cisco predicts that consumer internet video traffic will go from 64 percent in 2014 to surpass 80 percent by 2019, with consumer video on demand traffic doubling by 2019; with high definition content amongst that figure rising from 59 percent in 2014 to 70 percent in 2019.

And if you want to know where we’ll be consuming a lot of this content, then take heed of Cisco’s projection that between 2014 and 2019, mobile data traffic is expected to grow at three times the rate of fixed IP traffic (that’s a tenfold increase overall). 

Consumer Internet Video 2014–2019
	2014	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	CAGR 2014–2019
By Network (PB per Month)
Fixed	20,485	25,452	32,981	43,226	56,771	74,319	29%
Mobile	1,139	2,014	3,475	5,842	9,407	14,999	67%
By Category (PB per Month)
Video	18,437	22,940	30,242	40,907	55,931	76,771	33%
Internet video to TV	3,188	4,526	6,214	8,160	10,248	12,548	32%
By Geography (PB per Month)
Asia Pacific	7,579	9,366	12,150	16,039	21,184	28,469	30%
North America	6,535	8,207	10,712	14,009	18,443	23,794	29%
Western Europe	3,550	4,422	5,807	7,696	10,239	13,766	31%
Central and Eastern Europe	1,359	1,956	2,894	4,398	6,506	9,577	48%
Latin America	2,022	2,600	3,399	4,483	5,905	7,808	31%
Middle East and Africa	579	915	1,495	2,443	3,902	5,905	59%
Total (PB per Month)
Consumer Internet video	21,624	27,466	36,456	49,068	66,179	89,319	33%

Source: Cisco VNI, 2015

There can be absolutely no doubt that online video is fundamental to the way people now consume content and to ignore or shy away from this reality is marketing suicide to any company that hopes to grow its brand online in the coming years.

Digital Video is Eating into TV Ad Budgets

Another recent study, this time by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, found that of the 300 brand marketers surveyed, two thirds are moving budgets away from television and into online video.

The 43 percent year over year increase in budget spend on online video is fueling a surge in online video content by big brands, who are looking to dominate established platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, as well as other less traditional formats like Instagram and Vine, Flickr (yes, they do video, too), Vimeo and, more recently, Facebook video.

On top of these familiar names there exists a whole raft of lesser known video platforms, each with its own circle of influential amateur movie producers and socially engaged audiences. It’s likely that most of these platforms aren’t even on the average marketer’s radar but cumulatively they do stack up.

The Level Playing Field

It’s not just the big players who are looking to capitalise on the growth in online video. For a long time, video marketing was seen as the preserve of big brands and big budgets but this is not the case anymore and nor has it been for some time.

Sure, a huge ad spend, a professional director and a twenty strong digital marketing team to promote your latest masterpiece is always going to help, but the playing field is more level than it has ever been before, giving SMEs an unprecedented opportunity to compete with the big players for viewer attention.

This levelling effect can be attributed largely to the exponential growth in video technology, from the popularity of cheap camcorders all the way through to the HD video recording capabilities on the majority of smartphones today. Perhaps of equal importance though is the affordability and availability of modern sophisticated editing software, allowing those with a degree of technical know-how to produce really professional looking edits.

Rise of the Storytellers

So how to produce the perfect video? Well, the idea that brands need to think more like publishers and less like marketers, has become all but orthodoxy with content marketers and this has been driven to a large extent by the rise of online video.

One of the consequences of the relatively sudden growth of online video has been the slow death of what Seth Godin once referred to as ‘interruption marketing’. This in turn has led to a drastic shift in marketing strategies towards the idea of storytelling. If you can’t put your ads in front of a captive audience, then you have to create content that your intended audience will seek out themselves, and to do this involves capitalising on video’s propensity as a story-telling medium.

Although clearly a crude analogy, the oft-cited Forrester’s research that a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words does continue to resonate with content marketers who understand the power of the moving image to capture imaginations.

Unlike the written word or photos or graphics, video has the unparalleled power to combine sound, vision and dialogue to bring stories alive and create genuine emotional connections between the viewer and the brand; something that is now seen as essential in building brand identity and, ultimately, brand loyalty.

To remain a player in the digital space, companies of all sizes need to understand the power of storytelling and to what extent the digital space is becoming a video marketer’s playground. Whether it’s a big budget advertising campaign with bells and whistles, or an honest and compelling short about the history of your company, SME’s and big brands alike need to start thinking less like marketers and more like storytellers. And video is shaping up as the medium of choice to tell the tale.

Source : http://bit.ly/1LQwKDg