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5 TRENDS THAT WILL CHANGE HOW COMPANIES USE SOCIAL MEDIA IN 2016

SA LOOK AHEAD AT THE SOCIAL TRENDS

THAT ARE FAST RESHAPING HOW COMPANIES DO BUSINESS.

There are now more than 2 billion active social media users worldwide, and that sum is growing at a brisk clip of 25% each year. Businesses haven't failed to noticed the runaway expansion of social media. Nine out of 10 U.S. companies are now active on social networks. The same overwhelming percentage of those are reporting seeing increased exposure as a result, and more than half say their social media efforts are boosting sales.

So what’s in store for 2016? Here’s a look at five trends that appear set to change how businesses use social media in the year ahead.

1. SOCIAL NETWORKS STORM THE WORKPLACE

For years now, we’ve been promised that a new generation of internal social networks—for use within companies by employees—will put a swift death to email. No more hunting through your inbox for information. No more endless reply-all threads from hell. And yet email has lumbered on.

But maybe not for long. Slack has proven a game-changer. Its intuitive interface, built around themed chat rooms and searchable archives, has propelled it to more than 1.25 million active business users in just two years' time, from the team at NASA to the team at your local coffee shop. And Slack already has a sizable cohort of competitors going after a piece of the pie.

Meanwhile, Facebook at Work is currently in trial mode with select companies, and itmay soon be opened up to general use in the coming year as a freemium tool. Considering that much of the world is already on Facebook, expect adoption to soar once Facebook at Work finally becomes available.

2. COMPANIES TURN TO EMPLOYEES FOR AMPLIFICATION

Nearly 80% of businesses now have a dedicated social media team. But many still struggle to reach an audience. 2016 will see companies turn increasingly to an underused resource in the effort to get the word out: their own employees. Employee social advocacy programs, which encourage staff to share updates about the business on their own social media accounts, have grown by 191% since 2013 and are due to take off in the year ahead.

When done right, the payoff can be impressive; companies not only expand their social media reach dramatically, they also get measurably better results. Content shared by employees, by one recent measure, gets eight times more engagement than content shared by brand channels. A new generation of tools to facilitate employee sharing  should help this approach go mainstream in 2016.

3. COMPANIES WADE INTO SOCIAL MESSAGING

Here’s an eye-opener: There are nearly 4 billion global active users of messaging apps, from WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to WeChat and Kik. In fact, the top five apps in the world in terms of frequency of use are all messaging apps. Users are popping them open more often than even Facebook or Instagram.

What does this mean for companies?

So far, not much. Messaging remains largely in the murky realm that's come to be known as "dark social." Right now,

 it’s kind of a mystery as to what type of content is being shared among messaging app users and how that affects web traffic and "conversions." Intrepid brands from Hellman’s to Absolut to HBO—are testing the waters, but by and large messaging’s huge potential remains untapped.

Still, 2016 may well be the year that analytics and insights become more readily available, allowing companies to develop full-fledged strategies around social messaging. All the major social platforms now have messaging components, and it’s only a matter of time before they figure out how to make that data available to businesses for marketing purposes.

In the meantime, messaging is already emerging as a key channel for one-on-one social customer service. Twitter lifted its 140-character limit and follow requirements on direct messages earlier this year with customer support in mind, and Facebook Messenger has been busy piloting customer service features of its own

4. SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING HITS ITS STRIDE

Haven’t noticed the exponential increase in ads on your social media feeds? That probably means they’re working. In contrast to old-fashioned banner ads, the new generation of "native" social media ads like sponsored posts on Facebook and Instagram and promoted tweets on Twitter look and act a lot like normal updates from friends and followers. They’re also targeted with increasing precision. Advertisers are now able to drill down not just by age and gender, but by interests, location, company affiliation, role, and more. So the ads you get are probably the ones you actually want to see.

For all those reasons, companies ramped up social media advertising in 2015, with spending increasing 33.5% to nearly $24 billion—a figure that's all the more impressive, because just a few years ago that number was $0.

Expect to see those trends continue. By 2017, social media ads may account for a full 16% of all digital ad spend globally. Fueling the growth is a host of new tools that let small businesses design and pay for social media ads in a few clicks, simplifying a process that was once the exclusive domain of high-priced media buyers.

5. SOCIAL VIDEO EATS THE WORLD

In case you missed it, social video is exploding. Last year, Facebook more than doubled its daily video views to 8 billion, reportedly overtaking YouTube. Twitter launched native video of its own in 2015, while Snapchat now reports 6 billion daily video views in its own right. In total, adult users now consume a total of 66 minutes of online video each and every day.

Expect that total to climb to lofty new heights in 2016. Facebook is preparing to roll out features like Suggested Videos and maybe even a dedicated video feed, andSnapchat Stories are growing ever more popular and feature-rich. Little wonder that70% of companies now say video is the most effective tool in their online marketing belts, and two out of three businesses expect it to dominate their strategy going forward.

Despite these stats, many companies are still reluctant to get into the social video game for one reason: The cost of professionally shot video can be prohibitively expensive. But alternatives are multiplying. Shorter formats, from eight-second Vines to 15-second Instagram videos, not to mention streaming video like Periscope and Meerkat, offer a hassle-free entrance into the arena. Meanwhile, crowdsourcing campaigns and tools are gaining popularity as a way for companies to create and share video content.

The biggest trend of all for 2016, however, hardly requires a crystal ball to see. Around the world, social media is quickly becoming standard operating procedure at companies. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other networks have fundamentally changed how companies reach and interact with customers, offer products and services, communicate with employees, and—in a nutshell—do business. And that wave hasn’t even begun to crest.

Source : http://bit.ly/1RRrJOU

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

The 3 Leadership Lessons Entrepreneurs Should Learn from Musicians

As a general rule, entrepreneurs are always looking to improve themselves and their business ventures. With that being said, business-owners can be a little single-minded when it comes to evaluating their commercial model and output, as they think within narrow lines and the context of their existing market sector.

This can be detrimental, however, as inspiration can in fact be sourced from a number of alternative markets and industries. So long as you are able to think laterally and apply individual lessons to your specific market, it is possible to drive commercial growth and become an infinitely better leader.

3 key leadership lessons that can be learned from musicians

The competitive nature of the music industry and the individualistic mind-set of artists provide the ideal combination for determined leadership. Business owners and entrepreneurs can therefore learn a great deal from the music industry, regardless of which industry they work within. Consider the following: – 

1/ Support is integral to good leadership

By its very definition, leadership describes the effective organisation and motivation of others. This means that leaders are often isolated in their position, although this creates a dangerous scenario where it is difficult to succeed.

The best leaders recognise that it is crucial to rely on the support of others, while musicians are particularly in tune with this due to their relationship with fans.

In this respect, entrepreneurs must follow musicians by building a support network that is built on trust, care and a desire to add value. This can empower customers as part of your success, rather than a resource that drives turnover and high sales volumes. The result of this is also greater levels of engagement and the type of loyalty that brands covet.

2/ The importance of adaptability and informed improvisation

Musicians, particularly those with a penchant for performing live, are highly skilled in the art of informed improvisation. This relies on an innate understanding of their craft, which enables them to change and adapt their act without significant preparation or damaging the quality of their performance.

The same principle applies to successful artists in the music industry as a whole, as a recent case study by ticketbis.net revealed that music sales have dropped considerably since 1999 amid the proliferation of digital downloads and the rise of video streaming.

These examples underline the adaptability of musicians, whether they are using their knowledge and instinct to implement change or simply reacting to industry revolution. Such lessons are central to contemporary leadership, who must create models that are flexible and capable of being diversified as and when required.  Alongside the analysis of real-time trends, this can drive informed decision making and increasingly successful ventures.

3/ Leaders collaborate and promote the work of others 

Throughout generations of musical history, the best artists have always being willing to collaborate with their peers and promote the work of others. Established musicians have certainly worked tirelessly to mentor new artists within their genre, as the relationship between hip-hop legend Dr. Dre and his protégée Eminem proves.

There also remains a huge number of artists that collaborate on a regular basis, combining their unique skills and marketing appeal to establish more commercially successful music.

This is a crucial lesson for business owners to heed, as they look to develop the skill-set of their employees and mentor them to achieve their full potential. After all, good leaders are secure in his abilities and look to surround themselves with capable individuals that can challenge them on a regular basis.

By providing support to those around them, leaders can create strong and independently minded teams that are loyal and highly talented.

Source : http://bit.ly/1Lh9fov

A Billion-Dollar Opportunity

Online Video - A Billion-Dollar Opportunity   

According to a report on Variety, Apple is considering producing its own original video programming. While the idea of Apple producing TV shows and possibly movies may sound weird at first, there is a bunch of reasons why such a move would make sense for the world’s most valuable company. 

First of all, Apple is expected to unveil a new version of Apple TV next week and there are consistent rumors saying that the company could launch a Netflix-style subscription service along with it. What better way to promote such a service than to offer exclusive content? After all, Apple is sitting on so much cash that it could easily afford a billion-dollar investment in original content if it helps to sell more Apple TVs, iPads and iPhones. 

Secondly, the online video market is growing rapidly. As our chart, based on data from Statista’s Digital Market Outlook, nicely illustrates, the growth potential in online video is much bigger than it is in digital music. Annual revenues from video streaming and downloads are expected to grow by more than $6 billion between 2014 and 2020 – almost four times the expected growth of the digital music market. Considering that subscription-based streaming is the primary growth driver in the online video market, it would make sense for Apple to get into the game before Netflix, Amazon and Hulu can run away with the market.

This chart shows a forecast of digital video / music revenues in the United States.

Source :http://bit.ly/1hCroRw