2017 Social Media Trends to Incorporate into Your Marketing Strategy

It’s officially 2017 and the social media content marketing game has shifted. While it’s always important for you to embrace your brand’s uniqueness, there are a few essential social media trends to embrace that will help you stay relevant for today’s audiences.

Live Streaming Content

Past trends should have shown that immersive experiences are very appealing for audiences. If 2016 was the year of video, 2017 is the year of live video and 360 images because they let the audience feel like they’re part of whatever it is that you’re experiencing.

Virtual reality is something else to look into because as 2017 progresses, it’s likely VR will become a bigger part of experiential content marketing under the video umbrella.

Embracing Influencer Marketing

While some might suggest ad marketing is still important, trends show that ad marketing is on a downward spiral and that influencer marketing is on the rise. Influencers are regular Joes who happen to have a lot of followers and influence online. You’ll have to do a little research to find an influencer that attracts the audience that you want to attract, but once you do:

·         Share one of their posts

·         Comment on their content

·         Make contact via LinkedIn and explain why you want to connect with them

·         Have a conversation

Once you find an influencer that fits your brand, you’ll have the advantage of a “regular person” promoting your brand; influencer marketing has shown to be more impacting than ads and celebrity endorsements. Keep in mind that influencer marketing isn’t free, so you’ll want to incorporate this as a part of your brand’s 2017 budget.

Get Creative Visually

There are tons of lovely stock images available, but in 2017, resolve to can relying on canned stock images. Use unique photos and images in your content to help it stand out. If you don’t have the camera or the skills to take photos necessary for your content, then you’ll want to hire someone to do this for you.

Tell Stories that Inspire the Imagination

Storytelling is still important in 2017; in 2016, the main message was to tell stories that kindled people’s emotions (and honestly, a good story should still do that), but in 2017, the overall value of your story should outweigh its sentimentality (the Antebellum Period ended a long time ago, after all). Instead, focus on inspiration and imagination.  Emotional content still has massive potential to go viral, but imaginative and inspirational content can and will, too, and it’s showing to have more staying power.

Use Bots for Better Customer Outreach

It might seem contradictory to use bots to make contact, but you can improve customer outreach by use of Facebook Messenger Chat Bots; obviously, if you don’t have a large following on Facebook, you don’t need to use this feature, but it’s an easy way to make connections.

Pick the Right Social Media Channels

As always, it’s advised that you chose your social media platforms carefully, but what’s more, you should also look at the way that social platforms are evolving and make a decision about whether or not your brand meshes with that channel. For example, it’s widely predicated that Twitter will lose major momentum in 2017 as it has essentially transformed into a news channel. Meanwhile, Instagram is on the rise with slower-paced and more meaningful content.

So, while you still want to be uniquely you in 2017, you also don’t want to spin your wheels. Staying on top of social media trends is critical to staying relevant to your audience’s interests.

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Find the right social media channels for your brand with help from The Storyteller Agency. Contact us for all of your content marketing needs.