Top Social MediaTrends Of 2017 And How To Make The Most Of Them

Here the FanBridge team shares what they suspect will be some of 2017's up and coming social media trends with regard to visual content and social messaging, as well as paid advertising and social commerce.

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Guest post from Team FanBridgeWe recently discussed a few up and coming trends for email marketers in 2017. But since we’re firm believers that email & social media work hand in hand, we wonder what this year has in store for social marketers.

Visual content

With the continued evolution of live streaming content in 2016, there’s no doubt we’ll come across newer advancements in live video throughout 2017. With the debut of Facebook Live and Instagram’s Live stories last year, along with Twitter’s Periscope app, brands have wasted no time in taking advantage of new ways to market themselves through livestreaming. These tools have proven themselves to be a low-budget method of candidly connecting brands with their audience while yielding results.

Periscope in action

We’ve also seen a growing interest from brands in temporary content. Snapchat first blazed the trail for ephemeral social content upon release, followed by Instagram with the release of new Instagram Direct features in August and this year’s Facebook Stories release. Like live video, these tools allow brands to create raw content that give audiences a candid glimpse into their favorite brands. And with the temporary nature of the content, there’s a number of innovative ways to make the best of these resources.

Can Facebook Stories compete with Snapchat?

There’s a possibility that we’ll also see a rise in virtual/augmented reality marketing for brands. While widespread accessibility for marketing with this tech hasn’t quite arrived for smaller brands, large companies have still been making the best of what’s available in incredible ways. With Snapchat lenses and Facebook masks for live video, it’s a matter of time before more platforms begin to adopt this functionality for small businesses.

Social messaging

Recent advancements in automation have led to platforms introducing chatbots to provide support for customers. Tools like WhatsApp, Kik or Facebook Messenger’s chatbots allow you to engage your audience during times when you and your team are unavailable. And with the right tweaks, you can create a chatbot that seamlessly furthers your brand’s identity for you. While this kind of functionality has experienced some growing pains in the past year, we believe there’s a strong possibility for advancements in artificial intelligence tools for social marketers in the near future.

Facebook Chatbots can provide automated support 24/7

Paid advertising

In the past year, many major social platforms underwent algorithm changes to determine how content displays in users’ feeds. Given this algorithmic shift and an increase in brands using social platforms for marketing, social reach experienced a drastic decline as the noise of social marketing grew. Now, more brands are switching to paid social ads to amplify their content and work around newsfeed algorithms to get in front of their audiences. These tools are used to target content to the right audience for maximum efficiency. And when used with social analytics, you can determine the perfect audience for your ads and see if your campaigns are providing a valuable return on investment. But while paid social ads can be valuable for your brand, it can only help so much if your content isn’t up to par.

Social ecommerce

In 2016, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat rolled out features to allow brands to post and sell merchandise through social media, joining Pinterest on the roster of social platforms with e-commerce capabilities. These features allow customers to easily access product info while browsing your content and even make purchases directly from your posts. It can be an excellent opportunity for smaller brands to advertise their products at little-to-no cost.

Pinterest has transformed into an ecommerce powerhouse for marketers

Do these trends have a chance of becoming the new norm for social marketing? Or will we have moved on to bigger and better things by 2018? Try these out for your brand and find out what excites your fans most!