Have you read enough “review of the year” articles yet? As important as it is to take a moment to reflect on what has come and gone over the past 12 months, it´s what´s going to happen in the next year that really gets people thinking.
As any successful businessperson will tell you, it´s important to keep looking forward and not rest on your laurels. So with that in mind, let´s take a look into our crystal balls and see how the industry is going to take shape in 2015.
The ever-helpful Business2Community website once again points us in the right direction – here are the trends they think will come to fruition in social media next year:
Content marketing
Never heard of it. Oh, wait a minute, it´s coming back to me now. I remember reading that content marketing is so popular that 91% of B2B marketers and 86% of B2C marketers have content marketing initiatives in 2014 alone (according to the Content Marketing Institute), so it must be pretty important. By this time next year, you can expect to see those numbers draw nearer to the 100% mark.
On-the-go consumption
No, not food – we all know that´s meant to be bad for you – but information. Smartphones and tablets are becoming ever more ubiquitous and with that comes a change in how and where we get connected. We´re already seeing close to 80% of users engage in social media through a mobile device, and that number is set to hit over 90% by 2018. Is your content mobile-ready?
Paying for it
For better social media results, that is. Facebook is making it harder for those brands adopting a “buy me, buy me” approach, which some argue is a ploy to get more marketers to shell out for promoted posts, but that´s by-the-by. Just make sure you know your way around Facebook´s Ad Manager in 2015, with demand for advertising on the platform set to rise. Make sure your budget reflects the likelihood of a cost increase for ads on Facebook, too.
Is that enough future-gazing for you? No, you say? Come back tomorrow for more, then!
In the meantime, fire your thoughts at me on how you see next year panning out for social media and content marketing.