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10 Tried-and-True Tactics That Can Help Boost Your Online Sales

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By Rolling Stone Culture Council

As the amount of e-commerce channels and online competitors increase, businesses must choose the right tactics to stand out.

The e-commerce landscape has evolved rapidly in recent years as more and more “shoppable” digital platforms emerge. Instead of only being able to make online purchases on a company’s website or Amazon page, consumers can also buy products directly through popular social media apps like Instagram or Facebook.

Though there are more avenues than ever to get discovered by potential buyers, there may also be a smaller chance of getting noticed among a growing sea of competitors. To help businesses stand out, 10 Rolling Stone Culture Council members share their top tactics for getting the most online sales possible.

Creating Trustworthy Content

Brands that consistently create credible content win. Podcasts, livestreams and webinars offer an opportunity for consumers to get to know, like and trust you, your products and your services. A strong call to action within this content drives them to your social media or website and invites them to engage with you in a deeper conversation. This begins the pathway to building a customer relationship. – Traci DeForge, Produce Your Podcast

Keeping Things Simple

Regardless whether you’re selling online or in a brick-and-mortar storefront, it’s so crucial to keep things simple for your customers. If you are an online brand, your goal should always be to simplify the process of acquisition for the customer. The fewer steps they have to take to either make the purchase or get the information they need, the more likely it is that you will convert that sale! – Kelly Schwarze, Indie Film Factory

Conducting Research

More customer-centric marketing results in more sales if you invest in low-cost qualitative research. You don’t need a lot of money to distribute polls or an open form to learn what people want and how they feel about a product. Because data-based research is expensive, turn qualitative research into actions by gaining deeper insight into emotions and how your brand speaks to those emotions. – Jacob Mathison, Mathison Projects Inc.

Leveraging Popular Trends

I see a lot of people calling for authenticity from brands, but nobody ever explains what being “authentic” on social media actually means these days. It’s not about sticking to what you know. Sometimes, it’s necessary to jump on trends and have an understanding of what’s working in everyday pop culture and how your brand can leverage that momentum. – Kathy Schenfelt, MISSMANAGED

Getting to Know Your Customers

Get to know your clients or prospective clients. What do they care about? Do they follow a specific sports team? How can you relate to what they care about and start a conversation? Businesses are often turning to tech to scale sales and are forgetting the human, the relationships and customer service. – Ginni Saraswati, Ginni Media

Combining SEO, Marketing and Specialization

Niche specialization paired with a knockout search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing strategy will help bring in sales. It is imperative to stand out by enabling your target audience to find your brand when conducting an informational, navigational or transactional search online. Say you’re a Detroit-based dispensary. Your shop should rank for potential customer searches like “best dispensary in Michigan.” – Evan Nison, NisonCo

Establishing Credibility

Establishing credibility online is the best way to get more sales. You need to make sure your branding looks solid and trustworthy so that when it’s time to close a sale, your potential customer has something solid to look at. – Christian Anderson (Trust’N), Lost Boy Entertainment LLC

Using Email Marketing

In today’s online world, one of the most effective tactics businesses use to generate sales is email marketing. This is because it’s a channel that people use every day and it has high conversion rates. With this type of marketing, you can send out a newsletter about your products and services. Furthermore, this tactic can provide your business with a list of engaged customers. – Kristin Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC

Acting With Integrity

There are so many hacks online, like those who drop-ship fake products or sell snake oil services. Being authentic and serving with integrity will set any business above the rest. Social proof, great reviews and acting the same in person as you are online as much as possible are key. – Victoria Kennedy, Marisa Johnson

Ensuring Brand Consistency Across Channels

First, focus on creating a strong brand for your customer segment. Your brand should be something that customers can trust and feel good about supporting. Make sure your branding is consistent across all your marketing materials, from your website to your business cards. Employ digital tools to design better brand creatives that deliver a clear message. – Candice Georgiadis, Digital Day

Feature Image Credit: Urupong — stock.adobe.com

By Rolling Stone Culture Council

Sourced from Rolling Stone

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How To Grow Your Business Online

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Many businesses may exist on the Internet but they truly are not living up to promise

For many industries, online sales make for the vast amount of their takings. Most businesses are online, but the big question is: are they fulfilling their fullest potential? The answer is frankly, no!

Many businesses may exist on the Internet but they truly are not living up to promise, according to Julius Tirrá of Celebian. Understanding the online sphere and how to make the most of it involves knowhow and expertise, however it doesn’t mean you can’t do so with a little forward planning and outsourcing of expertise, according to Tirrá.

Below are seven great ways you can grow your business.

Design a Good Website

A website is a must-have if looking to grow a business empire online. It is your business’ frontline for creating the first impression to your target customers and audiences and the platform to sell whatever products or services you have to offer. That said, it would be advisable to create a website unique to your business, not a copy of the generic ones found all over. One of the advantages of creating a unique website is that customers will be able to distinguish you from the rest, enabling you to build and grow your brand.

There is more to creating a good website than just the aesthetics; it needs to be practical, fast, and more importantly, responsive says Tirrá. This should be, however, relatively easy, especially if looking to create or partner with an e-commerce website. Many e-commerce websites, including Facebook, Flipkart, Amazon, etc., have some of the best platforms you can use. You also won’t have to invest heavily in the website if partnering with these websites.

Ensure the Website Is Mobile-friendly

The website needs to be both desktop and mobile-friendly too. Many people today (including your target customers/audiences) use their smartphones or iPads/tablets to shop online; they need to be able to access and navigate your website on limited screen sizes. As long as audiences and customers can access and navigate your website with ease, you can be assured of stronger impressions and return visits.

Creating a mobile-friendly website has its benefits in that it will boost the userbase, enable you to collect usage data, and even analyse collected data to see which areas can be improved for better performance. With almost everyone today using their smartphones to access the Internet and possibly shop online, creating a mobile-ready website is the way to go. It would help if you also considered creating a profile on some of the social media platforms, such as Facebook, for improved visibility as well.

Embrace Social Media Marketing

Social media provides an excellent platform for marketing and promoting your business. With billions of users logging onto these platforms each day, you can be sure to attract tons of traffic from it. Social media marketing is a highly converting strategy that can help grow your business or brand within a short time, especially if done correctly.

Facebook, for example, has a marketplace section that allows businesses (small and big) to advertise their services and products. You can opt to use the free or paid option, depending on how much you wish to spend on Facebook marketing campaigns. Some of the benefits of paying for Facebook advertising is that your content will be displayed to the target audience, increasing clickthrough rates, and possible conversions. Whatever your ranking is on search engines, you can be sure to benefit from social media marketing on Instagram and others. Twitter, for instance, makes it possible to push specific advertisements to target audiences within your business’ niche.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has been around for several decades and is still effective and efficient to this date. Almost everyone today has an email or two. You can thus take advantage of email marketing to promote your business as well. All you need is to build an emailing list to use for your marketing campaigns and promotions. Asking your audiences to signup for newsletters, running a giveaway campaign, or even promotions with a chance of someone winning a present, are some of the ways you can collect email addresses genuinely. With global audiences and relatively high conversions, you can be sure to get your business known and even earn more clients this way.

Know Your Competitors

Google Analytics (among other tools) enables website owners and managers to study current trends, make predictions, and research their competition. These tools allow one to find similarities and strategies that work for other companies and those that you could use to boost your chances. Google analytics is thus a handy tool that can help you avoid losses by focusing on higher-performing campaigns.

Another advantage of running an online business is that you can research and even find other strategies that could help drive traffic to your website. Some of these analytics tools can help you identify your rival’s weaknesses, giving you a chance to turn the tables around and divert traffic to your business.

Optimize Content

Although you might know this already, the key to getting your business known by organic visitors and search engines is publishing high-quality and properly optimized content. Publishing optimized content on your website and running blogs can significantly impact your search engine rankings and website performance. Properly optimized websites often get a spot on the top page of a search result, translating to increased traffic and online visibility.

The key to optimizing content lies with proper keyword research and usage of the same. For this reason, you want to choose keywords relevant to your business niche and high-converting at the same time. Search engine optimization is one of the pillars of online marketing and plays a crucial role in boosting online visibility and inbound traffic.

Work Towards Increasing Website Traffic

Web traffic is everything when running an online business. It is through the said traffic that you can start converting much of it into potential and even loyal customers/clients. A website that gets tons of traffic is more likely to generate sales/profits than one that doesn’t. Your business thus should unwind and focus on attracting traffic by first creating and publishing unique and high-quality content, optimising your content, then venturing into other online marketing campaigns.

Generating organic traffic is one of the best ways to grow your online business. You can also use paid methods to generate the same. Facebook and Google, for example, offer paid options for directing traffic your way. This however entails paying for such through Google or Facebook Ads. You could also hire online marketing experts to help get your business known and improve traffic as well. You only need to find the best online marketing agency or company, especially one with tons of experience in the field.

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Sourced from Entrepreneur India

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5 key ways to drive online sales

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Sourced from BOSS Magazine

Online sales is a great way for you to drive traffic to your business while also increasing sales at the same time. You must keep in mind, however, that it is not always easy to know what the best way to go about this is. You will need to focus on a few key things such as developing a strong presence online as well as using effective digital marketing techniques to attract your audience. If you have a business and are wanting to drive online sales, this blog post will highlight 5 key ways that you can achieve this.

Use effective marketing techniques

You must use effective marketing techniques such as social media marketing, paid media advertising, email marketing, and direct selling to name a few. According to Socital, these effective marketing techniques will help you effectively generate leads and drive business which positively influences sales. Before investing in a certain marketing technique, research and identify your audience to determine if the marketing technique you want to use will be effective. For example, if your audience is elderly, you won’t be focusing primarily on social media marketing and will instead try direct selling.

Develop a strong online presence

The internet has become a massive part of modern culture and almost everyone in the world has access to it every single day. It then goes without question that the online space is an important place of interest for businesses in our current times because it allows you the opportunity to access a wide audience at your fingertips. One of the most effective ways to develop a strong online presence is with the help of social media platforms. Billions of people worldwide are active on various social media platforms every day which is a golden opportunity to source new customers and boost your sales. You will need to have a consistent presence on social media platforms and engage with your audience to establish a relationship with them. You will also need to use social media to market your product or service using organic marketing or paid ads and influencer marketing which is highly effective. The more that people are exposed to your business online, the more inclined they will be to support your business. This positively affects sales.

Optimize your website for search engines

A website is a great way to establish credibility with your business and is another form of digital marketing. You must ensure that your website is optimized so that you score a higher SEO ranking which will result in your website being one of the first to pop up on the google search. To optimize your website, make sure that it is user-friendly and easy to navigate, make sure the loading speed is not slow because this negatively impacts your SEO ranking, you should also ensure that the content on your website is authoritative and relevant and that your content is regularly updated. If you optimize your website, the search engine will reward you with a higher SEO ranking which will result in more people visiting your website and ultimately, supporting your business financially.

Create a compelling product description

A product description is an important form of marketing because it describes your product as well as explains the benefits that your product has. This is a way to provide your audience with all the information and details of your product on your website and this description is typically located underneath or next to product images and titles. To write a good product description you must first identify your target audience and focus on the benefits of your products. Also, keep your language and tone natural and throw in some powerful words to drive sales. Good product images are also essential because this is what people look at when researching a product before purchasing.

Offer excellent customer service

To provide excellent customer service you need to go above and beyond to meet the basic needs of your customer. You need to do everything to ensure your customers are more than satisfied and happy with your product or service. The best way to achieve this is to be easily accessible to your customers. You can do this by engaging and responding on social media and also promptly responding to all enquiries. Also always ask for feedback and be attentive, this will create loyalty.

Sourced from BOSS Magazine

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Getting People to Focus on your Product Will Make Them Desire It More

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Here’s why you need to get your advertising to zoom in.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

The relationship between desire and attention was long thought to only work in one direction: When a person desires something, they focus their attention on it.

Now, new research reveals this relationship works the other way, too. Increasing a person’s focus on a desirable object makes them want the object even more – a finding with important implications for marketers seeking to influence behaviour.

The study, published in the journal Motivation and Emotion, is the first to demonstrate a two-way relationship.

“People will block out distraction and narrow their attention on something they want,” said Anne Kotynski, author of the study. “Now we know this works in the opposite direction, too.”

In marketing, advertisements with a hyper focus on a product’s desirable aspect – say zooming in on the texture of icing and frosting – might help sell a certain brand of cake.

Findings suggest the ad could be targeted to people who have shown an interest in a similar product, such as running the cake commercial during a baking show.

This finding also works in other areas outside advertising too. For example, doctors could potentially help their patients develop a stronger focus on healthy activities that they may desire but otherwise resist, such as exercising or eating a balanced diet.

The study’s findings also add a wrinkle to knowledge of focus and emotion. According to a spate of previous research, positive emotions, such as happiness and joy, widen a person’s attention span, while negative emotions such as disgust and fear, do the opposite: narrowing a person’s focus.

“We conceptualise fear as drastically different from desire,” Kotynski said. “But our findings contribute to growing evidence that these different emotions have something key in common: They both narrow our focus in similar ways.”

The findings also fit the notion that both of these emotions – fear (negative) and desire (positive) – are associated with evolutionarily pursuits that narrowed our ancestors’ attentions.

For example, fear of predators motivated attention focused on an escape route, while an urge to mate motivated focus on a sexual partner.

“If a person has a strong desire, research says this positive emotion would make them have a wide attention span,” Kotynski said. “Our research shows we developed a more beneficial behaviour around desire: focusing our mental energy on the important object, much like fear would.”

The study

Study participants were shown images of desserts mixed in with mundane items. They were instructed to pull a joystick toward them if the image was tilted one direction and push the stick away if it was tilted the opposite direction. Researchers recorded the reaction time of each.

Participants who responded fastest to pull the images of desserts were those whose attention had been narrowed. Responses were much slower to the mundane, and for participants whose attention was broad, suggesting narrowed attention increases desire for desserts but not for everyday objects.

The study used dessert pictures to measure reaction time because such images have been shown to increase desire across individuals, most likely due to a motivation to seek high fat, high calorie foods that is rooted in evolution.

There you go people. If people love cars and you can get them to focus on the car you are hawking, you’ll have a better chance of converting that to a sale. May the ROI forever be in your favour.

 

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Majority of Workers Feel Distracted at Work, Blame Technology

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More than a third of millennials use their phones for personal activities up to 2 hours during the workday.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Technology is now on the verge of making us utterly unproductive. This is according to a new report from Udemy.

The study measured how distracted employees are during work hours, how they’re responding to distractions, and the price of distraction for employers and the economy at large. The research found a strong correlation between increased levels of distraction, decreased productivity, and a lack of proper training at work.

Workers can’t resist the pull of social media
Most survey respondents (58%) said they don’t need social media to do their jobs, but they still can’t make it through the day without it. When asked to rank various social media sites and communication tools by degree of distraction, Facebook came in first (65%), followed distantly by Instagram (9%), Snapchat (7%), and Twitter (7%).

In addition to recognising how workplace distraction can hurt productivity and diminish quality of work, companies need to be aware of the very real damage to employee morale and retention. Among millennials and Gen Z, 22% feel distractions prevent them from reaching their full potential and advancing in their careers, and overall, 34% say they like their jobs less as a result.

When people are engaged, they report being more motivated, confident, and happy, and feel they deliver higher quality work. And, based on the survey, opportunities around learning and development are the top drivers of engagement.

 

Workers want training but are reluctant to ask for it
Though 69% of full-time employees surveyed report being distracted at work and 70% agree that training could help them learn to focus and manage their time better, 66% have never brought this up to their managers. Younger workers, in particular, are also having trouble balancing work and personal activities on devices they use for both; 78% of millennials/Gen Z say using technology for personal activity is more distracting than work-related tools like email and chat.

Let’s face it, we are all suckers for social media. The good news for marketers is that with highly engaged audiences comes a lot of places to put targeting advertising and reach these audiences.

 

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Facebook’s Trust Crisis: What Now?

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Less than 1 in 3 people call Facebook a responsible company, according to a new survey.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Barraged by accusations of spreading divisive fake news and amid new allegations that it handed over personal information on up to 50 million users without their consent, Facebook is losing the faith of the people, according to a new survey.

Almost 4 out of 10 people surveyed said: “Facebook is not a responsible company because it puts making profits most of the time ahead of trying to do the right thing.” Less than 1 in 3 said that Facebook is a “responsible company because it tries to do the right thing most of the time even if that gets in the way of it making profits.” The rest were unsure.

By a 7-1 ratio people surveyed said that Facebook has had a negative influence on political discourse. Sixty-one percent said that “Facebook has damaged American politics and made it more negative by enabling manipulation and falsehoods that polarize people.”

The survey was conducted as new revelations surfaced that the company connected to the 2016 Trump campaign, Cambridge Analytica, inappropriately harvested personal information on millions of Facebook users.

The sharp rise in negative feelings is a significant departure from Facebook’s standing prior to the 2016 election, when the rise of so-called Fake News and polarizing content led to calls for the company to take greater responsibility for the content on the popular social media site – or face government regulation.

By a 2-1 margin, people surveyed said it’s Facebook’s responsibility to remove or warn about posts that contain false or misleading information. And 59 percent reported that the company is not doing enough to address the issues of false and inflammatory information that appear on its site.

“Facebook is at a crossroads because of its inability – nearly a year-and-a-half after the election – to get a handle on its divisive effects on society,” said Tom Galvin, Executive Director of Digital Citizens, who commissioned the survey. “From spreading fake and manipulative information to becoming a ‘Dark Web-like’ place for illicit commerce, Facebook seems to losing the trust of the American public. Regulation will not be far behind for social media companies if things don’t change.”

This declining trust reflects a growing concern about the impact Facebook and other social media sites have on young teens.  In the survey, more than two in five people surveyed said that the minimum age to have a Facebook account should be at least 18 years old.

“Digital platforms have to rise to the occasion and assure internet users that their personal information will be safe, that the content will be legal, safe and not contrived to manipulate. In short, they have to demonstrate they will be the positive influence on our society that they espouse to be,” said Galvin.

 

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A New App Can Create Facebook Ads Without the Cost

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This handy app can help you create ads with impact but with very little effort.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An app called Plotaverse helps marketers to create great ads without the dreaded and costly content creation process. Quickly bypassing established app giants, the young startup’s iOS app made the list of Facebook’s top 10 mobile apps.

The photo app’s animation features allow businesses of any calibre to create impactful ads fast and on a budget. More or less, you can choose from many artistically appealling gifs and put your message over them. The artwork on the site is truly eye-catching.

But how did Plotaverse’s 8 months old mobile app manage to disrupt visual advertising, going up against 8 billion video views a day on Facebook alone?

Images animated with Plotaverse, formerly known as Plotagraph, are the key to its success. The app ads movement to any single still photo. This creates ads that stand out in saturated media feeds.

 

Brands like Coca Cola, Wella, Chevrolet and Red Bull were seen boosting their brand with captivating Plotagraphs. There is no need for video, multiple photos or video editing skills to turn a photograph into a Plotagraph. Users of any skill level can quickly animate and post uniquely moving images to their business and social page.

On Instagram and Facebook, Plotagraphs have proven to attract up to 5 times the amount of views and engagement than surrounding images.

Every day, 4.5 million business pages on Facebook are trying to cut through 1.32 billion daily active users according to WordStream. As expected, Adobe’s titan apps, Photoshop Express and Spark Post head Facebook’s list of Photo Enhancing apps. But the tiny startup’s photo animation app has unexpectedly spearheaded the looping content industry.

To check it out, click here

 

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Using Models in Your Advertising Campaign? Be Careful With Their Make-Up

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It could be sending the wrong message to your intended audience.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

An academic study has found that women wearing heavy makeup are less likely to be perceived as leaders. Of course, it depends on what you are selling and to whom. But if you want your model to portray leadership, then stay away from the make-up kit.

The research from Abertay University found that women wearing heavy makeup were less likely to be thought of as good leaders. The study was led by Dr Christopher Watkins of Abertay’s Division of Psychology, and published today in Perception journal. It revealed that the amount of makeup a woman is wearing can have a negative impact on perceptions of her leadership ability.

Study participants were asked to view a series of images featuring the same woman without cosmetics and with makeup applied for a “social night out”.

Computer software was used to manipulate the faces and the amount of makeup was also manipulated in the face images.

Each participant completed a face perception task where they judged sixteen face-pairs, indicating how much better a leader they felt their chosen face to be compared to the other face.

It was found that both men and women evaluated women more negatively as a leader if the image suggested she was wearing a lot of makeup.

Dr Watkins said, “This research follows previous work in this area, which suggests that wearing makeup enhances how dominant a woman looks. While the previous findings suggest that we are inclined to show some deference to a woman with a good looking face, our new research suggests that makeup does not enhance a woman’s dominance by benefitting how we evaluate her in a leadership role.”

The study was carried out by Abertay graduates Esther James and Shauny Jenkins and used a measurement scale common in face perception research, which calculates the first-impressions of the participant group as a whole, working out an average verdict.

Dr Watkins has carried out previous high-profile studies including work looking at how women remember the faces potential love rivals and the role of traits related to dominance in our choice of allies, colleagues and friends.

To view the full study click here.

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Why Facebook Video Ads Should Only be Just Six Seconds Long

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Facebook is now the most popular places that advertisers are putting their video ads, even beating YouTube.

By MediaStreet Staff Writers

Top marketers know that digital video is one of the most powerful tools to increase consumer engagement and brand loyalty. In fact, according to a new study from Clinch, brand marketers are ramping up their production of digital videos with an emphasis on creating campaigns specifically for Facebook and YouTube.

The study found that 78 percent of marketers plan to increase their production of video ads in 2018, while only 43 percent of marketers plan to increase their production of static banner ads this year.

Social is Video

When it comes to digital video campaigns, Facebook reigns supreme, representing 46 percent of all video ads produced. When adding Facebook-owned Instagram into the mix, this number leaps to 74 percent. YouTube comes in a close second at 41 percent.

Says Oz Etzioni, CEO of Clinch, “It’s no secret that Facebook and YouTube dominate the digital media landscape and we don’t expect this to slow down, particularly with the Facebook algorithm change which requires brands to pay in order to be seen. In 2018 brands will increase spend and leverage the rich data that these platforms provide. However, the data and platform are just two pieces of the puzzle. Creative is the critical third piece. If brands aren’t uniquely tailoring their creative specifically for each platform and by audience, opportunities will be missed and ROI will be lowered.”

Nearly three quarters of marketers are adopting online video from their TV commercials. 44 percent indicated that they don’t shorten commercials for each platform’s suggested length. While TV ads remain a critical source of video content, the user experience of each social platform is very different than traditional TV. For example, TV ads are 15 to 30 seconds long but Facebook and YouTube recommend six-second videos.

Etzioni continued, “We were really surprised to learn that marketers were taking a one size fits all approach to video. In 2018, marketers will awaken to the fact that investment in creative will increase ROI and personalisation at scale, and will become the norm for digital video as it has become for static ads.”

Defining Social Personalisation

While 50 percent of respondents say they personalise their video campaigns, brands can be doing a lot more. Those that are personalising their creatives based on data are seeing big results. Nearly 90 percent of respondents who have customised Facebook or YouTube video ads reported seeing benefits. Furthermore, 70 percent of those who customise said that they have seen improvements in their key performance indicators (KPIs).

According to Etzioni, in the next few months, the definition of personalisation will change. “Rather than creating a handful of versions – one for men, one for women, one for the East Coast and one for the West Coast, we expect brands to be using data insights to personalise at scale. This means hundreds if not thousands of versions of videos where the message and creative is tailored to their specific needs and interests. This will create a more meaningful experience for the consumer and transform video campaigns from simply brand awareness to direct response opportunities,”

The full report, “How Leading Brand Marketers are Using Personalised Video to Drive Sales,” is available for download here.

 

 

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5 Social Media Marketing Trends to Watch Out For in 2018

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Make sure to keep an eye out for these five social media marketing trends that are taking over the digital marketing world in the upcoming year.

Did you know that on an average, we scroll through at least 300 feet (90 meters) of content daily? Not every brand’s campaign grabs our attention. It is a difficult and competitive game, as brands are trying harder to grab our attention, while our attention span has been reduced to a mere eight seconds. Brand strategy in the coming years will try more than ever to connect with their audiences across a variety of social platforms. It becomes imperative that your campaign works, more so taking into account the speed of feed. We have curated a list of five trends that we believe will impact your social media strategy in 2018.

Adopt Chatbots

https://giphy.com/gifs/11FyVJOvLleR5S

Gone are the days when chatbots meant unresponsive, hilarious and outright ridiculous software. Today, chatbots can do a lot more than just solve customer issues or order pizza for you. Various studies state that 20% of business content could be machine generated by next year. When we teach machines how to create authentic and engaging stories, the potential for advertising and marketing will become multifold. Chatbots interact with the users and deliver the solutions that they are looking for at the speed of light. Bots are developing to become smarter and empathetic. This engagement feels personal, from the user’s perspective. Chatbots are definitely a must-try social media marketing strategy in 2018 for your business.

Momentary content makes for good engagement:

Streaks GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY

Snapchat was the early adopter of momentary content. Instagram and Facebook followed suit, owing to the huge popularity of Stories format in a short time. These content are ephemeral and disappear in 24 hours. Brands are creating a whole new digital marketing strategy for their momentary content marketing. Having your stories appear at the very top of your follower’s feed keeps your brand at the top of their mind. Many brands do a live story session with a subject matter expert. This helps the user look out for the brand more so as to not miss an informative session. Ephemeral content marketing strategy is something that you should try in 2018!

Augmented reality boom

Augmented Reality Technology GIF by Wikitude - Find & Share on GIPHY

Augmented reality blurs the line between reality and computer-generated content by enhancing what we see, and hear. The adoption of augmented reality on mobile phones is a quick and easy way for brands to reach their target audience. Many brands are taking their products right inside the homes of users through exclusive filters. IKEA has released an app called Place which allows users to preview how the furniture would look in their homes before they buy. As more people get warmed up to augmented reality, more people will start to feel like they are missing out on things and want to become a part of it. However, you would also have to check where your strategy fits. Make sure your AR adds value for the user and don’t simply create one for the sake of it.

Influencers are here to stay

Social Media Instagram GIF by Much - Find & Share on GIPHY

Influencer marketing has grown so much over the last two years that the popularity has made it difficult to know whom to trust. Consumers expect genuine reviews from genuine influencers. Brands must seek to work with relevant influencers with industry background or knowledge. Viewers are already bored of seeing brands engage popular influencers who promote teeth whitening and a mobile phone app with the same vigor. In 2018, try and create worthwhile relationships with influencers and maintain them. Influencer marketing is going to become more authentic with brands moving to real experts instead of social influencers.

Make more videos

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We are addicted to mobile phones, and we love our videos. In 2017, 90% of the most shared content on social media was in video format. If you are not using videos yet, you will have to quickly start using them and master the art of capturing the user’s attention in the first 3 seconds. Video is the quickest and the closest way you will come face to face with your target audience. As with everything, you need to have a clear strategy before creating a video. Taking advantage of Facebook Live and Instagram Live is also a smart strategy. Ensure that the video is of the highest quality and engaging. You will also have to consider making the best design and make sure to add subtitles to attract users when they are watching with sound off.

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