Social media is more popular than ever and remains a crucial tool at your disposal when advertising your business. Here is a snapshot of the trends dominating social media in 2019.
Live video is continuing to increase in popularity amongst social media users. It encourages engagement between the business and the customer which can make customers feel more involved with the content and the company.
The majority of social media users are using their mobile phones to access content. This has led to vertical videos and images seeing a dramatic increase in popularity in recent years as viewers are wanting more content suited to the native orientation of their phone screens.
Shoppable posts have become a highly effective way for businesses to promote their products to their viewers. Instagram allows businesses to create shoppable posts and stories, which provide links to products posted on Instagram. Snapchat has also adopted this trend, partnering with Amazon to allow users to scan the barcode of a product in Snapchat and have the item displayed on Amazon to review or purchase.
Facebook has changed its algorithm to favour content that generates conversation with its users and reduced the amount of organic posts that users will see. This has made community engagement more important than ever in order for businesses to reach the maximum number of users possible. Content which encourages users to be involved with the company will see a higher reach than those that are not engaging with the users. Posting user generated content is one way businesses can become more engaging with their audience.
Augmented reality is becoming increasingly popular as users want to virtually try before they buy products. Being able to see that pair of sunnies you want on, or that sofa you want to see in your room before you buy, is a big deal for many users. Facebook has recognised this and has been investing greatly in augmented reality in order to become the market leader in this area. It also generates engagement between the business and users which can boost your posts reach. Although the significant cost of developing augmented reality tools places them far out of reach of many businesses at the moment, the cost is always falling, so it is an important feature to keep an eye on.