Topping the upcoming trends in the world of social media will be regaining at least part of the trust of users which has been mired in privacy scandals, algorithm changes, and the build-up of political climate in the US. We can also reasonably expect to see plenty of campaigns focusing on unique positioning of brands. Across 2019 and beyond paid campaigns on social media platforms are also set to attract more investments.

Let us now look closer at the emerging trends in the social media world, across 2019 and beyond.

Emergence of More Private Accounts and Groups

In 2018 groups positioned themselves as a means of connecting directly with fans without any threat from algorithms to their posts. Thus, members within the group could get quicker feedback on their products, apart from such groups becoming an added tool for engagement. Facebook also invested in adding new feature to facebook groups including the ability to participate as business pages, updating stories, live videos posted within these groups and creating units of social learning.

Private instagram accounts have also emerged from certain accounts categorized as influencer accounts in an effort to steer clear of instagram algorithm. Many other brands were quick to follow suit and created alternative private accounts to shore up interest. The results from such efforts have been encouraging and therefore the trend is bound to continue across 2019.

Instagram stories also added a new feature ‘close friends’ and that has helped brand to present an ‘insider look’ feature in their accounts. Similarly, the New Stories feature will potentially include additional friend groups just like the Friend Lists from Facebook.

Put together, the features described above, bring feelings of fear of being missed out, and envy which are akin to human psychology. The private accounts and groups will come in handy throughout 2019 for brands to milk all that they can.

Conversational Commerce

In the past two years, there has been a flurry of activity in the chatbot space. Businesses were eager to building their messaging chatbots and facebook Messenger could be installed on websites and even a Bot Builder was offered by Sprout making it easy for businesses to have their own chatbots. Today, nearly 50% of all businesses have their chatbots even with slow adoption of this relatively new technology. Customers value personalized communication and soon chatbots may get beyond mere prompts adopting customer interactions in ways that are more natural and that could be advantageous in the present market.

Therefore, irrespective of how chatbot is used by businesses, the focus should be on the old-fashioned ways of personalized commerce remembering the history and preference of customers. It is important to understand this growing trend in persoanlized interaction and steer clear of selling propositions while interacting with customers.

On Facebook Messenger or Twitter, this could translate to simply remembering that the customer purchased something from you in the past and you are following up on that purchase. Sprout helps you maintain these notes with great ease.

To learn more about social media trends and in-depth guidance to make your campaigns more successful, you can contact Ralph Kalsi who is the founder of the highly successful One Stop Media.

Adding Profile Notes Using Sprout

Sprout offers significant help in leveraging your ability to personalize communication with the audience with ease. You can simply access the avatar of a user by just a click from inside the messenger tab and a new window helps you add or review your notes, understand the context and other useful information that you may like to keep private or share with other members in the team.

Transparency

During 2018 transparency became even more important for social media and Facebook experienced a tough time battling privacy and concerns about data sharing. Twitter on the other hand was forced to pull down troll accounts and reporting harassment became easier. GDPR was also introduced in the same year and businesses were required to be agile about the way they used customer data.

A study also showed that only about 50% brands were somewhat transparent on a cross-section of social media platforms. Another study revealed that in comparison to friends, family and politicians, millennials were expecting enhanced transparency from brands. That leaves a huge gap in transparency which brands should be filling quickly. In the days ahead, customers will be looking for more transparency from brands.

Brands looking to take transparency more seriously should understand the needs of consumers through the social media. Service/product changes, business practices and company values sit at the top of customer desires. For brands, this could translate to publicizing app updates, product iterations and demonstration of company values through appropriate measures. Getting deeper into transparency can consume significant time for planning it out, but over the longer term, it would be worth your effort. Also remember that there is a world of difference between being actually transparent and merely vouching that you are transparent.

Newcomers In The Social Media Space

Facebook has maintained a strong grip over the social media space and even so, 2018 was not kind to this social media giant. In July 2018, CNBC reported that the market cap of Facebook dropped by a whopping $119 billion in just one day and that was the biggest fall in the history of NYSE for any one company. The sharp fall was caused by lower than expected revenue and a declining number of active users on a daily basis.

Facebook has already been deserted by some users and marketers are now wondering how the social media will fill that gap. Time is therefore ripe for a new entrant focusing on transparent practices in data usage and their customers. Keep an ear to the ground, and soon you could find another channel as good, or better than Facebook.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has now become significantly bloated, so much so, that accounts tend to fake partnerships to position themselves as actual influencers. In the process, many brand deals are made to appear to seem so cool. However, if you are looking for real influencers, look for employees of the brands you are after, and they can be your best influencers.

Summing Up

Recent times have experienced a trust deficit in the social media space. In the weeks and months to follow, we can expect more focused efforts to rebuild the trust and the success or failure of social media campaigns will be largely linked to the trust factor.