key trends for Social Media | BRANDNAS

 Business owners and marketers should always be thinking about what they can do to make their companies more successful. Here is according to BranDNA’S ways to leverage your social media channels more effectively.

So what can you do to boost your brand’s success through social media?

Let’s be honest the ideal social strategy is unique for every company, however, there are some online marketing trends we believe are worth considering as you evaluate which tactics will help grow your business.

1. The growing importance of business branding

Particularly for small businesses, putting a real, human face to a brand name helps to build loyalty. A brand that’s more relatable, and has the human element, naturally garners more trust, and trust is essential for building relationships.

One way to humanize a brand is to promote the personal brand of the business owner or a high-level leader. This tactic has become a staple for many organizations, as demonstrated through guest blogging, podcast and webinar appearances, and other publicity opportunities. By enabling your audiences to get to know the character and expertise of company leadership, a business can strengthen its brand reputation.

2. Long-form content to make an SEO impact

While word count is not the only thing that can impact how prominently an article will appear on search engine results pages, SEO experts agree that long-form content can give you an edge.

Although Google doesn’t penalize blog posts if they fail to reach a certain word count threshold, it stands to reason that a high-quality article with 1,600 words will likely outrank a high-quality article with 500 words. It’s for that reason that we believe we’re seeing more publishers requiring guest authors to submit articles with a minimum of 1,000 or more words.

Therefore, businesses that have found they aren’t getting SEO traction with short posts may want to “go long” and add more comprehensive articles, rich with information and insight, in order to both attract readers and give Google a reason to rank them more favorably. Google loves fresh content that keeps your page up to date and relevant to the topic. If you don’t add new content your website may be seen as outdated.

3. Acceleration of personalized marketing

Customers have come to expect brands to customize special offers and discounts to their wants and needs. To accommodate that expectation, more businesses will need to consider targeted advertising and retargeting campaigns on social media channels.

4. Video’s as the preferred form of content 

According to research by Wyzowl, 97% of marketers say that video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service, and 76% indicated that it has helped increase web traffic and sales.

Live-streaming will continue its emergence as a powerful way to engage people on social media. By 2020, 82% of internet traffic is expected to be video content.

Video allows for a company to humanize the business. It enables prospects and customers to get to know who leads and works in a business. Video gives businesses an opportunity to show not only what they do but also “who” they are.

5. “Pay to play”—the path to more exposure

With the diminishing organic reach of business content, most companies will need to invest in sponsored posts, boosted posts, and social media Ads if they want to stay top of mind.

Fortunately, social media advertising doesn’t have to break the bank; a small amount of money can go a long way.