Do you know that out of 7.3 Billion people in the world, 2.13 billion are active on social media? And not only that the number of social media users is increasing at the rate of 25% annually. Businesses are clever enough to notice this increasing trend and now 90% of US companies can be found on social media. Half of these businesses claim that their efforts and presence on social media has paid off in the form of increased sales and business reach.
With the growing number of social media users the remaining 10% businesses are also set to move on social networks to expand their reach and harvest its benefits. Let us have a peek into 2016 which is expected to change the complete face of how companies used social media in the past.
1. Prepare your workplace to be stormed by social networks:
E-mail has survived through the thick and thin of internet. Despite the predictions that it will become obsolete due to the growth of social networks and instant chat systems it’s still here with us. All the techy and super-fast instant chat systems have not been able to wipe it off. Though its use has decreased but it is still considered best channel for formal communication.
The year 2016 is set to bring social networks into the workplaces that may begin the end of good old email systems. For example Slack, the real time messaging, search and archiving system that aims to bring all your communication at one place. Slack is slowly rapidly gaining popularity among small and large organizations with a user base of 1.25 million and has already attracted some of the giants like NASA.
Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social media platform currently and it has exceeded 1 billion registered uses. Facebook is aiming to revolutionize the workspace with its new project, Facebook for work, which is under beta testing. Considering the already huge user base the businesses will not hesitate to adapt to Facebook at work as soon as it hits the market.
2. Companies use employees for Social media marketing:
Most of the companies maintain their presence on social media by dedicated social media teams. Still some of them are unable to achieve the desired results and fail to attract the users. But now with 2016 coming up, companies have figured out a great way to target their audience. Companies are turning up to their employees and are encouraging them to spread the word on their own social media accounts.
These employee advocacy programs have been proven fruitful since 2013 and are expected to increase in 2016. These programs have been proven 8 times more beneficial than the traditional social media posting and sharing done by social media teams. More and more tools and technologies are developed to aid and promote the employee advocacy programs and to make the process smoother.
3. Companies Dig into Messaging:
Messaging is the most popular form of communication from medieval days and even in 21st century it’s the messaging apps that have topped the charts in terms of frequency of usage. There is hardly any smartphone without the popular messaging apps like twitter, whatsApp, Messenger etc installed. This one-to-one form of communication was still unexplored by the companies due to lack of data.
Messaging Services are a rich but untapped source of data. In the coming years the popular messaging service providers may sort out a way to make the user data available to businesses to formulate their strategies around the user interest and preferences. Additionally messaging is already being used as one on one customer support medium.
4. Social Media Advertising is Trending Rapidly:
Social media add campaigns have increased from $0 to a whopping 24 Billion. More and more companies are investing big bucks in social media advertising instead of old school marketing campaigns like banners and boards because it has proven to be at least four times more fruitful.
Social media platforms have devised ways to track user’s searching habits, age, gender and other demographics that enable them to target and direct their adds to the people that actually want to see them instead of flooding them with the adds they have absolutely no interest in.
It is expected that the cash flow in social media advertising market will continue to see increment in the upcoming year 2016 as companies dig deeper and deeper into user likes and dislikes. Special tools are being designed that will make the ad campaign up and running with a few clicks.
5. Social Videos are Viral:
Videos are the most powerful and effective tool for marketing, no doubt about that. Combing the power of video marketing and social media will yield amazing results. Social media platforms are smart enough to notice that.
Last year facebook recorded 8 billion views on its videos and that is allegedly greater than that of the largest video site youtube, following the footsteps of facebook twitter also launched its video in 2015 not to mention snapchat that records 6 billion daily views on its videos. The numbers are expected to increase manifold with the advent of new technologies in this market like facebook live feed and snapchat stories.
Almost 7 out of 10 companies reported that video marketing has helped them reached their targets effectively. The companies that were previously reluctant to enter into video marketing due to its cost are entering the game because a lot of alternatives are now available and even a 7 second video can go viral and prove more effective than thousands of dollars of campaign.
The year 2016 will certainly revolutionize the businesses and workplaces. It will transform how companies do business and interact with customers. With the amazing features offered by social media platforms the future seems crystal clear that the next era of business is totally based on social media.
