Social Media Trends We're Seeing in 2017
As we get closer to the midpoint of 2017, Blue Compass has noticed some important social media trends and are excited to share how they are changing the way marketing professionals interact with and advertise to customers. Here’s some trends for each social network you’ll want to follow:
Facebook Updates
Facebook Live
Videos are winning customers over, and the new Facebook Live feature could allow you to broadcast company events live on social media. This allows customers to see the great things you’re doing around the office or in your community.
Facebook has made this even easier by allowing the administrator of the account to assign specific people that can post on the live feed. Lastly, you can pin live comments on the bottom of your videos. The comments are beneficial if you have important information that you want to highlight or a company web address that viewers could easily access at the bottom of the video.
Facebook Messenger and Chatbots
Facebook is also helping businesses interact with their customers by allowing companies to use their Messenger app as chatbots. This is a new trend wherein you can automate responses to your customers if they have simple questions instead of keeping users on hold waiting to connect with a customer service representative.
Updated Advertising Features
After much criticism, Facebook has upped their game on the advertisements and news they allow on their platform. This means they are functioning a bit more like Google, where if you have an ad that matches their qualifications and leads to a helpful and high-quality landing page, you are more likely to see an ad appear.
As Facebook continues to be the most popular form of social media used by adults, it’s important to take advantage of their new features mentioned above.
Twitter Updates
Character Count
Twitter is making it easier for businesses to link to their website or other important content they would like to share. When you attach a URL to your tweet, it no longer counts towards your character count, so you have more characters to express your message.
Twitter Safety
Twitter has been monitoring user feedback, and their new safety features align with what users have been asking for. From now on, Twitter will be continuously monitoring and reducing the amount of abusive or inappropriate content that users will see on their feeds. This will result in a more friendly user experience and satisfied Twitter users. Twitter is also giving their users more power over the notifications they receive. You can now filter the types of accounts that you’ll see on your timeline and how long you would like to block them - one day, one week, one month or forever.
Instagram Updates
Instagram is following the trend of temporary social content and has added the option to post stories to users’ feeds. These are very similar to Snapchat and will last 24 hours before disappearing.
New Hashtag Sticker Feature
Another fun feature that you can use is the new hashtag sticker. You can create your own hashtag, then place the sticker with your hashtag over a picture you post in your Instagram story. Once the image with the hashtag stick is posted, followers can tap the hashtag to visit the ‘Explore’ page to discover related posts. See the example below:
Instagram’s Shoppable Icons
Instagram has also created the shoppable icon that appears on the lower left corner of posts. This icon allows users to link directly to your website so they can shop online and search your site when they see something they like.
Snapchat Updates
If your company uses Snapchat to communicate with your customers, there are now a few more tools to get their attention. Other than creating company filters, you can now make new stories in which multiple people can post. This would work well for events, allowing multiple employees to catch special moments.
Snapchat would be more useful for reaching a younger audience since over 80% of the platform’s users are under the age of 35.
Pinterest Updates
Pinterest Video Ads
Pinterest’s layout isn’t the only thing that’s updated! They’ve also increased their Promoted Video ads by 60% in the last year. Now more ads are showing up on users’ boards, and you could use this trend to your advantage by giving pinners ideas on how to use your products in unique ways or with fun DIYs.
Users Can Share if They’ve “Tried It”
The new “Tried It” icon gives you another opportunity to interact with users other than just looking at who pins your posts. This icon allows advertisers to ask follow-up questions to people that have tried their project and see how it worked (or didn’t work) for them.
Blue Compass Stays on Top of Trends
Keeping up with these new social media trends could take you a step above the competition by being available to your customers in new ways and enhancing your interaction with them. If you need assistance implementing these social media trends, Blue Compass can help! Our digital marketing experts stay on top of new trends and help clients use them in their marketing strategies.
Mallory Cates
Mallory double majored, earning her B.S. in Marketing and Management from Iowa State University. She writes SEO-focused content pieces, creates effective digital marketing campaigns and executes social media and SEO campaigns to drive traffic back to clients' websites. Mallory is always eager to learn more about the latest trends in SEO and all things digital marketing and loves taking on new challenges. She has been featured in several blogs for her social media and content marketing expertise.