Trends In Social Media 2019, Which One Does Your Brand Need? (Part III)

8. Influence Marketing, but Well Done

Forbes magazine estimated that by the end of 2018 adblockers users would be 30% of Internet users.

Against this backdrop, there is an urgent need to invest in forms of marketing that move away from traditional advertisements. Native advertising, branded content or context marketing are good solutions to which we must add another: influencing marketing.

When our product or service is recommended by a third party, consumer confidence increases.

That influence marketing works is indisputable, which is why the bulk of advertisers expect to carry out actions with opinion leaders.

86% of advertisers used influencers during 2017. Of these, 92% were satisfied with the results.

However, to get the most out of our marketing influencing actions, it is important to work very seriously on the campaigns, choosing an influencer with an audience according to our target (so sometimes it will be more profitable to work with micro-influencers) and with values close to our brand, studying its level of influence without being blinded by the number of followers, and, above all, creating metrics that allow us to identify the ROI and measure the scope and effectiveness of the actions.

In fact, when we say that influence marketing is one of the trends of social media 2019, we mean that it must begin to be addressed in all its dimension.

The time for trial and error is over. The time has come to do things right.

9. Social Commerce: The Mobile is a Great Shopping Centre

In 2017, the 500 main distributors worldwide earned around 6.5 billion dollars thanks to social commerce, according to The Social Commerce Report, produced by Business Insider.

Betting on social commerce if you are an online seller is already a necessity, let’s realize that social purchases are a logical evolution of e-commerce.

Users have been losing their fears: first the resistance to online shopping was overcome, then to mobile shopping and now social commerce is becoming normalized.

So much so that a significant increase is expected in 2019, the year in which it is expected to take off definitively.

Facebook has contributed decisively to this boom with the creation of advertising formats within their social ads options, but also with the launch of new features dedicated to online commerce such as Facebook Marketplace or Instagram Shopping.

This new environment for e-commerce favours the entry into the market of small traders and independent sellers, democratising e-commerce but also sharpening competition.

The retail sector should consider social commerce as the most important of the social media trends 2019.

10. Podcasting and Audio Online

Digital audio is booming. Simple and cheap, podcasting has not yet come up against excessive competition (although it has been booming since 2017).

Online audio is emerging as an easily accessible content for a multi-tasking user who has integrated the mobile phone into his life to the point of simultaneous use with a multitude of everyday actions.

This particularity of the audio contents is nothing new, the traditional radio has maintained its status thanks to the fact that it is possible to listen to it in almost any place, time and context.

An online podcast or audio does not necessarily have to deal with content that is different from the rest of the content that a brand generates, but neither should it be the locuted version of a pre-existing content: ideally, it should be complementary, so that the user can move from one to another without fear of suffering such an unpleasant “echo effect”.

Regardless of the quality of hearing and the interest in the content, it is important to set a periodicity to keep the audience captive.

Because of all this, it is necessary to develop an easy to cover audio content strategy, if we become too ambitious we may not be able to keep our promise and that will give a very bad image of the brand. A good idea, a guideline for elaboration (based on either script or play-list), capacity for synthesis and firm commitment, are the ingredients for a recipe for success in podcasting.

In 2017, podcast listening increased by five percentage points, to the detriment of online radio listening, according to the General Media Study conducted by the Association for Media Research (AIMC).

On the other hand, a research carried out by Midroll reveals that 74 percent of listeners remember the advertising in the podcasts, in relation to the programmatic audio, which does not occupy us in this post but allows us to get an idea of the potential that the audio has in the brand reminder.

In terms of listening trends by age, it should be noted that listeners up to the age of 45 prefer specialised subject areas, as opposed to those over 55, who prefer political and current affairs issues.

Audio online and podcasting are two interesting trends in social media 2019 to explore and exploit.

So what Social Media Trends 2019 does my brand need?

When determining which social media trends 2019 to invest the marketing budget in, we must first be clear about what goals we want to achieve.

It is a good time to rethink our presence in terms of which networks, since we may have a presence in one that does not give us anything because it is not appropriate for our brand or strategy, and yet there is another that offers us a large number of opportunities to which we should channel our efforts.

What kind of brand we are and what product we sell are also starting points for deciding in which areas and networks to make an investment.

Our Recommendation

Keep an eye on instant messaging applications and quickly define a strategy accordingly.

Getting from the first to a still virgin scenario with such extraordinary potential will place us among the most successful.

Another good advice is to invest in content -independently of the medium-, ephemeral content, easy to digest and of quality, avoiding too explicit advertising and avoiding intrusion, betting on a personalized content with the help of a good use of data.

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