Social media marketing was not an option before when social media platforms are not popular yet. Many critics said that it was not a viable marketing strategy. But now, a large percentage of businesses engage in social media marketing to advertise their products and services.

Now, new social media platforms are introduced in the online world that can create new opportunities for businesses’ advertisements. Next year, existing social media platforms will engage to new trending activities. Here are the seven social media marketing trends you can expect this 2016.

1. In-the-moment updates

   We all knew that a lot of social media platforms are already “in-the-moment” by nature. There are some that are more “in-the-moment” than you will never know. If Instagram and Snapchat are applications to post a picture on-the-go, Periscope, for instance, is an application to share a video in real-time. Many applications can follow this trend, saying that Periscope is the first application of its kind.

2. Buy buttons

   Facebook and Pinterest are currently dominating the “buy button” features for their advertisers and users. Mobile users can purchase a product or service that they like without leaving the application.  By the end of 2016, more social media will follow this trend to have greater opportunities for advertising campaigns.

3. In-app functionality

   Facebook is the most popular social media platform today. They do various updates year after year to improve user’s experience. They have recently created “M”, Facebook’s own digital assistant. Other applications are looking forward to implementing these features so users will not need to leave the application.

4. New publication options

   Facebook’s Instant Articles tries to compete with Google’s popularity in searching information. The goal of every application or website is to keep their users to stay on their platform as much as possible. That is why more and more applications are expected to implement updates that will help users to find what they are looking for, only inside their app. Social media platforms are clashing with each other by creating helpful features to entice more users.

5. User privacy concerns

   Since social media attract users to share and post what’s happening on them, privacy concerns become a problem to some. Many social media platforms are currently working to increase privacy for their users.

6. Competition for organic visibility

   ROI of social media marketing becomes more established and social media marketing becomes more accessible for businesses. There will be a greater level of competition for organic visibility. More businesses will engage advertisements to popular media channels.

7. Fewer small platforms

   As the top social media platforms become more and more popular, small platforms will tend to slow down or worse, disappear. Since the big three social media platforms are conquering the medium of advertisements, more companies will choose them to advertise their products and services.

Social media marketing trends will continue to dominate as more updates and features are implemented by social media channels every year. Facebook and Twitter already have various ways to draw the attention of companies that seek hit advertising campaigns.  These changes greatly affect both users and advertisers as they need to cope up with social media marketing trends continuously hyping.

 Image Credit |  Pixabay