2018 is here. Is your Social Media Marketing strategy ready?

We are witnessing an age of content overload which is being smartly driven by content creators. Everyone is going digital but there is only a bunch of brands who are gaining excellence in it. Indian brands are flourishing for some time now on the digital space. According to Stastica.com Most popular brands on Facebook from India as of November 2017, by number of fans (in millions) Bank of India, Samsung Mobile India, Tata Docomo, Windows India, Shoppers Stop, Aircel India, Hyundai India, Airtel India, Oppo & Fastrack (high to low order). A steep rise has been seen in the advertisement on global platform, and the viewership has declined as far as TV is concerned. More eyes are hooked on the internet on various platforms. Due to the continuous development in the internet marketing industry, there are multiple digital media and social networking sites, with unique characteristic and purpose. Facebook, is undoubtedly the biggest and the most powerful social network in the world with 2.07 billion active monthly users. Every startup or a big conglomerate has understood the power of being on this social media platform in order to engage with the customers. 255 million active monthly users on Twitter has made it a perfect online marketing tool for businesses that want to reach out to people and receive replies instantly. Instagram is another visual platform designed for customers to post, share, comment and engage through digital media, saying a lot with pictures and hashtag. Brands around us are trying in more ways than ever to connect with audiences across a range of social platforms. Indeed it’s a cut throat competition to grab attention and retain it for a larger period of time. If we take in the account of smartphone and internet usage statistics, India is quickly becoming a digital-first nation where consumers are open to new adoption techniques in technology. There is a gamut of opportunities for digital optimization and the thrust of constant change is keeping brands on toes to meet the expectation level of their audience with experiments and innovations. With reference to this, we predict the follow trends to be seen in the year, 2018: Instagram Stories’ Cult: Drive Upcoming Instagram Trends With more than 500 million active users, it’s a hot property like Facebook and more and more brands and business houses are falling for it seeing it’s popularity. There has been a growth in the advertisement ratio as well. The App is easy to use and one can access it easily on the go. One can immediately edit images on the go and post it with no hassles. That makes it an in-the-moment experience, which naturally attracts more people. Humans prefer to gather and interpret information through pics, which is why visual marketing has become so popular in recent years. Stories on Instagram are not going away as they offer huge marketing implications as it multiplies buying or inquiry opportunities by orders of magnitude. The metrics of this site can be tracked easily as well. Augemented reality One can get the experience of digital interface by augmented reality in real-time by placing virtual objects. 3D videos can allow users to place life-size 3D models in your environment with or without the use of trackers. Trackers are simple images that 3D models can be attached to in Augmented Reality.. The use of Augmented Reality on mobile devices provides a niche and engaging way for marketers to reach their target audience – it’s quick, easy and very interactive. This year Apple announced the launch of iPhone 8 and iPhone X which provides users with new augmented reality experiences. Therefore its likely more social channels will plan on introducing new ways of integrating AR into their platforms. We have already seen Snapchat roll out a new AR feature allowing users to their Bitmoji and project themselves or images into the real world through the app’s camera. Cobweb of Videos Access to the world with a mobile in hand is allowing more and more users to look for videos. In this year the major content shared on social media was videos. This section has its own challenges too as it’s difficult to capture an audience immediately and he should be interested in seeing the full visual content. Experts are of the view that three years down the line video will make up major all online consumers internet traffic and will close to your audience list after direct conversation. Videos are definitely a gateway to success when online presence is concerned. Before we start working on the video, it’s ideal to understand the idea what are we doing with the strategy of the video, the objectives should be clear.rnPlatforms like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are emphasizing on video making more than before to create engagement and build followers. Live videos on Facebook and Instagram will be in rave. Chatbots For a faster consumer service hook on to Chatbots now. They excel in providing instant connection with customers from all over the world, fast in solving customer issues. Many brands have seen going the chatbots way and have been experiencing success. The forecast says that some percentage of business content could be machine-generated too in the coming year. A practice session with machines is required to help them create stories that are genuine and relatable, the advertising and marketing potential is certainly worth investigating. This medium allows brands to interact quickly with their audience in a personalized way. The social media will emerge as a bigger platform than before so, it is wise to improve the social media presence with these tactics.