Influencers and companies richly use different social media platforms to reach and engage their followers and target audiences with the help of exciting content like posts, reels, threads, and videos. However, at times, both parties fail to execute their strategies and receive less engagement than expected. This is why knowing the trends and best times to post on the relevant areas. The blog will guide you in figuring out the top trends in social media marketing and the best time to post your content there!
What is Social Media?
Social media are the applications where people, influencers, and businesses reach and communicate with one another, exchange opinions, and share content.
Individuals extensively use the medium, whereas content creators, influencers, and businesses use it for social media marketing. This helps them to connect with the audience whom they will target to sell their products and services, build their brand, and make it stronger with time.
There is no doubt in the fact that social media has completely transformed the style of the way communication is done at present along with sharing information, content, and ideas. If you ask how social media sets itself apart from other forms of media? The answer is really simple, think of it as a two-way communication. At the same time, the traditional types like radio, television, and newspapers follow a one-way communication approach where there is no option to respond.
Which Are The Popular Social Media Channels?
The popular social media channels to date are:
- TikTok
- Youtube
- Snapchat
- X(this is Twitter)
In What Ways Does Social Media Benefit Brands and Influencers?
Brands and influencers prefer utilizing multiple social media platforms as it benefits them in many ways, as follows:
Marketing Doesn’t Require A Dime
One of the fantastic things about social media channels is that the marketing here doesn’t require a dime to spend, unlike other marketing techniques that demand a hefty amount to promote your products and services. Social media serves the purpose of doing so, assisting you to reach a wider audience. Therefore, businesses and creators prefer marketing on social media platforms.
Give A Good Boost to Brand Exposure
Businesses and influencers want to be recognized amongst their targeted audience, and for this, they head towards social media to accomplish their goals. This way, the customers that are interested in their products and services approach them accordingly. Hence, the platform boosts their brand’s exposure.
Updates On The Latest Happenings
Social media has become an excellent resource for companies and influencers to share content and update on the latest happenings. The happenings can be in the shape of events, articles, welcoming an employee, achieving any corporate milestone, disclaimer message, delivery delay, facing and fixing a technical fault, or going live to share at-the-spot moments with the people following them. It is a practical approach to keep the people in the loop on what’s new.
Elevates Sales Online Through Targeted Marketing
Instagram and Facebook give companies and influencers options to run targeted ads, which they use to elevate online sales through targeted marketing, creating more awareness amongst potential audiences.
Can I Get a Response?
People aged 18-54 view social media as a very effective outlet for receiving a satisfactory customer experience. Many brands disappoint their clients by not being as active in responding as they should. Therefore, it gives the perfect chance to other small businesses to attract customers by giving them timely responses to their queries.
Having discussed social media, the famous platforms, and why companies and content creators prefer using it, let’s move forward and talk about social media marketing and dig deeper into the details.
Social Media Marketing: The Favorite Approach Of Businesses and Influencers.
Social media marketing has become the favorite approach of businesses and influencers. Why? It furnishes both entities with the complete opportunity to link with their concerned audience, further assisting in brand building, driving and redirecting more traffic towards the website, and surging the sales chart. You may ask, how?
The brands and content strategists put in their efforts to create engaging posts on their respective social media profiles that compel their followers to click on the content and share it ahead of their timelines, arranging live sessions on and off. This allows the companies and influencers to interact and engage with their followers and listen to suggestions concerning improvement in any specific area or what more the audience would like to see. These activities help them analyze results and run social media advertisements if required.
The social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, X, Youtube, and Snapchat are widely used for exciting campaigns. Hence, credit goes to the multiple social media platforms for playing a vital role in strengthening their brands.
Did you know that the social media marketing journey initially commenced with publishing? Yes! Because businesses shared their brand’s content on the website to obtain more sales, the concept changed with time as it’s not confined to broadcasting anymore.
Businesses track social media comments about people’s opinions and feedback for their brand, products, and services. Were there experiences positive or negative? A good way to portray their care for their consumers is when the marketing representatives reach out to and respond to the comments wherever their brand is mentioned. This shows the brand’s seriousness in maintaining its quality and retaining customers.
Ventures keep running sorts of campaigns as well and in order to learn how well they are doing in the market, the owners make the most out of social media analytical tools.
If their product or service wants to target a particular audience segment, then social media marketing comes to the rescue in the shape of highly targeted social media ads.
What Are The Five Pillars Of Social Media Marketing?
The asset of social media marketing rests on five pillars. The five pillars consist of the following elements:
Strategy
Despite having access to social media platforms, one must still not take the channels for granted by randomly posting content. Have you chalked out your brand’s content strategy? If not, now is the time to hit the nail on the head.
Are There Any Goals That You Want To Achieve?
Why do you think social media will aid your brand in achieving goals? There are different reasons that businesses make their way towards social media platforms. Some want maximum brand exposure, and many use it to generate sales by directing traffic to their website and eventually gaining revenue.
Moreover, social media channels impress businesses by escalating engagement, serving as customer support, and creating a community.
Therefore, look for the goals you want to accomplish using the different social media sources.
Which Social Media Platforms Are You Considering Targeting?
There is a vast landscape of social media at your disposal. Which ones are you considering targeting out of Facebook, X, Instagram, Pinterest, Linkedin, Snapchat, and YouTube? The list does not end here, as apart from the mainstream applications, there are secondary and about-to-launch channels like Anchor, Tumblr, and TikTok. Or you just want to stick to messaging alternatives like WhatsApp, Messenger, and WeChat.
Where do you think you will find your target audience? On specific channels or all of them? It’s better to do your research regarding your relevant market so that it saves your time, effort, and budget too.
What Sort Of Content Are You Cooking?
You must have heard that content is king. Why is it that way? Because the content that is catchy and manages to hold the attention of the people is liked more. You can look at the existing examples of other companies and influencers and how their channels are based on infotainment, education, and entertainment. What types of images, videos, or links capture attention? Decide what type of content you want to cook, whose taste and flavor do not bring in the audience that easily. Following one niche is not strict; you can always switch your track by watching the new social media trends.
Plan And Publish
After planning how your content will shine on social media, the next step is to plan and publish the developed content.
The more active your brand is on social media, the brighter the chances of your products and services getting discovered and making people discuss you, too. How to stay active? The formula is very easy. Just be consistent in publishing the content. The content may be in the shape of relevant images, blog posts, and videos. You manage your personal Facebook profile in a similar manner, right? Well, the same theory is applicable to the situation, too. On the other hand, if you are not an active user, appoint someone from the marketing team, outsource to any agency, or hire a social media executive to do what is needed.
Staying consistent is essential, and to make your life easier, how about you plan out a content calendar with the correct timings? Businesses also keep a keen eye on the best times to post so that you don’t miss out on posting important stuff.
Millions of social media users might need your services, so use the power of the free tool and regularly update your social media profiles.
Your Brand Will Be A Part Of Discussions
Won’t you love to be the talk of the town among your audience? People discuss your brand and their experience using your services and products. When the following of your business on particular social media accounts increases, audiences will include your name in their talks by mentioning the name in the comments, and stories, and tagging you in their reviews. They might as well bombard your inbox with messages. That will not be less than a dream come true, right?
You can listen to them and engage in their posts by responding to their queries and monitoring the ratio of positive and negative feedback. If the people are content with your services, then go the extra mile to delight them by surprising them with complimentary gifts like discounts or vouchers. In the case of negativity, inquire where the customer faced an issue and compensate them with better services next time, or else your brand’s image will be at risk big time. Your immediate response tells you clearly how vital your customers are for you.
How Far Are Your Brand’s Marketing Waves Going On The Social Media?
When following the above social media marketing strategies of content planning and publishing, you will be curious to determine how far your brand’s marketing waves go on social media. There are many analytical tools to tell you your campaign is performing better than in previous months. Did your brand manage to reach more people? What’s the toll of the positive experiences? How many times was your brand’s hashtag used in their post on social media? The monitoring will also help you identify the mistakes you should not repeat while running future campaigns.
Got More Funds On Your Hands? Go Ahead With Advertising
Consider yourself lucky if you have more funds and do not run out of budget, as now you can invest the capital on social media advertising. Why? Social media ads permit you to reach and attract a wider audience apart from those already present.
Social media ads have gone through so many updates that now they allow you to display your ads to a specific audience on the basis of their interests, behaviors, demographics, and more. Then, you can track the results accordingly.
The social marketing guide ends here, but how about we tell you about social media trends and the best times to post on the platform? Sounds like a complete package, right?
The Social Media Marketing Trends For 2024
As we bid farewell to 2023, we are doing the same to the social media trends. So, what should the businesses and influencers expect in 2024? Let’s have a look at the following:
The Responsibility of The Search Engines Will Be Taken Over By Social Media Platforms
Yes, you heard that right! Search engines have eventually lost the charm as people have moved over to social media platforms to get answers to their questions. TikTok has already started incorporating the traditional giant’s duty of showing results in its app.
According to recent surveys, Gen Z prefers researching shopping options on social media channels.
In the coming year, if the companies don’t answer the queries of their clients, there is a high possibility that your rival might respond and take your clients away.
The social strategies now focus on addressing the searches by showing relevant and engaging content to the people.
The trend is new, but social platforms are working on their platforms to improve user experience.
The Return Of The Longer Videos
Earlier users got bored watching longer videos; hence, the trend switched to shorter videos. But guess what? Is there a twist in the story? Longer videos are getting revived. Longer means the duration of the videos will be stretched to 2-5 minutes instead of the limitation of staying under a minute.
You must have noticed the changes on Instagram, where the reels have increased by up to 15 minutes. X also has a subscription where users can post videos to a 2-hour video after paying the premium fees.
Direct Messaging Will Be The New Form For Engagement
You must have seen how businesses say to contact them in direct messaging. A prominent engagement growth has been observed in DM’s as customers watch stories of their favorite brands and messages showing interest in them.
Therefore, developers at Instagram have introduced new features within the DM’s only like:
Text Only Status
The text-only-status option can be answered in direct messages.
One-to-Many Broadcasting Channel
Instagram’s DM has the update of the broadcasting channel, where a single message can be sent to many at once.
Do You Want To Know The Best Timings To Post On Various Social Media Channels?
It is essential for both the companies and influencers to take note of the best times to post on social media.
Let’s start with Facebook:
- Mondays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Tuesdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Wednesdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Thursdays from 8 a.m. to noon
Instagram:
- Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon
- Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Fridays from 9 to 11 a.m.
Pinterest:
- Tuesdays at 1 p.m.
- Wednesdays from 1 to 3 p.m.
- Thursdays from noon to 2 p.m.
TikTok:
- Tuesdays from 2 to 6 p.m.
- Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m.
- Thursdays from 3 to 5 p.m.
X:
- Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Fridays 9 a.m. to noon
