As you look at your marketing strategy for the rest of the year ahead, it’s important to make sure you’re incorporating the latest social media trends.
Utilize these social media trends for 2019, and you’ll be sure to engage current and potential customers with every post, on every platform.
1. In-the-moment content
Have you noticed that more Instagram users and businesses are using Instagram Stories? That’s because this kind of in-the-moment content is fun, relatively easy to create and gets the message out quickly. It’s definitely one of the key social media trends your business should be using in 2019.
In fact, Buffer predicts that this year, “in-the-moment content will win out over highly-produced content.”
You can use Instagram Stories to show off new products, showcase what’s happening live at an event, start a promotion, and most of all — give users an inside look at your business. The more they get to know your business and familiarize themselves with your products, services and team — the more it’ll feel like home when they visit you.
Here’s Compass Rose in Washington, D.C. showing fans a BTS, or behind-the-scenes, creation of one of their most popular dishes, Khachapuri:
Authenticity and transparency are very trendy right now on social media because young users want to get to know brands that are genuine. So, share those stories, behind-the-scenes videos and inside looks — your fans will love to share that content with their friends and followers.
Instagram Stories also present a great opportunity for businesses to engage with new customers. Monitor your notifications and see when users are tagging your business in their Stories. Then, respost that content to get engaged with your fans — just hit “Add to your story.”
This leads us to our next trend.
2. User-generated content
Adding content from your fans and followers into your social media content strategy is a great way to engage with your followers the rest of this year. In 2019, be vigilant about your notifications so you can use user-generated content on your social media platforms.
Most user-generated content is completely organic.
- Monitor who’s tagging you and talking about you on social media.
- Share this content on your channels!
For example, a customer might come into your restaurant, snap of photo of their meal and tag your business. You can share this post on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter — tagging that user, and thanking them for coming by and sharing that content with their followers.
Here’s Hattie B’s, famous for its Nashville hot chicken, reposting a customer photo and giving them photo credit in the caption:
According to Offerpop, 85% of consumers find visual user-generated content more influential than brand photos or videos. This means that consumers want to see other people enjoying your products and services to feel confident that they themselves will enjoy your products and services.
And, this is especially true among the generation every business wants to target — millennials.
In one survey, 51% of millennials said that user-generated content from strangers is more likely to influence their purchase decisions than recommendations from their friends and family.
3. Social media ads
Sometimes it can feel like your posts on social media aren’t getting the results you want. The truth is, it’s important to invest both time and money into your social media strategy.
One kind of paid content that’s easy to create and manage are boosted Facebook posts. You can boost your best Facebook posts to get new eyes on your brand.
Using boosted posts is an excellent way to reach new people who are likely interested in your business but aren’t currently your fans on Facebook. When you boost a post, you have the potential to reach more people and entice current fans and potential new customers to visit your business.
Note: This is different than creating a Facebook Ad. While boosting a post is still considered an ad, Facebook ads are created through Ads Manager and have more customization options.
To start boosting, think about high-quality content you’d like to feature in your boosted post. If you’re putting money behind a post, it should look great. You’ll need a high-quality photo or video, and typically, a good post to boost is for an event, special, discount or promotion.
And, it’s important to keep your caption short and sweet. Facebook users have a lot of content to scroll through on their timelines. Make your content exciting enough for them to pause and click through to your page to find out more.
Pro Tip: Before you boost content, publish your post on Facebook and to get some organic reach and engagement (i.e. likes, clicks and comments.) Boosted posts tend to perform better if they have earned some engagement first.
4. Using Twitter
Speaking of reaching new customers, if you haven’t already integrated Twitter into your social media strategy, it’s time to embrace it.
More businesses use Twitter than every other social channel except for Facebook, according to Convince & Convert, and that’s because it still has an “active, vibrant community” of mostly “urban, educated, high-income” adults.
So, how can you start using Twitter better? First of all, anything you post on Instagram or Facebook can have a place on Twitter as well. Think about who your audience is on Twitter and make sure they would find the interesting or valuable and use trending hashtags to increase the reach of your tweets.
If you’re stuck on the best content to tweet, try these ideas:
- Tweet your daily specials, promotions or deals
- Post fun, engaging content for users to like and retweet of your team, product and services
- Start your own weekly hashtag like #winewednesdays
- Retweet other users in your neighborhood or community
- Hold a Twitter Q&A where you get insights from your customers and followers
- Reach out to Twitter users and start conversations — that’s what they’re there for!
Checked the forecast and it turns out there’s a 100% chance of pizza bagels. 🍕🥯 #treatchaself #fridayvibes #carbs pic.twitter.com/hqSGJzG0bC
— Call Your Mother Deli (@CYM_DC) February 15, 2019
Social media is all about using the platforms that matter most to consumers in an engaging way. If you utilize these social media trends for 2019 for the rest of the year, you’ll be sure to start seeing more engagement and more results.
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