#1: Visual & Video Becomes the Content of Choice
In 2015, video is predicted to dominate as the social media content format of choice. Video segments and blog posts and podcasts will emerge as their own form of content that drives social engagement and marketing goals. 2015 will also be the year of the visuals! Marketers will take images and videos to the next level! Over the past few years visual based platforms such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram skyrocket in user engagement. Video has even been used more widely on Facebook. There has even been an outburst of visual creating and editing tools such as Canva and PicStitch which make it super easy to create interesting images and videos with the touch of a button.
High quality images and professional looking videos are no longer reserved only by businesses with big budgets or graphic design professionals. Businesses with smaller budgets can create images for their content just as easily without breaking the bank. Consumers in 2015 will expect higher-quality images. In the early days of Pinterest, any image would get attention but now there is so much competition that the platform is flooded with content. Not just any image will do much longer.
Dynamic visuals can help establish your business professionalism. If you do not use images in your content or you are using outdated ones, audiences will take note because this reflects negatively. You want to appear professional and reputable. Videos, on the other hand, may become more relaxed and natural. There is no need to set up a studio and use high end equipment because social media audiences are attracted to spur-of-the-moment content such as videos recorded on smartphones. These are more engaging because they can relate.
#2: Information Density Creates Hurdles
There is one trend in the making that may be dragging us down: fighting through information density. It is predicted that by 2020,the amount of information on the internet will increase by 600% and some think this number is low! The challenge of cutting through this content shock and still being able to reach a customer’s attention span is the marketing challenge of 2015. This is the reality we have now and is contributing to various other shifts.
As the web adapts to this saturation of content, it will drive innovations to help businesses stand out. There are predictions for more interesting and engaging content forms. Videos will be more interactive and new types of short-form visual content will emerge. New apps and filters exist to help consumers make better content choices. We have seen countless examples of apps and sites like Facebook that filter content for you as they learn your preferences. Now marketers have to deal with getting through these filters.
#3: Paid Ads Become Impossible to Avoid
In 2015, social networks will continue loop businesses into their advertising programs. Facebook plans to limit organic promotional posts in the news feed starting in January 2015 and Twitter may be implementing a Facebook-like algorithm for their news feed. Instagram is still exploring their advertising platform, and since they’re owned by Facebook, an algorithm that suppresses organic posts from businesses could easily be added. This means that social media marketers that would have wanted to avoid social advertising in 2014 will be forced to embrace it in the future.
#4: Paid Media Becomes Necessary
In 2014, several changes were made in the way businesses are forced to approach Facebook marketing. As previously mentioned, there has been a drop in organic reach and the upcoming Facebook plans to limit the amount of promotional content coming from brands in the news feed.
In 2015, we’ll see the rise of paid media. Small businesses will have to educate themselves on how to speed up the distribution of content if they want to compete. More businesses understand the need for a well designed structure that can bring specific content to selected groups at the right time on the marketing cycle. The best way to maximize the reach is through paid media. Paid media isn’t going away. In fact, budgeting for paid media will be more important than ever this year, as it will be more integrated with earned and owned media.